Downtown Buffalo

Posted on June 6, 2021 by admin

Last Sunday morning, May 30, we were up fairly early and spent time in downtown Buffalo. I had a walking route in mind, inspired by a walking tour map I’d seen on line, but we pretty much disregarded that and used the “hey, what’s that building over there?” technique to set our path.

After parking in a garage, the first thing we spotted was Millard Fillmore. In bronze.

A work of New York City sculptor Bryant Baker, from the early 1930s, next to Buffalo City Hall. Naturally, President Fillmore has attracted the ire of removalists, who want to take his memory to task for signing the Compromise of 1850, especially the odious Fugitive Slave Law, and for being the standard-bearer for the Know-Nothings. Not for being mentioned as a mediocre president in song and story.

Fillmore’s on the southeast corner of the building. On the northeast corner is the Baker bronze of Grover Cleveland, who was mayor of Buffalo before he was ever president.

Buffalo City Hall is a famed bit of architecture, for good reason. Chicago has a handsome city hall, as does New York City and other places, but I’ve seen none more impressive than Buffalo.

Local architects Dietel, Wade & Jones did the soaring art deco design, with completion in 1931. I’ve read there’s an observation deck on the upper floors, but it was closed on Sunday. Actually, most of downtown Buffalo seemed closed on Sunday. A 24/7 city, it is not.

City Halls faces Niagara Square, which has been a focal point for the city for a long time, and continues to be in the news.
The obelisk is the McKinley Monument, designed by the architects of the 1901 world’s fair, Carrere and Hastings.

East of City Hall, facing Lafayette Square, is the Liberty Building, developed in 1925 for Liberty National Bank.

At one time the bank had been German American Bank, but the bankers thought better of that name during the 1910s dust-up in Europe. Just to hammer home the patriotic point, there are replicas of the Statue of Liberty atop the building.

The Rand Building, completed in 1929.
One M&T Plaza, completed in 1966 and looking every bit of it. A design by Minoru Yamasaki, who’s best known for the destroyed World Trade Center in NYC.

A detail of Ellicott Square, designed by Charles Atwood of D. H. Burnham & Co. and completed in 1896. The lobby is supposed to be like the Rookery in Chicago, which would be high praise indeed, but the building wasn’t open for a look.

The splendid Guaranty Building, originally the Prudential Building, also completed in 1896. A Louis Sullivan and Dankmar Adler tour-de-force.

Across the street from the Guaranty is St. Paul’s Cathedral of the Episcopal Diocese of Western New York. Richard Upjohn, who designed Trinity Church Wall Street in Manhattan, did the original design in the 1840s. After a bad fire in the 1880s, Robert Gibson did the renovation.

The Sunday service was in progress and we sat in for a while, with a good view of the resplendent interior.

Those were the buildings we had energy for. Some details along the way, such as the Buffalo city flag.

In the street across from the cathedral are Toynbee tiles.

Been a while since I’ve seen any. The last time was St. Louis, maybe 20 years ago. An examination of the spot on Google Streetview tells me that these particular tiles appeared after 2011 but before 2015, and one of the tiles says 2013. So they might not be the work of the original tiler, whomever that might be, but does that even matter? The obscure oddity has a life of its own, and it’s good to know that they’re still being created and you can still see them with your own eyes.

Niagara Falls State Park

Posted on June 2, 2021 by admin

Something I didn’t know until I visited there on Saturday: Niagara Falls State Park in New York is considered the oldest state park in the nation, established in 1885 as the Niagara Reservation. Creation of the park was an early success for Progressivism, spearheaded by Frederick Law Olmsted. Him again. The wonder is that he isn’t more widely known for his terrific landscape artistry, which anyone can see.

A victory for the Progressive movement because, as I’ve read, before that private landowners around the falls monopolized access. You’d think that wouldn’t be much of an issue in the 19th century, but the falls have been a tourist attraction for a long time. In the park we saw a sign that noted that on his grand tour of the U.S. in 1825, Lafayette came to see the falls. But the real tourism boom began after the falls became a public place with easy access.

We arrived on Saturday around 9 a.m. and found a place to park right away in lot no. 1. Good thing, too, since later in the day we noticed a long line of cars waiting to park. Even that early there were a fair number of people in the park, but by early afternoon the place was mobbed.

It didn’t matter once you’d ditched your car. The park holds crowds well because it’s large, encompassing a long stretch of shore along the Niagara River upriver and downriver from the falls, and the islands that divide the falls into three: the relatively small Bridal Falls, the mid-sized American Falls, and the mighty Horseshoe Falls, most of which is Canadian.

