Latest Structures Page 80

Bermuda Hill House, Prairieville Alabama

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

Kirkwood House, Eutaw Alabama

Stately Greek Revival Mansion in AL Built over 160 Years Ago

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 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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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^th, 1897. Evidently, construction commenced immediately after the purchase of the land, for the Lancaster Semi-Weekly NEW ERA for May 15^th, 1897, noted that work on the silk mill ... is progressing very rapidly. The Semi-Weekly NEW ERA for Saturday, October 16^th, 1897, stated that the new silk mill

Imperial Glass Company, Bellaire Ohio

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^rd, 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

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, 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

Doan School, Cleveland Ohio

Doan School, Cleveland Ohio

Doan School is an unusually fine example of turn-of-the-century 2^nd Renaissance Revival public school architecture. It also displays, through its two-stage construction, the transition taking place at the time in the natural lighting of school classrooms. The building is distinguished from other schools of the same period in Cleveland and elsewhere by its highly fashionable styling and its extensive amount of ornamentation. The building is a significant work by the prolific architect Frank S. Barnum, who during this turn-of-the-century period served as the principal architect of many Cleveland Board of Education school buildings. Doan School is located on East 105^th Street, formerly Doan Avenue, for which the school was named originally. It stands near the junction of Superior Avenue and Rockefeller

American Can Company Building, Cincinnati Ohio

American Can Company Building, Cincinnati Ohio

Peter Durand, an Englishman, conceived and patented the idea of using tin cans instead of bottles for food packaging. By 1839, tin-coated steel containers were used widely. For many years, tin cans were locally manufactured by individual craftsmen. Gradually, machines began to be used for cutting and rolling the can bodies, and punching and flanging the ends. During the 1870s, changes in can technology were stimulated by advancements in metallurgy and by labor problems. During the 1880s, the most skilled aspects of can production became automated. By the 1890s, improvements in machine soldering led to the development of the automatic line, the automation of the entire shaping and soldering process through a series of interfacing machines. The automatic process was both

Damascus Grade School, Damascus Ohio

Damascus Grade School, Damascus Ohio

Damascus was settled in 1806 by Quakers from Virginia and New Jersey. Education was an important part of Quaker life, and the first schoolhouse in Damascus was erected in 1812. A succession of schools followed; the most notable was the Damascus Academy, founded in 1857 as the Friends Boarding School, and chartered by the State of Ohio in 1885 as the Damascus Academy. In 1900 the Goshen Township School board extended its district boundaries, and in 1902 built the Damascus Grade School for its elementary students. The Damascus Academy was leased in 1910 for use as a high school. These changes indicated that responsibility for education in Damascus was shifting from the private to the public sector in the first years

Grant School, St. Louis Missouri

Grant School, St. Louis Missouri

Grant School, 3009 Pennsylvania Ave., in St. Louis, Missouri is an example of the changing neighborhood school in response to improvements in educational an instructional philosophy at the end of the 19^th century from the uniformity of spaces for economy to spaces suited to the age and size of the students. The School was an early work of A. H. Kirchner with the 1901 additions that were the early work of William B. Ittner. Kirchner began the process of improving classrooms under the old patronage system for construction after the first attempt at reform within the St. Louis City school system. It replaced a smaller and poorly planned building that was once identified as the smallest in the system. Kirchner, during

Alger Theater, Detroit Michigan

Alger Theater, Detroit Michigan

The 1935 Alger Theater remains as a representative example of a whole generation of Detroit neighborhood movie theaters now mostly gone. Originally operated by Detroit movie theater and radio magnate George W. Trendle, the Alger was one of 117 neighborhood movie theaters that existed in the city in the 1940s. Only about a dozen still remain, and most of them have been renovated beyond recognition. The Alger is Art Moderne in style and retains much of its historic finishes. The Alger Theater was presumably named for General and Michigan Governor Russell A. Alger (1836-1907). Alger served during the Civil War where he was commissioned Lieutenant Colonel of the Sixth Michigan Cavalry and the Colonel of the Fifth in 1863. He served

Edmund Atkinson School, Detroit Michigan

Edmund Atkinson School, Detroit Michigan

Edmund Atkinson School was a school accessible to the children of Conant Gardens, a neighborhood built predominantly by African Americans beginning in the 1920s. At the time, most other subdivisions in Detroit had restrictive covenants registered with the property deeds that prevented people of color from purchasing property. It is a handsome example of a Collegiate Gothic school building built in 1927 by McGrath, Dohmen, & Page, architects, that represents a building planned in accordance with the unit plan that was incomplete after two units were built. Edmund Atkinson School opened its doors to students for the first time in February 1928 with a capacity for 580 pupils. It was completed in June 1927 at a cost of $165,745. Its namesake,

Alpena Light, Alpena Michigan

Alpena Light, Alpena Michigan

This lighthouse marks the entrance to the harbor at the mouth of the Thunder Bay River in the city of Alpena. This has been the scene of substantial commercial maritime traffic since around the middle nineteenth century. Alpena Light served as an important local aid to navigation since 1914, and continues to guide both commercial shipping and recreational watercraft. This lighthouse is built of steel using a four-legged pyramidal skeletal tower supporting a circular watch room and octagonal lantern. The city of Alpena originated as a pioneer settlement at the mouth of the Thunder Bay River. It was formally laid out as a town in 1840. At that time the community was given the name Animickee, after the local Chippewa chieftain

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

Book Title Abandoned Train Stations (Abandoned Places)

Abandoned Train Stations (Abandoned Places)

Book Title The Atlas of Abandoned Places: A Journey Through The World's Forgotten Wonders

The Atlas of Abandoned Places: A Journey Through The World's Forgotten Wonders

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