Latest Structures Page 123

Flint Bridge, Spanning First Branch White River, Tunbridge Vermont

Flint Bridge, Spanning First Branch White River, Tunbridge Vermont

Most published sources on Flint Bridge say it was built in 1845, but this is in error. No covered bridges are known to have existed in Tunbridge before the 1860s. There were bridges, but only open ones. The main road north up the valley came along the west side of the river, generally following today's Route 110. North of the Flint Bridge turnoff is a steep hillside on the west bank. To avoid this the main road crossed the river here, where there has been a bridge since before 1804. It then entered Chelsea, followed the east riverbank until re-crossing at the Moxley Bridge, and then returned to the present route. When Flint Bridge was built in 1874, therefore, it was

Old Fort Randall Church, Fairfax South Dakota

Old Fort Randall Church, Fairfax South Dakota

The only visible remains of historic Old Fort Randall, located in Gregory County, South Dakota, is the ruins of an old church. These ruins are on the right bank of the Missouri River, immediately downstream from a large earthfill dam (named Fort Randall) that was built in the late 1940's. The site of the Fort was selected in 1856 by General William S. Harney, Commander of the Sioux Expedition, after spending a winter at Old Fort Pierrea. He suggested that the new post be named after Colonel Daniel Randall, late Deputy Paymaster-General. On 26^th June 1856, the post was laid out and construction began. The exact location of the original Fort is not definitely known for according to the Surgeon General's

Bald Mountain Gold Mill, Lead South Dakota

Bald Mountain Gold Mill, Lead South Dakota

Bald Mountain Gold Mill lies approximately four miles west of Lead, in the Black Hills region of South Dakota. Bald Mountain itself is southeast of the mill complex, which is set on the side of a hill, facing north and looking towards the bed of False Bottom Creek. For much of its operating life Bald Mountain mill was the second largest producer in the Black Hills, surpassed only by the Homestake mine. During the period from 1906 until 1959, it grew to be the center of an industrial complex that included numerous mines, transportation facilities and the workers' town of Trojan. The development of the Bald Mountain mill over a 53 year period was directly linked to the scale of operation

Monomoy Point Light Station, Chatham Massachusetts

Monomoy Point Light Station, Chatham Massachusetts

Federal management of lighthouses was an early concern of a national government anxious to develop foreign and domestic commerce. The first congressional authorization for lighthouse expenditures was passed in August 1780, and by 1797, the states had ceded control of the twelve pre-Federal lighthouses. The Treasury Department managed, or was nominally responsible for, lighthouses and related facilities until 1903, under two very different systems of management. Treasury Department officials authorized and dispersed funds for the construction, maintenance, and supply of lighthouses through the first half of the nineteenth century, without any formal means of inspecting or improving facilities. Until 1820, the Secretary of the Treasury or the Commissioner of Revenue was directly responsible for lighthouses, followed by the Fifth Auditor of

Boston Manufacturing Company, Waltham Massachusetts

Boston Manufacturing Company, Waltham Massachusetts

According to business historians Glenn Porter and Harold c. Livesay, the Boston Manufacturing Company (BMC) was the first truly modern factory in the United States. Founded in 1813 by Francis Cabot Lowell, Patrick T. Jackson, and others, the BMC integrated and mechanized production from raw material to finished product under a single management and within a single factory. This new industrial form, says textile manufacturing historian Caroline F. Ware, soon came to dominate the cotton industry, because it marked a radical departure from all that had gone before, differing almost as much from the early mill as the latter had from its handicraft predecessors. Much of the BMC's success stemmed from its innovative development of an entire series of new or

Rookery Building, Chicago Illinois

Rookery Building, Chicago Illinois

The Rookery building is on the site of a former city water tank built in 1842. When the tank survived the 1871 fire, John Van Osdell designed a temporary city hall, two stories high, which was built around it. The tank was later converted to a reading room and became the first home of the Chicago Public Library. The building received its name from the fact that many pigeons had made the water tank area their home. The story is as follows: One day an irate citizen stormed into Mayor Joseph Hedill's office and protested against the pigeon population in the district. 'Why this building is nothing but a rookery', he complained. The name stuck. Twenty years later, when the skyscraper

Avery Island Salt Works, Avery Island Louisiana

Avery Island Salt Works, Avery Island Louisiana

This Mine Produced Salt for over 100 Years, from 1899 to 2021

Archaeological evidence for the production of salt by prehistoric Native Americans suggests that salt has been made on Avery Island from at least AD 1000 by early Plaquemine peoples. Artifacts such as basketry and shallow ceramic pans for evaporating brine have been found in the Salt Mine Valley on the south side of the island, pointing to occupation during a period between AD 1300 and 1650. The Attakapa were the last Native Americans to inhabit the island, but they abandoned it before the arrival of Europeans. The historic Attakapas district, of which present day Iberia Parish is a part, was first inhabited by the French in 1778 and, a short while afterwards, by Acadians migrating from Nova Scotia. These settlers established

