Buildings

Santa delivered Minolta's then brand-new 110 Zoom SLR in 1976, so a few days later (quite likely New Years' Day) I borrowed Mom's Beetle and shot some pix. Among the places I visited was the newly-minted Scotts Mill Park, where I took a couple dozen pictures of the old mill which is the park's soul. Camera: Minolta Zoom 110 SLR

Vietnam in the morning, 1971. This is Ward One of the 71st Evacuation Hospital in Pleiku, RVN; home of Signal Support Detachment Pleiku at that time, but once a crucial part of a large hospital. In the background are the water tower and a corner of one of the large tropo antennas everyone associated with the Signal Corps in Pleiku. During my year in Nam, I first lived in Ward Two, then moved to Ward One when a less public room, suitable for NCOs (and real people, for that matter), became available there. Camera: Polaroid SX70

Fayette's charcoal blast was a long-obsolete technology when it was built in 1877; the British iron industry had largely abandoned it a century before, and the steel industry's Bessemer/Kelly patent dispute had been settled for nearly a decade. I set out to research why Jackson Mining invested in old technology for my senior paper at Macalester, only to discover that Maria Quinlan Leiby, a friend from my bicycling days, had already written that paper. It's a surprisingly small world.

* "Where you live?" * "Mulliken." * "I was there once. Ate at Farmer's Tavern."

Glade Creek Mill at West Virginia's Babcock State Park, shortly after a heavy downpour in July of 1997. =================== Had a couple reminders of this place today: * A friend has a photo of the mill on her PC. I told her I visit there regularly, and that Joan and I will be staying in one of Babcock's cabins in a few weeks. Sue was surprised; wanted to know more about the mill, and the park. * And today's mail contained a flyer from Mountain River Adventures, featuring a Special Offer if we book our rafting trip before June 30: Free gas! One gallon of free gas. One gallon. Wow.

One more view of the former McCargar place. They, or their successors, built a house beside and up the hill from the barn (out of this photograph; see here for clues ); these trees marked the limits of the home's yard. When I moved to the area the house was still standing, but abandoned and in very poor repair; it was taken down around the same time the barn was buttressed.

Downtown Lansing, Michigan, from the top of the right field wall in Oldsmobile Park, taken during tonight's game. (Ugly game. Ryan Dempster started; looked OK, but it wasn't a men-among-the-boys outing you might have expected. The umps and the Luggies seem to have issues. Lansing won, regardless; Joan's seen Randy Wells pitch twice, and seen both of his wins.) The buildings beyond the ballpark: The large white building is Lansing Center. The tall building used to be Michigan National Tower, but now has another name. The large building to the right is the Board of Water and Light's no-longer-functioning Ottawa Street Station. The Radisson Hotel Lansing is visible behind Lansing Center. The State Capitol's Dome is barely visible, peeking over between the Radisson and the power plant. That's Olds Park in the foreground, of course. Kane County's outfielders are warming up before the bottom of the fourth inning.

For over a century, this grain elevator was the main reason for Mulliken. This railside complex was the farming community's touchpoint with the larger world. They'd come to buy seed before planting, then return to sell the grain they'd grown from the seed. This routine made for an interesting, seasonal parade of vehicles on Potter Street. July's winter wheat harvest was a particularly busy time; trucks, tractors, and trailors would line Main Street day and night as the farmers and staff would struggle to get the grain from truck to hopper. That's gone. A few years back, a fire gutted the office. The owners rebuilt. Then the contents of one of the silos got wet, rotted, and stank up the town. They cleaned it up, but that crop was a total loss. The business limped on for a few months after these disasters, then failed. The place was vacant, except a few stray cats, for a couple years; a family converted the office into a home and has now lived there for some time. They're now removing the ancient buildings, and the silos. (Slightly) Photoshopped & reposted 3/4/06

Where I work....

The New River Gorge has dozens of ghost towns.... Down below New River Bridge is a reasonably easy trail to the ruin of the Kaymoor mine. Properly speaking, this is not the Kaymoor ghost town; these are the buildings at the entrance to Kaymoor One. This mine closed in 1962, and the buildings have been neglected for four decades. The mine was about two thirds of the way up a thousand-foot hill. Most of the miners lived above the mine at Kaymoor Top, which is still inhabited, or below at Kaymoor Bottom. Besides housing for miners, Kaymoor Bottom had the rail connection to the outside world, and featured a battery of coke ovens for much of the mine's history. This town was abandoned more or less with the mine. There's a stair from the mine to Kaymoor Bottom, but Joan and I weren't up to the 800 steps.... The road below New River Bridge was once the sole roadway which crossed the gorge. It's a skinny, twisty, scenic path down the valley wall, across the bridge at Fayette Station, then back up the other side, crossing back and forth under the bridge in a series of switchbacks. Very scenic, but pretty intimidating.

