Latest Structures Page 117

Walter's Hot Dog Stand, Mamaroneck New York

Walter's Hot Dog Stand, Mamaroneck New York

In 1919 Walter Harrington and his wife Rose ran a tire vulcanizing service with gas pumps in Mamaroneck, at the foot of Mamaroneck Avenue where it crosses the Boston Post Road to enter Harbor Island. According to a 1978 interview with Pat Goldschmidt, at this time Walter had purchased an apple orchard on Quaker Ridge in New Rochelle, much to his wife's dismay. My wife was mad at me for putting out $35, a lot of money in those days, and buying the orchard. Walter then rented space in front of Tom Skinner's Floral shop, located further south on the Boston Post Road, and opened a roadside stand to sell his apples. He also sent out bushels of his apples to

O.G. Bradshaw Grain Elevator, Kimball South Dakota

O.G. Bradshaw Grain Elevator, Kimball South Dakota

Oscar George Bradshaw came to Kimball around 1908 and built the wooden 20,000-bushel capacity elevator that year on the far western end of the established elevator row. The structure went up to thirty-six feet on the main section and to forty-eight feet at the top of the cupola. It used both heavy, post-and-beam construction with large timbers as structural elements and also used processed and standardized dimension lumber for sheathing and the cribbed bins. The elevator had nine bins and a wooden leg with motorized belt, a drive bay with scales below, and a connected office that housed the six-horsepower gasoline engine below. By 1917, the Bradshaw Elevator had cleaning machinery and converted from the gasoline engine to a five-horsepower electric

Harley Davidson Motorcycle Factory, Milwaukee Wisconsin

Harley Davidson Motorcycle Factory, Milwaukee Wisconsin

The company began inauspiciously enough in 1903 when Bill Harley, Art Davidson and Walt Davidson began to tinker in the 10' x 15' shed behind the Davidson family home at 38^th Street and Highland Boulevard. That year the three men produced their first motorcycle, a glossy black machine with a three horsepower DeDion type single cylinder engine. Arthur Davidson, pattern maker, and Bill Harley, engineer, had become acquainted with each other from working together at the Barth Manufacturing Company. Brother Walter Davidson added his expertise as a machinist. The three men were among many across the country who were experimenting with motorcycles at the time. Unlike many of their would-be competitors, however, they hit upon the right internal dimensions for a

New London Harbor Lighthouse, New London Connecticut

New London Harbor Lighthouse, New London Connecticut

New London Harbor Lighthouse is highly significant in the history of aids to navigation in Long Island Sound: the first lighthouse on the Sound was established on that site in 1760. New London Lighthouse was established as the fourth lighthouse in the United States, following the Boston (1716), Brant Point (1746), and Beavertail (1749) Lighthouses. The original lighttower was one of the 12 colonial lights taken over by the newly-formed federal government in 1789. George Washington signed the contract with the lighthouse supplier in New London in 1791, indicating both the interest taken in the Lighthouse Service by the leaders of the new country, and the small size of the federal government in that period. Constructed in 1801 as a replacement

Katy Depot - MKT Railway Passenger Station, Greenville Texas

Katy Depot - MKT Railway Passenger Station, Greenville Texas

The 1896 Katy Depot, named after the nickname of the railroad company that built it, played an important role in the lives of Greenville residents for nearly 70 years. In an era when intercity travel usually involved taking the train, the Katy Depot functioned as the point of arrival and departure of ordinary citizens as well as visiting celebrities. The station, completed in 1896, while conforming to the long, narrow plan common to many trackside passenger depots, featured a distinctive 2-story rotunda over the main waiting room, making the building unique in this part of the country. Despite the 1951 removal of the rotunda, the depot still possesses most of its original elements that identify it with the period when it