West Union Covered Bridge, West Union Indiana

West Union Covered Bridge, West Union Indiana

In 1876, Joseph J. Daniels built the West Union Covered Bridge to replace his earlier Harrison Bridge, which had washed out in a flood. J. J. Daniels was a prolific bridge-builder from Rockville, the county seat of Parke County. He built nearly sixty covered bridges in Indiana between 1855 and ca. 1900. The bridge spans Sugar Creek, a tributary of the Wabash River, north of the center of West Union, in Reserve Township, Parke County, Indiana. At 315', it is the longest bridge in the county. The county bypassed the wooden bridge in 1964 with a concrete span. Parke County, Indiana organized in 1821 as an agricultural community. The land along the Wabash River, which is now known as Reserve Township,

American Oak Leather Company, Cincinnati Ohio

American Oak Leather Company, Cincinnati Ohio

The American Oak Leather Company was founded in 1880 by James E. Mooney, a progressive Cincinnati industrialist and community leader. He was a financial backer of the Cincinnati Incline Railways which contributed to the growth and expansion of the City. He was also president of the Cincinnati Coffin Company and had other business interests throughout the Ohio Valley and the Midwest. The American Oak Leather Company produced sole and harness leather, belting leather and patent leather for carriages and furniture manufacturers. The business was the largest of its kind when it opened in 1881, employing as many as 1000 workers. The company survived two major floods and three destructive fires. The A.O.L. Complex included five major buildings by 1900. The largest

Mathias Rinckel Mansion, Carson City Nevada

Mathias Rinckel Mansion, Carson City Nevada

Mathias Rinckel (1833-1879) was born in Altenheim in Germany. He was the youngest of a family of seven children. When he was nine months old, the family immigrated to America and settled in Warsaw, Illinois. In 1849 Matt, then a sixteen year old farmer, joined a group of five young men and proceeded west to the gold fields. He remained in the Feather River district in California for ten years, by which time he had accumulated a degree of wealth in placer mining. Leaving California, Rinckel came to Genoa in what was then Carson County, Utah Territory, and the next year, 1860, went to Virginia City, where he increased his fortune in mining. In 1863, he settled permanently in Carson City,

Marcus Garvey School, Newark New Jersey

Marcus Garvey School, Newark New Jersey

Abandoned School Building in NJ before Demolition

This school was constructed in 1888 as an eight-room primary school and was called the 13^th Avenue Public School. Successive enlargements between 1891 and 1915 accommodated and reflected the growth of Newark's immigrant populations. The first addition was constructed just three years after its opening and increased its capacity to 17 rooms. This addition completed the original design of the school building as planned in 1887-88. A photograph of the 13^th Avenue facade taken after the construction of the first addition and before 1903 indicates that the building, as originally designed was a three-story Romanesque Revival Style brick and brownstone school. The 1891 addition is indistinguishable from the original portion in this photograph; the two combined read as one seamless school

Fortnum Motor Company, Bridgeboro New Jersey

Fortnum Motor Company, Bridgeboro New Jersey

Lester F. Fortnum, Sr. founded the Fortnum Motor Company in 1913 in Bridgeboro, New Jersey. Until 1911 Mr. Fortnum worked as a shipper in the Henry Taubels Hoisery Mills in Riverside. Beginning his sales career in 1912 at the age of 22, Fortnum sold his first bicycle in a building adjacent to the firehouse on South Bridgeboro Street in Bridgeboro, As business progressed and technology changed, Lester Fortnum shifted from bicycles to motorcycles, and finally in 1913 he sold his first automobile. On May 26, 1914, Lester Fortnum purchased the 2.33 acre parcel of land where the company's building is now located. Fortnum had the showroom and office section of the structure built on the site that year. In the same

Whittier Theatre, Whittier California

Whittier Theatre, Whittier California

The Whittier Theatre was not Whittier's first movie house, but it was its most prominent one. At least three other motion picture theaters preceded the Whittier Theatre: the Family Theatre (124 S. Greenleaf Avenue) and the Optic (111 S. Greenleaf Avenue) were both operated by the G.H. Keipp family sometime after 1900, probably in the 1910s [Whittier Daily News, n.d., c. 1910s] the Scenic Theatre was in business at 211 E. Philadelphia when the Whittier Theatre opened its doors in the summer of 1929. When the Whittier Theatre was being planned, the owners deliberately selected a site on the outskirts of town to escaoe the Whittier blue laws that would have prohibited showing movies on Sunday [Tribune/News December 13, 1987]. The

Chalfonte Hotel, Atlantic City New Jersey

Chalfonte Hotel, Atlantic City New Jersey

Elisha and Elizabeth Roberts opened The Chalfonte Hotel, or Chalfonte House as it was first called, on June 25^th, 1868 near the corner of Pacific and North Carolina Avenues in Atlantic City. The Roberts' choice of this corner was no doubt determined by its proximity to the train depot to the north and the ocean to the south. Because the tides were continually increasing the beach area, the Roberts found it possible to move the hotel forward twice, once in 1879 and again in 1889. They also extended their main building and added subsidiary structures to it. The Chalfonte passed through a period of transition in management during the eighteen nineties and came under the control of Henry W. Leeds around