Created at the end of the last ice age 12,000 years ago or so, the falls have an estimated existence span of another 50,000 years. So we’re witnessing a geological blip. How many countless mighty cataracts of this kind have come into being only to erode away over the billions of years of liquid water on Earth? And what about crashing falls on other worlds?

From the U.S. side, your first view is of the American falls, looking to the south. The buildings in the background are part of the town of Niagara Falls, Ontario. This is a shot with the tourist infrastructure edited out.

Left in.

Bridges cross from the shore upriver a bit to Goat Island, the main island in the channel. For a few moments, you can forget you’re surrounded by the intensity of the Niagara River.

But not for long. More views of the American Falls are easily found. Looking north over the drop, with the Rainbow International Bridge in the background, seeming not nearly as high as it is.

Spray. It wouldn’t be the last time.

A curiosity on Goat Island: a statue of Tesla.

“Gift of Yugoslavia to the United States, 1976,” the Tesla Memorial Society of New York says. “Nikola Tesla designed the first hydroelectric power plant in Niagara Falls. This was the final victory of Tesla’s Alternating Current over Edison’s Direct Current. The monument was the work of Croatian sculptor Frane Krsinic.”

A standing Tesla was installed on the Canadian side more recently, in 2006, according to the society. More about Tesla and Niagara is here.

Go far enough on Goat Island and you’ll reach Terrapin Point, which offers a view of Horseshoe Falls, which is what most people think of when they think of Niagara Falls. It’s wider than the other falls combined, and drops more water, as much as 90% of the 100,000 or so cubic feet of water per second that flows over the three falls during the summer. The rate is controlled by engineering, and is lessened at night and during the spring and fall, when fewer tourists are around, so that more of the flow can be used to generate electricity at those times.

Naturally, lots of people were gathered to take a look. And pictures.

There’s a good view of the Canadian side from there as well, when the mist doesn’t obscure it. Looks like there’s reconstruction going on over there, near the edge. I remember standing next to the Horseshoe Falls at that point 30 years ago, and it looks like that observation deck is missing for now.

The Canadian town looks more prosperous than the U.S. town from that vantage, and indeed it is for various reasons. Sad to say, beyond the tourist enclave, Niagara Falls, New York is another one of the small cities of the industrial North that has seen better times.

Canada, as it happens, was still mostly closed to visitors over Memorial Day weekend, which would be an ordinary weekend there. Later in the day, we saw the entrance to the Rainbow Bridge on the U.S. side, and only one lane for traffic was open, and no one was in it.

The bridge is visible from Terrapin Point, since it isn’t far downriver from the falls. A striking bit of work across a gorge.

After our Goat Island wander, we wanted to do the Maid of the Mist boat ride. That was something I skipped in ’91, and wasn’t expecting much more than a ride along the river with a nice view of the bottom of the falls, to complement the views of the tops. We waited in line about half an hour to get on one of the two boats, which made me think of waiting around for a ride at Disneyland. A thing that you do as a tourist. I grumbled a little about the price. I didn’t realize what was ahead.

This is one of the boats, the James V. Glynn. We rode on the other one, the Nikola Tesla. Him again. Mr. Glynn is a long-time Maid of the Mist chairman.

Tourists have been riding Maid of the Mist boats since 1845, another indication of how long tourists have been coming to Niagara Falls, though intermittently until 1885 and every year since then. The boats were steam and then diesel powered and now, as the company is eager to point out, all-electric with no emissions, launched into service only last year. As people get on and off, the boats are recharged at the dock.

The company gives you bright blue thin plastic ponchos and off you go, for a 20 minute or so trip. It isn’t the quantity of the time aboard that counts, but the quality. First you pass by the American and Bridal Falls, which are impressive in their flow and in the huge boulders piled at the bottom.
The ship then passes into the curve under Horseshoe Falls. I didn’t think it would get as close at it did. The roar is enormous. The spray is continuous. The curving walls of water, taller than walls of water should be, fill your senses. The place is enthralling. I haven’t been as captivated by a natural phenomenon (well, partly engineered) since I saw the total eclipse a few years ago.

No wonder people have been paying for over a century and a half for this little boat ride. It was worth the effort to get to Niagara Falls, all by itself, and all of the $25.25 each to be escorted under the spectacular cataract.

I wasn’t in the mood to take pictures during most intense moments, like during the eclipse. Except one.
One of three or four selfies I’ve taken since that concept was popularized. Hit the nail on the head with that one.

Shuffle Off To Buffalo

Posted on June 1, 2021 by admin

Just back yesterday evening from 72 hours in Buffalo. Roughly. Not quite 72 hours over Memorial Day weekend and not quite all in Buffalo, though we were in the Buffalo-Niagara Falls MSA the whole time.