Falkner's Island Lighthouse, Falkner Island Connecticut

Falkner's Island Lighthouse, Falkner Island Connecticut

Falkner Island Lighthouse, established in 1802, is the second oldest of twelve lighthouses in Connecticut still under Coast Guard jurisdiction, and the only one which has an island setting. Falkner Island is a later typical example of the masonry lighttower design codified by the Treasury Department during the first half of the nineteenth century and was the site of early fog-horn experiments carried out by Joseph Henry, head of the Smithsonian Institution and Chairman of the Lighthouse Board. The external spiral stair connecting the watchroom and the lantern deck at Falkner Island appears to be a unique feature in the Third Coast Guard District. Falkner Island Lighthouse was built during the second decade of national control over lighthouse design, financed with

Lynde Point Lighthouse, Old Saybrook Connecticut

Lynde Point Lighthouse, Old Saybrook Connecticut

Lynde Point Lighthouse, built in 1838, is a typical example of the masonry tower lighthouses built in the first half of the nineteenth century to specifications of the U.S. Treasury Department. Containing a well-preserved wood spiral stair of early date, which is unique in the group of twelve Connecticut lighthouses, Lynde Point exhibits superior stone work in the tapering brownstone walls. Of the three early masonry light towers in Connecticut, Lynde Point is the latest and its construction is the best documented: two advertisements for construction proposals survive containing the government's specifications, and the construction contract as well. Lynde Point also was part of the federal government's early efforts to improve aids to navigation to Long Island Sounds when the mouths

JJ Deal and Son Carriage Factory - Kiddie Brush and Toy Company, Jonesville Michigan

JJ Deal and Son Carriage Factory - Kiddie Brush and Toy Company, Jonesville Michigan

Jacob J. Deal arrived in Jonesville in 1857 where he opened a blacksmith shop along with making a few lumber and heavy wagons. In 1865 he sold the blacksmith shop and started to construct buggies and wagons as well as making repairs. The 1884 Sanborn Fire Insurance Map shows the Deal factory occupying four two-story buildings and a lumber shed at the southeast corner of West and South Streets. During 1887 the company made twelve hundred carts, three hundred wagons and carriages, and three to four hundred sleighs. Carts were sold in Indiana and adjacent areas. In 1891 Jacob's only surviving son, George V. Deal, became a partner in the company and was named manager. The firm was renamed J.J. Deal

Pickle Barrel House, Grand Marais Michigan

Pickle Barrel House, Grand Marais Michigan

The Pickle Barrel House was built at the north end of Grand Sable Lake in Michigan's Upper Peninsula in the summer of 1926. Chicago food products manufacturer and distributor Reid, Murdoch and Company commissioned Harold S. Cunliff of the Pioneer Cooperage Company of Chicago and St. Louis to design and build the house as a summer cottage for Chicago Tribune cartoonist William Donahey and his wife Mary Dickerson Donahey. William Donahey's cartoon strip the Teenie Weenies ran in the Tribune from 1914 until Donahey's death in 1970 and was widely syndicated, and its popularity inspired Reid, Murdoch to launch a line of Teenie Weenie brand food products, including pickles, for which Donahey was retained to design labels, packages, and advertisements. The

Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago and St. Louis Railroad Station - Big Four Depot, Mattoon Illinois

Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago and St. Louis Railroad Station - Big Four Depot, Mattoon Illinois

The Big Four Railroad Station and the Illinois Central Railroad Station were the last two remaining foremost buildings in Mattoon which recall the era when railroads played a major role in the development and economics of this thriving city. The Big Four Railroad Station was located at the hub of local commercial development and thus was an important local landmark and a valuable resource to the people of Mattoon. The earliest settlements in western Coles County were several miles south of present day Mattoon. When rail traffic began in June of 1855 on the east/west Big Four line, which intersected on the east central edge of Section 13, Mattoon Township, with the north/south Illinois Central line, land prices in the area

