Historic Structures - Urban Exploration of Historic Properties

Rock Island Depot and Freight House, Peoria Illinois

Rock Island Depot and Freight House, Peoria Illinois

The Rock Island Depot in Peoria is the last remaining structure signifying the importance of the railroad in Peoria's history. The opening of the Rock Island Depot in 1900 was attended by throngs of populous. Peoria had been a true rail transportation center rivaled only by Chicago in the Midwest previous to the 1880's depression. Railroads touched the lives of most Peoria citizenry as it was the only transportation link of consequence until expressways and air travel were established after World War II. Familiar classical details were assembled to create a form identifiable as a Midwestern train station, using the classical arched windows below an Italianate bracketed overhang and the long, low profile which predates the Prairie Style of architecture. Site

Gilbert Clock Company Factory, Winchester Connecticut

Gilbert Clock Company Factory, Winchester Connecticut

The Gilbert Clock Factory is historically significant as a relatively rare artifact of one of Connecticut's most important 19th-century industries, the production of low-cost clocks, and as an industrial complex that played a large role in the history of the locality. Once a possession only for the rich, clocks in the 19^th century became so inexpensive that nearly every family could afford one. Connecticut entrepreneurs developed innovative clock-production techniques that made mass-produced clocks possible, and consequently, Connecticut became the center of the clock industry for all of America. Of the many businesses which were started, that of William L. Gilbert became one of the largest and most successful in the country. Dating from 1871, the present factory complex reflects the period

New Haven Clock Company Factory, New Haven Connecticut

New Haven Clock Company Factory, New Haven Connecticut

The New Haven Clock Company Factory is associated with one of Connecticut's most important industries, the manufacture of stylish yet inexpensive clocks that appealed to a broad market of middle-class consumers. Along with E. Ingraham, Seth Thomas, Waterbury Clock, and at most a handful of other firms that achieved an industrial scale of clockmaking, the New Haven Clock Company enjoyed a major share of the national and even international markets for clocks. In 1866 the complex was rebuilt following a fire that destroyed an earlier clock factory on the site. In 1956 production ceased at the plant. The New Haven Clock Company meets Criterion A at the state level for its role in the growth of clock-making as a primary industry

Rock Island Depot, Lonoke Arkansas

Rock Island Depot, Lonoke Arkansas

The Rock Island Depot served this central Arkansas agricultural community for seventy-two years. For most of these years it has been the commercial and economic center of activity for Lonoke and Lonoke County. Constructed in 1912 at a cost of $26,000, the building replaced an earlier depot that had been constructed in 1899 to serve traffic along this Memphis to Little Rock line. Cotton, rice, flour, soybeans, timber, and other commodities were shipped on the Rock Island line from the Lonoke depot. The city of Lonoke is one whose history is directly related to railroad transportation. The original Memphis to Little Rock Railroad went through Brownsville which was located a few miles north of the present town of Lonoke. Federal troops

Rock Island Depot, Hazen Arkansas

Rock Island Depot, Hazen Arkansas

The Rock Island Depot in Hazen, Arkansas, was constructed in 1915. The city of Hazen, located in Prairie County about fifty miles east of Little Rock, originated as a stop on the line of the first railroad in Arkansas, the Memphis and Little Rock. Beginning operation in 1853, this line was an important factor in troop and supply movements during the Civil War, and communities such as Lonoke, Carlisle, and Hazen grew up around fueling stations. Increased competition among rail lines in the late nineteenth century proved unfortunate, however, for the Memphis and Little Rock. The company had never been a financial success, due chiefly to frequent flooding which interfered with traffic over the eastern forty miles, and in 1900 the

Buffalo Milk Company Building, Buffalo New York

Buffalo Milk Company Building, Buffalo New York

Located at 885 Niagara Street in Buffalo, Erie County, New York, the Buffalo Milk Company, which reformed as Queen City Dairy in 1909, built and used the building for the pasteurization and distribution of milk at the turn of the twentieth-century. It was the first large-scale milk company to do so in Buffalo. The building was designed by local architect Sydney Woodruff and was constructed primarily between 1903 and 1905, with two small additions made in 1910. The Buffalo Milk Company Building represents a shift in industrial design from haphazard expansions typical of early nineteenth-century factories towards comprehensive planning in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The building is an excellent example of a consolidated works, a building type that

Rock Island Depot, Carlisle Arkansas

Rock Island Depot, Carlisle Arkansas

The Carlisle Rock Island Depot, constructed c. 1920, is an outstanding example of the Tudor Revival architectural style, which became popular during the 1920s in Arkansas for various types of buildings. Rock Island Railroad provided the only direct passenger and cargo service between Little Rock, Arkansas and Memphis, Tennessee after 1899. It supported the growth and development of the rice farming town of Carlisle. The town of Carlisle was founded on August 1^st, 1872, when Samuel McCormick and his wife, L. J. McCormick, made and entered into a bill of assurance wherein as co-owners they laid off into lots and blocks the northwest quarter of Section 22, Township 2 North, Range 7 West of the 5^th principal meridian, and made a