This is Cabin 10 at West Virginia's Babcock State Park. It's pretty much like Cabin 3, where we stayed, like these folks , in 2001--except it has fewer steps (38, by my count). Both cabins are above Glade Creek, though on opposite sides of the valley; 10 is past the mill, then down the hill on the Old Sewell Road. As you can see, the cabin's stairway's been rebuilt this season; we've also got new pots and pans and are feeling a little spoilt.... Photo taken Monday evening. Old Sewell Road used to run five miles or so to the site of Sewell on the C&O line along the New River. The road was originally the "main line" for the narrow gauge Mann's Creek Railway, then was converted to a narrow and precarious automobile road when the rails were pulled in the fifties. It's recently become impassible by car; Joan and I hiked a mile or two on Tuesday morning and discovered two washouts that the park isn't planning to fix. (The second wash is pretty spectacular, and if my good camera got any decent shots you'll see them.) A foot and bicycle trail, now, and pretty inconvenient on a bike. Babcock State Park was a gift to West Virginia from Babcock Coal and Coke, an operation which ran coal mines at Clifftop and a lumbering operation headquartered at Landisburg. The first purpose of the rail line was to get coal down the hill, but the same road was a traditional lumbering railroad with all the fixings--Shay-type locomotives, lightweight track, even a sharply curved trestle. When they closed down the line around the end of 1954, Mann's Creek got a flurry of publicity in the railfan press; the last train run on the line, on May 30, 1955, was the road's first fan trip. Today's been quite wet--really serious rain for six or eight hours. Glade Creek's running wild in the channel tonight, which looks spectacular and sounds quite impressive. (Originally a blog post written in July of 2004.)

The sluice which feeds the water wheel at Glade Creek Mill, Babcock State Park, near Clifftop, West Virginia. One purpose of this photo was to show that it's possible to compose an excellent picture at Glade Creek Mill without recreating the standard shot. (Of course, I've taken my share of those, as well. Some photos are irresistable.) That's my explanation for the shot. Joan made a similar photo, perhaps for other reasons.

This-- Jolli-Lodge , near Leland--was, we think, Mom's favorite place. She and Dad vacationed there regularly, and after Dad passed away she continued to take refuge at Jolli in late summer. She'd invite the rest of us up for Labor Day, and we'd join her for a peaceful and relaxing weekend. We really need to resurrect that tradition. Jolli-Lodge has several buildings, including cabins and a sprawling waterfront lodge, in a park-like and family-friendly setting. The resort faces Lake Michigan--down 25 or 40 steps from where I took this picture--and the Manitou Islands; to the south are the high dunes of Pyramid Point. The view is simply incredible. Photo taken on Labor Day weekend in 1993. Camera: Chinon Genesis III

Proving beyond contest that it's quite possible to take bad photographs with an excellent camera.... Dubuque, Iowa. Camera: Nikon N90s

Downtown Marquette, photographed from a tour boat in--well, I think it was 1990. I'd planned to write an essay about this harbor's industrial history, but that will have to wait. I do want to mention that the trestle at the left side of the photo, which leads to the old downtown ("South Shore") iron ore dock, was removed a few years back. ( Andy Larsen has pictures , of course.) The dock remains, and the city's continuing to reclaim the harbor. Camera: Minolta Freedom 100

Downtown Mulliken, Michigan. The two-story building houses the local motorcycle club. The smaller storefront used to be the Village Hall, but that moved down the street a few years back. The white building was originally a lumber yard, but the village now uses it for recycling and storage.

Hopewell, Pennsylvania. Camera: Minolta Freedom 100

Camera: Nikon N90s Another photo from our July, 2003, trip to the New River Gorge. Here's a different view of what still stands at the Kaymoor One mine site. The grill at the center of the photo protects a ventilation opening; the mine's entrance is behind the concrete building down the trail. This was a major mine, and during its prime this shelf on the canyon wall must have been a terribly busy place. Four decades after the operation closed, most of the mining structures are still standing but nature is reclaiming them and it certainly looks very different from what the miners must have known. Balancing preservation, safety, and natural decay is a challenge for the Parks Service, particularly in the parks in the National Heritage program areas. This location appears to test those efforts.