Woonsocket Opera House - Park Theatre, Woonsocket Rhode Island

Woonsocket Opera House - Park Theatre, Woonsocket Rhode Island

When built, the Woonsocket Opera House was the largest theatre in Rhode Island. It was the center of the theatrical, and later of motion picture entertainment in northern Rhode Island for a quarter century. It is the only legitimate theatre ever built in the area. It was the sole remaining large nineteenth century theatre in the state, the Woonsocket Opera House had particular social and architectural significance. In the second half of the nineteenth century Woonsocket was a prosperous manufacturing city, a center for the cotton, woolen and later the rubber industries. It was a city of factory workers and tradesmen. This is the audience the Woonsocket Opera House was built to serve. Touring company melodramas were its stock in trade

Radio Central Complex, Rocky Point New York

Radio Central Complex, Rocky Point New York

Radio Central, the first commercial overseas radio transmitting station in the world, is of profound significance to the history of electrical engineering and the development of international wireless communication. Established by the Radio Corporation of America (RCA) in 1921, the Radio Central Complex at Rocky Point was the seat of many pioneering experiments in long-wave radio transmission, and the world's largest transmitting station. The advent of microwave and satellite transmission led RCA to cease operation of the huge complex in 1978. Soon after the General Electric Company established its fully independent communications subsidiary, the Radio Corporation of America in 1920, RCA began construction of a centralized radio transmitting and receiving system designed to command international wireless communication. Dubbed Radio Central, the

Appleby Atlas Grain Elevator, Watertown South Dakota

Appleby Atlas Grain Elevator, Watertown South Dakota

For over seventy years the Appleby Atlas Elevator served local farmers as a principal buying and transportation station for their cash grain crops. As a country elevator, its was the initial link in the network of moving raw grain from the producer to large processing and marketing centers. Built in circa 1883 by the Atlas Grain Company, the property was one of the few 19th-Century all-wood elevators in the region to survive in fair, unaltered condition at its original location. The first grain buying centers in the midwest during the 19^th Century were simple flat houses (flat floored warehouses), which at the time permitted the storage and distribution of only sacked grain. Railroad companies found it much easier to handle bulk

Richter Brewery - Delta Brewery, Escanaba Michigan

Richter Brewery - Delta Brewery, Escanaba Michigan

The Richter Brewery was constructed in 1900-1901 by a then newly established firm comprised of local businessmen who saw an opportunity to provide a local product to serve a market in the growing city that was then being served largely by out-of-town brews. Enlarged in the 1910s, the building served as the company's brewery from its 1901 completion until 1918, when Michigan's own Prohibition took effect. After serving primarily as a manufacturing and bottling plant for non-alcoholic beverages during the Michigan and national Prohibition years, the building resumed its original brewery function under a new firm name, the Delta Brewing Company, in 1933 and operated until 1940. The new brewery celebrated its formal opening in September 1933 with the largest party

Airplane Gas Station - Nickle Service Station, Knoxville Tennessee

Airplane Gas Station - Nickle Service Station, Knoxville Tennessee

The 1930 Airplane Service Station is located on a major transportation corridor in East Tennessee, an easy pull-off for travelers. Designed by brothers Henry and Elmer Nickle, the building's unique shape was ideal for its location and a novel way to catch the eye of the driver. In 1930, Henry and Elmer Nickle opened this gas station to coincide with the widening of US Highway 25. The gas station quickly drew the attention of both locals and tourists passing by on the highway. It is an unusual example of pre World War II mimetic architecture in Tennessee. At the time of construction of the Airplane Service Station, many gas stations were using programmatic or mimetic architecture as an easy way to

National Clothespin Factory, Montpelier Vermont

National Clothespin Factory, Montpelier Vermont

The clothespin industry in the United States was historically comprised of small, family-run factories, located primarily in the Northeast, of which National Clothespin Factory is an excellent example. Due to a decline in clothespin demand and the low cost of foreign imports, the Montpelier factory was the last of its kind in the United States. Montpelier, the capital city of Vermont and the seat of Washington County, lies approximately ten miles northeast of the geographic center of the state. The city is bounded northerly by Middlesex and East Montpelier, easterly by Berlin, separated by the Winooski River, southerly by Berlin, and westerly by Berlin and Middlesex. The township was granted on October 21, 1780, and was chartered on August 14, 1781,