Palmyra Methodist Episcopal Church, Palmyra Iowa

Palmyra Methodist Episcopal Church, Palmyra Iowa

The church, standing near the Palmyra country school, has been an educative force since it was first organized October 29^th, 1853; one of the oldest churches in this area. In 1869 a great religious revival swept the township. Needing more room, the present 1870 building was erected to seat 500 persons, making it one of the largest congregations in Warren County at that time. The social and humanitarian values of this church are cited as extremely important to this community by older citizens, especially. The church served as a meeting ground for community ideas. The Palmyra Church congregation dates to 1853, and the present structure to 1867-70; these dates represent the earliest Methodist congregation in Warren County and the oldest religious

Monarch Knitting Company Factory, Buffalo New York

Monarch Knitting Company Factory, Buffalo New York

The Monarch Knitting Company Factory was a small-scale textile mill in Buffalo using semi-mill construction, a framing method used for non-excessive floor loads that used heavy timber posts and beams spaced at their greatest distance per load and allowed manufacturers to maximize the space between support columns. It also contains important secondary spaces for cleaning and coloring wool, including a one-and-a-half-story dye house designed to foster airflow and steam ventilation. The Monarch Knitting Company, a Canadian textile firm that specialized in knit sweaters, built the factory as their Buffalo branch in 1912-13, and occupied the building until 1923. During this time, the company steadily expanded the factory with additions in 1916 and 1918. The firm used the factory to dye wool,

Bethany Danish Evangelical Lutheran Church, Kimballton Iowa

Bethany Danish Evangelical Lutheran Church, Kimballton Iowa

The Bethany Church was first organized in 1890 before the Danish Lutheran Church split into two synods. Following that split, some of the original congregation left to establish a Grundtvigian congregation in Kimballton, while others remained and followed the pietistic synod. This congregation and that in Elk Horn were among the earliest Danish Lutheran churches in the area, and were the primary churches directly affected by the split. While the property was built four years after the actual split, it replaced the original church which had been built before the split and was struck by lightning and burned in 1898. The schism in the Lutheran Church was to influence not only the religious direction of the Danish settlement area's development, but

Model Tobacco Factory, Richmond Virginia

Model Tobacco Factory, Richmond Virginia

Tobacco had been an important part of Virginia's and Richmond's history since the seventeenth century. With English colonist John Rolfe's successful cultivation of a strain of tobacco that was more palatable to Europeans than previous renditions, it became the major export of the Virginia colony. Much of this tobacco was consumed by drinking the smoke from a pipe. The pipes' fragility eventually led to its decline so that by the nineteenth-century pipes were being replaced by cigars and cigarettes as preferred methods of intake, though eventually more hardy pipes also would be created. Additionally, chewing tobacco, which was made by mixing molasses with tobacco leaves, became an important form of consumption in the United States. As the cigarette became more popular

Immanuel Danish Evangelical Lutheran Church, Kimballton Iowa

Immanuel Danish Evangelical Lutheran Church, Kimballton Iowa

When the Danish Lutheran Church split into two opposing factions in 1894, those that followed the teachings of Bishop N. F. S. Grundtvig remained with the Danish Church, while those following the pietistic beliefs of Inner Mission Society left to establish a separate church, known commonly after 1896 as the United Church. In the Shelby/Audubon County area, the United Church congregations retained possession of the earlier church buildings in Elk Horn and at Bethany Church in Sharon Township; however, some of their members left to organize a Grundtvigian congregation in Kimballton. Left without a church building and lacking, for a time, the resources to build a proper church, this congregation first met in various homes in the community or outdoors when

Middlefork Methodist Episcopal Church, Redding Iowa

Middlefork Methodist Episcopal Church, Redding Iowa

Middlefork Methodist Episcopal Church is representative of a once-common class of rural religious buildings. In the county, it is the sole surviving and absolutely unchanged example of its building type, one that once numbered forty in Ringgold County alone. One of three active rural churches in the county, Middlefork alone boasts an unaltered plan, and a number of distinctive structural and decorative features. The single-story frame church, stands a scant one and a half miles north of the Missouri state line, in southwest Ringgold County. Middlefork Church is the last active and well-preserved example of a Nineteenth Century frame church. The church was founded following a six week long revival during the spring of 1886. Two area schoolhouses, at Clipper and

First Lutheran Church - Mt. Pisgah Lutheran Church, Indianapolis Indiana

First Lutheran Church - Mt. Pisgah Lutheran Church, Indianapolis Indiana

Built as Mount Pisgah Lutheran Church, First Lutheran Church of Indianapolis was significant primarily for architectural reasons. The two sections of the building represent Gothic and Romanesque Revival styles of architecture. The pointed-arched windows, gable ends, and corner buttresses indicate the Gothic Revival influence in the chapel. The round-arched windows, recessed panels, arched transoms, and corbel table reveal the Romanesque design used in the main sanctuary. The First Lutheran Church is especially notable in that it combines in one building the two architectural styles that late nineteenth-century Americans most often associated with religious structures. The structure was built in two parts. Its chapel was constructed in 1875 and was used as the primary worship space until a sanctuary was completed in

