Historic Structures

Denmark High School, Denmark South Carolina

The previous Denmark School, which once stood adjacent to this school, was a two-story brick building for grades one through ten constructed in 1908 according to designs by Charles Coker Wilson, prominent Columbia architect. An eleventh grade was added to the school in 1911. The new Denmark High School opened for the 1920-21 year with E.T. Spigner as its first principal and housed grades seven through eleven, with the elementary grades remaining in the old school building. The two schools were connected by a covered walkway and the old auditorium and lunchroom served both the Denmark Elementary School and Denmark High School. The school was significantly enlarged in 1932 with a gymnasium, additional classrooms, and restrooms, and after a twelfth grade

Grand Avenue Bridge, Neillsville Wisconsin

Before it was demolished in 1986, the Grand Avenue bridge had statewide engineering significance as one of five to seven pre-1895 Pratt overhead truss bridges remaining in Wisconsin and as an early example of the work of the Wisconsin Bridge and Iron Company. It was probably the last highly ornamented bridge extant in the state. The Pratt truss was patented by Thomas and Caleb Pratt in 1844. By the late nineteenth century it was considered the standard truss design for iron bridges, and many were built in Wisconsin. A 1981 state Department of Transportation survey of Wisconsin truss bridges identified 170 extant metal overhead truss bridges built prior to 1936. Of these, 123 were Pratt overhead truss bridges. Only seven of

Warrenville Elementary School, Warrenville South Carolina

Warrenville Elementary School was originally known as Warrenville Graded School and sometimes now called Old Warrenville School. The school is located in the Aiken County town of Warrenville. The mill village of Warrenville retains several buildings of historical and architectural note dating from the late 1800s through 1950, including the stylistically significant 19^th Century mill with a tower that is relatively free of alteration, a management row [of buildings], an imposing school building, and an architecturally significant Methodist Church building. Warrenville Elementary School is one of seven school buildings in Aiken County designed by W. W. Simmons & Son, an obscure South Carolina architectural firm working out of Augusta, Georgia during the 1920s and active through 1951. Simmons produced his most

Rowell's Covered Bridge, Hopkinton New Hampshire

The present Rowell's Bridge is the third of that name at the same site, and the only survivor of several covered bridges in the West Hopkinton area. The original bridge was in existence by 1793; on April 13, 1803, the town voted to selectmen authority to repair Rowell's Bridge. On August 26, 1845, it was voted to rebuild Rowell's Bridge with such variation as to place as the judgment of the selectmen might indicate, said bridge to be built of stone, provided the cost should not be over $2500, and the builder would warrant the bridge to stand from three to five years after completion, the construction to be sold at auction to the lowest bidder. That bridge did not long

Bennett's Mill Covered Bridge, Lynn Kentucky

At one time Kentucky had hundreds of covered bridges spanning her rivers. Just prior to World War II, sixty-five were still standing. By 1952, the numbers had shrunk to thirty-nine. Now only sixteen remain. These sixteen, which represent a variety of structural types, are concentrated in the central and northeast sections of the state in the small communities or rural areas of the state. Many reasons have been offered to explain the construction of covered bridges in Kentucky during the 19^th century. The road across the bridges were kept dry and free of snow in winter. Most important, however, was the protection the covering over the bridges provided against the deterioration of the wood. It permitted the timbered trusses and braces

Charity Hospital, Savannah Georgia

The history of Charity Hospital began in 1893. In that year, Cornelius and Alice McKanes, two West Indian physicians, established McKane School for Nurses in their home in Savannah. It was the first school for nurses in southeast Georgia. The McKane Hospital for Women and Children began in 1896 on land donated at the corner of 36^th and Florence. Savannahian Anna Hutto donated an old house for the hospital and it was moved to the site and added onto during that year. This building would serve as a hospital until 1931. The McKanes left the hospital in the late 1890s. The African American medical staff in 1897 contained some Georgia-born doctors as well as the first Black City physician for Savannah.