Bradley's Covered Bridge - Long Cane Covered Bridge, Troy South Carolina

Bradley's Covered Bridge - Long Cane Covered Bridge, Troy South Carolina

Long Cane Covered Bridge was one of three remaining covered bridges in South Carolina. One of the foremost enemies of wooden bridges in the 19^th Century was weather. Bridges therefore began to be covered largely to protect their main structural timbers and to insure greater stability. The Long Cane Bridge was a covered bridge built in the Howe style -- a type of construction which introduced iron rods into the bridge trusses. This design proved to be both popular and influential and served as a means of transition from wooden bridges to those built of iron and steel. Long Cane Covered Bridge was constructed in the summer of 1892 by Y. P. Reagan to replace an earlier bridge that had been

Prather's Covered Bridge, Westminister South Carolina

Prather's Covered Bridge, Westminister South Carolina

The Prather's Bridge, located ten miles southwest of Westminister was constructed prior to the Civil War and was one of three remaining covered bridges in South Carolina maintained by State Highway Department, Noteworthy construction using cross-timbers and wooden pegs. The bridge spanned the Tugaloo River and connected South Carolina to Georgia. The Bridge consisted of two spans, 158 feet long with town lattice truss, over river. There were two uncovered approach ramps, the South Carolina ramp was 90 feet long, and the other was 48 feet long. In 1950 a fifteen foot center section of the bridge was destroyed by fire. It was painstakingly replaced so that the structure lost none of its original charm and appeal. At some point it

Belk-Hudsons Department Store - Fowlers Store, Huntsville Alabama

Belk-Hudsons Department Store - Fowlers Store, Huntsville Alabama

When the locally owned Fowler's Department Store opened in 1930, it was one of the largest upscale department stores in Huntsville. Located at 116 Washington Street in the heart of Huntsville's premier shopping district, Fowler's opened directly after the city's commercial 1890 to 1929 building boom period. North Washington Street contained five department stores: Kress, Woolworths, J.C. Penney, Dunnavant, and Fowler's, as well as many smaller shops, restaurants, and two hotels. The area flagship store, Dunnavant's, was located on the same block as Fowler's, but the chain department stores (McClellans, Kress, Woolworths, and J.C. Penneys) were concentrated two blocks south. Fowler's Department Store went bankrupt in 1938 but later resumed business nearby until the late 1970s or early 1980s. In 1940

Dinosaur Park, Rapid City South Dakota

Dinosaur Park, Rapid City South Dakota

Settlement in the Black Hills began in the mid-1870s when confirmed rumors of the presence of paying quantities of gold incited a great gold rush. Much of the economic development of the region during the nineteenth century relied upon mining, ranching, or related activities. Rapid City, located at the eastern edge of the Black Hills, was founded in 1876 to serve as a commercial and transportation center. The city grew to be second largest city in the state largely due to the installation of nearby Ellsworth Air Force Base. In addition, from the 1930s on, many of the city's entrepreneurs nurtured a blossoming regional and statewide tourism industry. In 1923, State Historian Doane Robinson conceived the idea of a roadside sculpture

Book Title Abandoned Malls of America: Crumbling Commerce Left Behind

Abandoned Malls of America: Crumbling Commerce Left Behind

Book Title Abandoned: Hauntingly Beautiful Deserted Theme Parks

Abandoned: Hauntingly Beautiful Deserted Theme Parks

Book Title Abandoned America: Then & Now: A Fun & Fascinating Look Revisiting America's Abandoned Places of the Past

Abandoned America: Then & Now: A Fun & Fascinating Look Revisiting America's Abandoned Places of the Past

Book Title Abandoned America: Dismantling The Dream

Abandoned America: Dismantling The Dream

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