St. Mary of the Angels Motherhouse Complex, Williamsville New York

St. Mary of the Angels Motherhouse Complex, Williamsville New York

The St. Mary of the Angels Motherhouse Complex was built in 1928 as an expansion of the Amherst headquarters of the Sisters of St. Francis, the main building was designed explicitly for a religious community, functioning as a combined convent, motherhouse, teaching facility, and home for the poor and elderly. The Collegiate Gothic style institutional building complex was designed by Dietel and Wade, a Buffalo architectural firm well known for Buffalo City Hall and other prominent early 20^th Century civic and religious structures. The Motherhouse Complex continued to serve most of its original functions from the time of construction through 1998, and in its plan, design, materials and architectural embellishment, the complex illustrates the functioning of a self-sufficient early 20^th century

Universalist Church, Mitchellville Iowa

Universalist Church, Mitchellville Iowa

The Universalist Church at Mitchellville, completed and first occupied circa 1868, is an outstanding example of a early church design based on examples found in small New England towns. It is likely very similar to the ones found in the builder's hometown. The building is the oldest documented in the city. Latter-day histories sometimes date the construction of the church to 1862. However, the transom above the church entrance depicts the date 1868. The 1862 date is most unlikely. Not only did little construction occur in Iowa during the Civil War; the site of the church had not yet been platted. (Perhaps this date refers to another event in the congregation's history.) The 1868-year is more likely correct. Mitchellville was platted

Unitarian Church of the Messiah, St. Louis Missouri

Unitarian Church of the Messiah, St. Louis Missouri

The Church of the Messiah was the only extant building directly intertwined with the life and work of William Greenleaf Eliot (1811-1887). Eliot himself gained national prominence both as an activist urging a wide range of social reforms and as the founder of a precedent-setting institution of higher education, Washington University. His small St. Louis congregation grew from the first Unitarian outpost west of the Mississippi River to a prosperous and altruistic force responsible for the founding of nationally significant cultural, educational and philanthropic institutions. It was the only remaining church located outside New England by the Boston firm of Peabody & Stearns. Shortly after graduation from Harvard Divinity School in 1834, William Greenleaf Eliot, son of a prominent Massachusetts family,

Church of the Messiah, St. Louis Missouri

Church of the Messiah, St. Louis Missouri

The Church of the Messiah Unitarian, 5261 Enright, St. Louis, Missouri, was constructed in 1907 to designs of John Lawrence Mauran. The small Gothic Revival-style church is one of St. Louis's outstanding examples of a church design that achieves architectural excellence on a modest budget, and one that is distinctly set apart from other churches in St. Louis by an extraordinary group of stained glass memorial windows manufactured in 1879 by the London studio of designer Daniel Cottier (1838-1891), an internationally renowned artist. In 1906, these windows were removed from the Unitarians' former church building (erected 1879-80; demolished, 1987) and reinstalled as the principal architectural embellishment in Mauran's new church where the architect created an architectural setting, blending Gothic motifs and

Christmas Tree Lane, Altadena California

Christmas Tree Lane, Altadena California

Christmas Tree Lane is the most prominently recognized landscape feature in Altadena. The six block double row of one-hundred-year-old Deodar Cedar trees have been an important part of the history of the community since first being planted in 1885 by Altadena's founders, Frederick J. and John P. Woodbury, as part of their ranch. The trees have attained significance because of their association with an important community event. A Christmas Tree lighting ceremony was started in 1920 as a community project and has become a major event for Altadena and the surrounding San Gabriel Valley region attracting hundreds of thousands of people from throughout Southern California and beyond. The trees were started as seedlings in 1883 by Frederick J. Woodbury. Captain Woodbury,

Cathedral of All Saints, Albany New York

Cathedral of All Saints, Albany New York

The most ambitious plan for an Episcopal cathedral of its day, the unfinished century-and-a-half-old Cathedral of All Saints was nurtured throughout the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries by Albany's great families, the Van Rensselaers, Schuylers, Pruyns, and Cornings, and represents the advent of the successful career of architect, Robert Gibson, and the final chapter in the fruitful life of master stone carver, Louis J. Hinton. Beginning with the influence of the Oxford Movement in Great Britain, a new interest in absorbing Catholic ideals and rituals permeated the Episcopalian Church in the mid-19^th century America. One outgrowth of this theological movement was the conviction that American dioceses were too large, and consequently the Bishop was often a combination of an administrator

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 Abandoned Train Stations: Rail Stations, Yards, Signalboxes and Tracks that the World Left Behind

Abandoned Train Stations: Rail Stations, Yards, Signalboxes and Tracks that the World Left Behind

Book Title Lost Places: Images of Bygone America

Lost Places: Images of Bygone America

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