Metter High School, Metter Georgia

Metter High School, built in the then-popular Neoclassical Revival style, possibly to emulate the new Neoclassical style Candler County Courthouse, also built in 1921, housed grades one through eleven and served the white community of Metter until 1937. During the 1927-28 school year, there were 17 teachers at the school. As late as the 1935-36 school year, the school had in addition to the superintendent, five high school teachers and ten other teachers. Approximately 43 students were in the class of 1937, the last to graduate from old Metter High School. A new school building was constructed across College Street from the 1921 school for classroom use. After the 1936-37 school year, the second-floor southeast classroom was used as a kitchen,

Bermuda Hill House, Prairieville Alabama

According to deed information, the tract of land upon which Bermuda Hill is located, once belonged to William W. Manning. The Manning family were early settlers and prominent planters in the Prairieville area owning large tracts of land throughout the original French grants of the Vine and Olive colony. In July of 1845, Manning sold the tract of land to William Weeder of Madison County, Alabama; the deed notes that the lands lie in the portion of the County of Marengo aforesaid which is known as the French grant and composing together the plantation on which said Manning now resides. The present Bermuda Hill may incorporate the Manning dwelling or may have been built by William Weeder upon his purchase of

Kirkwood House, Eutaw Alabama

Foster M. Kirksey settled in Greene County in the late 1830's establishing a cotton plantation at Finches Ferry on the Black Warrior River. Although he considered himself a planter, he also operated an extensive business as a cotton broker and importer maintaining offices in Mobile and Eutaw, the Greene County seat. He was elected county sheriff in 1845, but did not move his residence to Eutaw until after his first wife's death in 1857. Purchasing 97 acres on the western side of town, he planned a gracious mansion of a modified temple style overlooking a lake, bridge, and curving driveway. Construction began that same year and Kirksey insisted on the finest materials and workmanship. Eight marble mantel pieces of Carrara marble

Riverdale House, Selma Alabama

Riverdale is the most elegant and refined house of its period in Dallas County and perhaps in the entire Alabama Black Belt. Constructed around 1829 as the plantation home of Virgil Gardner, it is one of the few early Alabama houses to have retained its original graining and finishes. Additionally, the house is noted as the scene of one of the county's most lavish entertainments, the 1854 wedding of Mary Gardner to Henry Quitman, son of the Governor of Mississippi. In 1819, Jason Gardner, formerly of Georgia, received from the United States government patent to 7,000 acres of land bounded by the Alabama River and Mulberry Creek about 10 miles east of Selma. Gardner was accompanied to Alabama by his son,

Pleasant Hill Presbyterian Church, Pleasant Hill Alabama

The 1851 Pleasant Hill Presbyterian Church, also known as Mt. Carmel Cumberland Presbyterian Church, is an outstanding example of the vernacular Greek Revival style adapted to religious purposes. With its distyle in-antis temple front and austere classical details, the church reflects the popularity of the Greek Revival design even in remote provincial settings, and testifies to its dissemination in this prosperous plantation community during the antebellum period. There are several examples of Greek Revival design still surviving in and around the almost-vanished village of Pleasant Hill itself, including the Pleasant Hill Baptist Church (1850) which is directly across the road from the Presbyterian church; Belvoir (circa 1855), the Saffold house; and the Browning-Bender house (circa 1860). The earlier Underwood-Mayo house (circa

Wesley Plattenburg House - Kirkpatrick House, Selma Alabama

The Plattenburg House in Selma is a raised basement coastal cottage, a style not usually found in central Alabama. This ca. 1855 house features a hipped roof, a high masonry foundation, massive piers supporting a porch, and floor-length windows on one facade. Slender, square columns and a bracketed cornice accent the raised porch. This raised cottage has some Greek Revival and Italianate details. Wesley Plattenburg was born in Maryland in 1803 and settled in Virginia with his family two years later. He settled in Selma, Alabama, in 1829 as a merchant tailor. Plattenburg nurtured an interest in cotton cultivation after he purchased a two-thousand-acre tract in 1842. He married Anna Maples approximately one or two years later and built his plantation

Driskell-Martin House, Plantersville Alabama

The Driskell-Martin house is a fine example of the Greek Revival style and represents the affluence obtained in the ante-bellum period by its owner, Thomas Sanford Driskell, a planter and a merchant. A native of Virginia, he came to Alabama with his father-in-law, David McGee. He and his wife, Emily, the eldest of McGee's daughters, first lived in a two-room cabin behind the site of the present house. The land had been patented from the public lands in 1832 by Ferrel Gorman. Driskell's store was on the corner of First Avenue and Cherry Streets, the present site of a brick store now owned by the Martin family. Annually Driskell went by horseback to Charleston to buy merchandise, which was then shipped