Three days isn’t enough to drive to Buffalo from northern Illinois and spend a worthwhile amount of time. Like Pittsburgh, that would be a four-day venture. So we flew. First time since early 2020. Except for mandatory masking at the airports and on the planes, everything was about the same as it used to be, including holiday-weekend crowds. One of our flights was on a Boeing 737 MAX-8, and clearly we lived to tell the tale.

We, as in Yuriko and I, arrived late Friday night and made our way to Amherst, New York, a Buffalo suburb, where we stayed. We were up early the next morning to spend most of the day at Niagara Falls State Park. I was fulfilling a promise I made in 1996, when we arrived at the falls in March to find the American Falls still frozen. I told her we’d come someday when the liquid was moving again, and so we did.

That wasn’t the whole first day. I discovered that nowhere is very far away from anywhere else in this corner of New York state by driving north along the Niagara Gorge, stopping at Lewiston and Fort Niagara, and then returning to Amherst.

On Sunday, we weren’t up quite as early, but we made it to downtown Buffalo in the morning for a walkabout. As promised by various sources, the city has some first-rate architecture, most especially Buffalo City Hall. Late in the morning, after a brief stop at Tim Horton’s — they’re everywhere in metro Buffalo — we toured the Theodore Roosevelt Inaugural National Historic Site, formerly the Ansley and Mary Wilcox home.

Lunch that day was on Main Street at the Anchor Bar, which specializes in Buffalo wings and claims their invention, but in any case the joint didn’t disappoint. Afterward, Yuriko napped in the car while I spent time looking around Main Street, which includes Buffalo’s theater district and Saint Louis Roman Catholic Church.

Also, this mural.
Created by local t-shirt designer David Horesh and painter Ian de Veer, it’s highly visible when you’re traveling southbound on Main.

Could it be that current Buffalonians might not want millennials, or more importantly, tech-industry millennials with high incomes, to show up in droves to drive up prices for everyone else? Maybe. Not sure Buffalo has the tech ecosystem, as they say in the biz, to support such an influx. Then again, in the vicinity of the mural are places probably supported by people with at least some disposable income, such as Just Vino, the House of Masters Grooming Lounge, Hair to Go Natural, and Fattey Beer Co. Buffalo.

I had a mind to visit Delaware Park afterwards, since a Frederick Law Omstead park is always worth seeing, but we ended up sampling it merely by driving around it. Looks like a nice place to while away a warm afternoon.

By that time, Sunday afternoon, it was fairly warm in greater Buffalo. Rain had clearly fallen the day before we arrived, and cool air arrived afterward, taking temps down into the low 50s early Saturday, when we got to Niagara Falls. Did that matter? No. It wasn’t cold enough to freeze anything.

On Monday I got up early and visited the splendid Forest Lawn Cemetery, permanent home of President Fillmore and Rick James, among many others. Later, we drove to Lockport, New York and spent some time along the Erie Canal. As long ago as elementary school, I heard about the Erie Canal, but had never seen it. We also took a tour of one of the manmade caves near the canal, where rapid water flows formerly powered local industry.

Back in Buffalo for a satisfying lunch at Lake Effect Diner, housed in a chrome-and-neon diner car dating to 1952. Then we drove south via surface streets to Lackawanna, where you can see the Basilica of Our Lady of Victory, our last destination for the trip.

Why Buffalo? There was that promise to visit the falls, of course. But I also wanted to see Buffalo. My single previous experience there had been a quick drive-through in 1991 after I saw Niagara Falls for the first time, from the Canadian side. Every city of any size has something interesting. A lot of smaller places do as well. So we shuffled off to Buffalo.

The Hindu Temple of Greater Chicago

Posted on May 24, 2021 by admin

On a pleasant Sunday in the spring, metro Chicago offers any number of things to see. One of them is the Hindu Temple of Greater Chicago.

The HTGC is in southwest suburban Lemont, tucked away on a moraine hilltop off Lemont Road, not far south of I-55. It’s a temple complex, actually, including Sri Rama Temple, Ganesha-Shiva-Durga Temple, a mediation center and other structures.

The Sri Rama exterior.

Entry meant a temperature check and a few questions by a slightly suspicious hired security guard. The interior features a fascinating array of religious artwork and devotional alcoves.

Next to Sri Rama is a structure called balipeetham, also styled bali peetam. As far as I can understand, it’s a place to ditch your unholy thoughts before entering the temple.