Windsor Castle Ruins (Windsor Plantation), Port Gibson Mississippi

Windsor Castle Ruins (Windsor Plantation), Port Gibson Mississippi

This 23 Room Mansion Burned to the Ground in 1890

The builder of Windsor, Smith Coffee Daniell, II, was born in Mississippi in 1826, the son of an Indian fighter turned farmer and landowner. His own holdings were so vast (eventually totaling 21,000 acres in Mississippi and Louisiana) that he studied law at the University of Virginia in order to better administer his estates. In 1849 he was married to his cousin Catherine Freeland (1830-1903), by whom he had six children, and in 1859 he began building Windsor. Basic construction was done by slave labor, and the 16-inch bricks for the walls were made at a kiln across the road from the house. Skilled carpenters were brought from New England for the finished woodwork, and the iron stairs, column capitals, and

Longwood - Nutt's Folly, Natchez Mississippi

Longwood - Nutt's Folly, Natchez Mississippi

Designed by the noted Philadelphia architect, Samuel Sloan, and constructed in 1860-62, Longwood is the largest and most elaborate of the octagon houses built in the United States. The mansion, which was never completed on the interior, was to have 32 rooms each with their own fireplace. Longwood is also one of the finest surviving examples of an Oriental Revival style residence which along with Olana, a Persian villa designed by R. M. Hunt for Frederick Church and built in 1870-72 near Hudson, New York, illustrates the exotic phase of architectural romanticism that flourished in mid-19^th century America. Longwood is interesting as an earlier, less academically detailed version of the Moslem Revival which uniquely combines stylistic eclecticism of both Moslem and

Ahnapee Brewery - Von Stiehl Winery, Algoma Wisconsin

Ahnapee Brewery - Von Stiehl Winery, Algoma Wisconsin

The Ahnapee Brewery was built in 1869 for Wojta (aka Vojta) Stransky, a businessman from the nearby city of Kewaunee, and Herman Seideman, a brewer who had come to Algoma from Sturgeon Bay. Their brewery was constructed to fill the local need for a brewery in the city of Ahnapee, a community that was by then heavily settled with persons of Bohemian and German extraction. The new brewery was built at a cost of $12,000 and was the most impressive building in the community for several years thereafter. Apparently, the brewery was a commercial success and it continued in operation under a number of different owners until 1894. In 1909, the building was converted into a fly net manufacturing plant by

Paramount Theatre, Oakland California

Paramount Theatre, Oakland California

Construction of the Paramount Theater was initiated in 1930 by Publix Theatres, the exhibiting organization of Paramount Pictures. Financial difficulties forced the sale of the uncompleted building to Fox-West Coast Theatres, the firm that completed the theatre and operated it until it closed on September 15^th, 1970, although the name Paramount was ultimately retained. In 1972 the building was purchased by the Board of Directors of the Oakland Symphony Orchestra Association. During 1973 the building was restored, and in 1975 the City of Oakland, the present owner, assumed ownership from the Oakland Symphony Orchestra Association. The Paramount Theatre in Oakland was one of only three theatres built by the Publix chain on the West Coast and was the last one started

Chelan Butte Lookout - Fire Watchtower, Chelan Washington

Chelan Butte Lookout - Fire Watchtower, Chelan Washington

Euro-American settlement of the lower Lake Chelan country gained momentum in the 1890s as transportation and access to the remote area improved. Homesteaders who settled in the vicinity of Chelan Butte turned to raising livestock, grazing their animals on the grasses of the sparsely forested butte. The summit of the butte, 3835' above sea level, provided a dramatic vantage point overlooking Lake Chelan and the forests and mountains of Okanogan and Chelan Counties. It is possible that Chelan Butte was used for fire surveillance purposes prior to any recorded Forest Service use of the site. The earliest documented use of the butte for fire surveillance is the notation on a 1922 Forest Service map of a triangulation station at the summit

James Russell Lowell Elementary School, Louisville Kentucky

James Russell Lowell Elementary School, Louisville Kentucky

During the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries, the suburbanization of Louisville focused on the southern section of the city, radiating from the principal new transportation belt, the Southern Parkway. As town expanded southward, suburban neighborhoods such as South Louisville and Oakdale, where historic Churchill Downs Racetrack is located, were incorporated into the city limits. The town of Highland Park began to develop about the turn-of-the-century, a predominantly working class neighborhood with small-scaled, frame, vernacular residences for working class families. The first school in Highland Park School was District School 45. It was built about 1898 at the intersection of Louisville Avenue and Almond Avenue. The three-story, brick masonry school, with cut limestone basement, contained six classrooms and two cloakrooms on

Book Title Abandoned Malls of America: Crumbling Commerce Left Behind

Abandoned Malls of America: Crumbling Commerce Left Behind

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 Places: A Photographic Exploration of More Than 100 Worlds We Have Left Behind

Abandoned Places: A Photographic Exploration of More Than 100 Worlds We Have Left Behind

Book Title Lost Places: Images of Bygone America

Lost Places: Images of Bygone America

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