Stone Plantation, Montgomery Alabama

The Stone Plantation is an excellent and intact example of mid-19th-century Greek Revival plantation architecture, and combined with the remaining smokehouse, stands as the extant domestic core of a once vibrant plantation complex. In Montgomery County, the Stone Plantation is one of the few remaining two-story brick Antebellum Greek Revival rural plantation houses. The Greek Revival style spread rapidly in the state, especially in the Black Belt counties of central Alabama. Stone Plantation, which remains a rural property, is comparable to a few other urban 1850s Black Belt houses, such as the demolished William Cochrane House in Tuscaloosa, Sturdivant Hall in Selma, and the Knox Mansion and Murphy House in Montgomery. There are very few high Greek Revival style residences of

Birmingham School, Birmingham New Jersey

The Birmingham School is typical of those built in small towns in the region during the first decade after the Civil War, largely due to governmental reforms in public education taking place at that time. The planning and the architecture of the Birmingham School are significant because this one-room schoolhouse, situated just north of the Rancocas Creek, represented the best model of its time, generated by educators and architects to better educate the farming community it served. As such, the building became both an important visual element in the community and an essential social institution. Located in Burlington County, Birmingham started out as a manufacturing village in the late eighteenth century. The town grew slowly but steadily, and in the nineteenth

Clark Thread Company, Newark New Jersey

According to textile industry historian James R. Young, of the large number of small, yet important industries in our country perhaps none has had a greater influence upon the members of the average household than the cotton thread industry. From the 1870s through the first half of the 20^th century, Clark Thread Company and its descendent firms led the Nation in the manufacture of this important product. Founded in 1864 by George A. Clark, the company rose to its position of dominance within a decade, thanks largely to the phenomenal success of O. N. T. thread, which Clark developed especially for the sewing machine. This product, says historian John T. Cunningham, became known wherever American women stitched. Late in the 1890s,

Ashley and Bailey Silk Mill, Marietta Pennsylvania

The Ashley and Bailey Company Silk Mill Building stands at the intersection of North Pine Street and East Walnut Street (formerly called New Third) in Marietta, Lancaster County, Pa. The land on which this 3-story brick structure stands was purchased as 8 unimproved lots by H. M. Alexander, James Duffy, and John Thumma, Trustees for the establishment of a Silk Mill, from Henry Rich and his wife Annie M. Rich, on March 15, 1897. Evidently, construction commenced immediately after the purchase of the land, for the Lancaster Semi-Weekly NEW ERA for May 15, 1897, noted that work on the silk mill .. . is progressing very rapidly. The Semi-Weekly NEW ERA for Saturday, October 16, 1897, stated that the new silk

Imperial Glass Company, Bellaire Ohio

Glass production was an important industry in Ohio and played a major role in the development of Bellaire. The Imperial Glass Company was the largest glass factory under one roof in the world when the first fires were lit in the furnaces on January 23, 1904. The Rodefer Gleason Glass Company and the Imperial Glass Corporation were the only companies still operating in the Bellaire area until 1982 when Rodefer Gleason ceased production, leaving Imperial Glass as the only one still in use. The factory has undergone few alterations, being in continuous use as a glass factory. The City of Bellaire was settled in 1802 and platted in 1834. The first flint glass works, the Belmont Glass Company, was founded in

Hotel Rieger - Sanduskian, Sandusky Ohio

America's summer resorts and amusement parks flourished at the turn of the century, due to influences by economic factors and an increase in leisure time. Even in Colonial times, summer resorts were common. It was about the 1830s that summer resorts really became fashionable. The resort trend spread rapidly across the United States. Turnpikes, railroads, canals and steamboats made locations such as Newport (known as the Northern Charleston), Saratoga Springs and Long Branch, easily accessible for those who could afford the elegant hotels. Northeasterners went south in the winter to escape the cold and Southerners came north to escape the excessive summer heat. The early resorts were social gatherings, gender-segregated, with the main activities including dances, card games, lawn bowling and

Grant School, Zanevsille Ohio

Grant School had a long association with the educational history of the city of Zanesville. It also derives considerable significance from the fact that it was designed by a master architect of local & statewide import, and was built by an extremely important local contractor. Architecturally, the building combines elements typical of Richardsonian architecture with those of the pervasive Queen Anne style. Its monumental proportions, heavy masonry bearing walls, and general symmetry are characteristic of Richardson-inspired buildings. The massive rock-faced stone, organic, arch at the main door is pure Richardson, as is the use of stone trim throughout. The Queen Anne style, extremely popular in Zanesville in the 1890s, also influenced the design of Grant School in the distinctive cylindrical corner

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