As hinted at by the temple’s generic name, it was an early — maybe the first, I haven’t confirmed that — Hindu temple in the Chicago area, founded in 1977 with the rising tide of immigration from the subcontinent. Many more temples have been established since then, of course. The first structure on the HTGC site was completed in 1985, according to this incredibly detailed and professionally written history of the temple at its web site. (There’s no reason such a history can’t be detailed and well written, it’s just that web-site histories tend to be otherwise.)

This is the outside of the first structure, the Ganesha-Shiva-Durga Temple. Its interior is interesting, but not nearly as elaborate as Sri Rama.

Elsewhere on the grounds are other structures. The one on the left protects a statue of Swami Vivekananda (1863-1902).

Swami Vivekananda is best known in this country — at least among people who know such things — for representing India at the 1893 Parliament of the World’s Religions in Chicago. Which, I have to add, seems like a remarkable event all by itself.

Wright Flyer III

Posted on May 16, 2021 by admin

During our visit to Dayton five years ago — has it been that long? — we saw this downtown sculpture array, depicting the Wright Brothers and the Wright Flyer III, which the brothers built and first flew in 1905, a much improved version of their two earlier planes.

Sometimes I’m curious to keep up with places I’ve been, so I checked and the sculpture group, by Dayton architect and sculptor Steve Brown, has been removed, reportedly for re-installation elsewhere at an unspecified later time. Hope that unspecified time doesn’t stretch out so far that it becomes “never,” and the works remain in storage somewhere or gets lost in some future decade. Sidewalk sculpture this kinetic deserves to be out in public.

Even More Peoria: The Cathedral of St. Mary, The Great Agnostic & The Bolshevik Cookie Monster

Posted on May 6, 2021 by admin

Near downtown Peoria is the Cathedral of St. Mary of the Immaculate Conception, mother church of the Diocese of Peoria, completed in 1889 and restored in the 2010s. I was able to catch it resplendent in the full eastern sun on a Sunday morning, before it opened for mass.

The adjacent cathedral rectory and, on the lower level, the diocesan chancery.

Other details, including a statue of Mother Teresa.

Later, we popped inside just before the beginning of mass. The interior is just as grand as the outside.

The cathedral isn’t the only church in the neighborhood. Not far away is Christian Assembly Church.

West of there looked to be a hill made of buildings.

This is at the base of that “hill.”

The Irving School was the Peoria School District’s oldest school, built in 1898, when it closed in 2012.

“Irving and Peoria City Hall are the city’s only two representations of the architecturally significant Flemish Renaissance design,” noted the Journal Star at the time. What are the odds that I’d see both of them on the same morning during a ramble in Peoria? Not bad, actually, since Peoria isn’t that large.

Looks like it’s being redeveloped, to judge by the construction truck. The buildings on the hill, incidentally, form the OSF Saint Francis Medical Center, the largest hospital in metro Peoria.

Last time we went to Peoria, we visited the Springdale Cemetery. Next to it is the Peoria Zoo, Luthy Botanical Gardens and Glen Oak Park. This time we stopped for a few minutes at the entrance of that park, which happens to be on Dan Fogelberg Parkway.

We went there because I want to see the statue of the Great Agnostic. I’m glad to see that the artist — no other than Fritz Triebel — wasn’t trying to hide the man’s portliness. That was insurance against 19th-century wasting diseases, anyway.

If I ever knew it, I’d forgotten that Robert G. Ingersoll (1833-99) spent much of his adult life in Peoria, though he lived other places, such as Shawneetown (before it was Old Swaneetown). He’s not buried in Illinois, however, but Arlington National Cemetery, as befits the commander of the 11th Illinois Volunteer Cavalry of the Union Army.

I can’t remember how I first heard of him, but it was in high school. He’s another of those interesting public intellectuals who’s been completely forgotten, which would be almost all of them. Forgotten except by his hometown, though I expect most Peorians don’t know who he was either.

While driving on I-74 just west of downtown, I saw a sign pointing to an individual’s grave nearby — a rare thing, now that I think about it. The individual was Susan G. Komen. I was still by myself at that point, so there was no one to object to checking out yet another cemetery.

She’s in a niche in Parkview Cemetery.

It occurred to me as I read the nearby plaque that I knew nothing about her, except that her name is attached to the breast cancer foundation. She died from the disease in 1980 at age 36. It was her sister, Nancy G. Brinker, who established the foundation.

Later Nancy Brinker was U.S. ambassador to Hungary, early in Bush the younger’s administration, a job I expect she got since she and her husband, the inordinately successful chain restaurateur Norman Brinker, were serious donors to the Bush campaign. (Seems she also had enough pull to have a sign put up directing people to her sister’s memorial.)

Parkview is pleasant enough, but not nearly as picturesque as Springdale. Still, I found an interesting but probably informal section where a good many Greeks or people of Greek ancestry are buried.

This structure says, 1931 American Greek Society Homer on top. Below it says, Erected by Charter Members, with a list of names of a distinctly Hellenic cast.

The afternoon we arrived in Peoria, we were driving along Adams Street not far from downtown when suddenly we saw the famed (well, 15 minutes) Cookie Monster mural. Imagine my delight. I had to stop to take pictures of that.

The mural got national attention late last year. As reported, the story was that a mysterious man (Fake Nate) paid an artist (Joshua Hawkins) to do the mural, claiming he was the building’s owner. The real owner (Real Nate) came back from a Thanksgiving trip to find the mural, and expressed outrage. The artist said he’d been tricked, too. Then Real Nate painted over the mural. Fake Nate’s identity and motive — and there must have been a strong one, since Hawkins reported being paid “a lot” in cash for the work — remained elusive.

It’s an odd story. But soon I’d forgotten that the small building, which is absolutely nondescript in every other way, was in Peoria. When I saw the mural, I remembered.
But wait — wasn’t it painted over? Whitewashed is more like it, since spring rains had clearly removed most of the covering, rendering Bolshevik Cookie Monster visible again.

As I stood across the street taking pictures, a stubby, wrinkled, gray-haired man got out of his car not far away and tried to enter a small bar on my side of the street. He found it closed.

“It’s closed,” he said to me, heading back toward his car.

“What’s the deal with that?” I asked, pointing toward the mural.

“It’s some kind of joke,” he said, and related a bit of the reported story. But then he expressed skepticism that it really happened that way. Rather, he suspected, the artist and the property owner cooked up the story to help sell the building — which, I read later, the owner did not long ago — and help get the artist some attention, too.

That’s certainly plausible. There’s no doubt that the artist is capitalizing on it. If it didn’t involve paying $35 ($25 for the item, $10 for shipping), I’d consider buying a t-shirt with the mural on it, as offered at the artist’s web site along with other merch. (That’s too much for any t-shirt.)

Maybe, maybe not. Doesn’t matter. It’s an inspired bit of whimsy. Мир, земля, печенье (Peace, Land, Cookies) is a play on the Bolshevik slogan, Мир, земля, хлеб (Peace, Land, Bread), and there is a touch of early red propaganda poster to the thing.

If the new building owner, and the city of Peoria, has any sense, they’ll keep the mural. Restore it, in fact. Besides being funny, at least to some of us, it’s a distinct thing to be found there and absolutely nowhere else.

Downtown Peoria

Posted on May 5, 2021 by admin

On the Sunday morning we were in Peoria, I popped out for a look around as my family still slept, as my wont. We were staying in East Peoria, so downtown Peoria was just across the Murray Baker Bridge. Soon I made my way to Main Street, which features buildings short —

— and tall, at least for Peoria, such as the Commerce Bank Building.

On Main Street, I mostly focused on Courthouse Square, where there’s a sizable old memorial, the Soldiers and Sailors Monument, along with a sizable new mural, “Abraham Blue,” which is perched on the side of the Peoria County Courthouse.

First, the Soldiers and Sailors Monument. Impressive bronze.

The memorial has been there since 1899, a project of the Ladies Memorial Day Association. A plaque nearby quotes the president of that organization, one Lucie B. Tyng, who said it would the work would “last for all time, and tell our children and children’s children our loving gratitude to these brave men who took their lives in their hands and went forth to vindicate and sustain our Government in its hour of peril.”

The association tapped Fritz Triebel, a native Peorian artist resident in Rome, to create the monument. He also did the intricate bronzes at the Mississippi State War Memorial Monument in Vicksburg. That’s the spirit of sectional reconciliation at work, by golly. Or maybe a commission was a commission for Triebel.

As for “Abraham Blue,” the Journal Star reported before it was hung on the courthouse in 2018 that “the Lincoln portrait was created by Doug Leunig several years ago as part of a work that captured the likenesses of the famous Americans that adorn the nation’s currency.

” ‘It’s called “Abraham Blue” because it’s tinted blue. That symbolizes the fact that Lincoln suffered from depression but was able to overcome that problem to be a great president,’ said Leunig.”

It adds quite a presence to Courthouse Square. And to the courthouse itself, a brutalist box if there ever were one.

Further wandering in downtown Peoria took me to City Hall, designed by Reeves and Baillee and dating from 1897. No boxes for them; Le Corbusier was still in short pants in those days.

Down the block from City Hall is Sacred Heart Catholic Church, dating from 1905. Closed. I was too early for it to be open for mass.

Elsewhere, there’s a former church — I haven’t found out what kind yet — that’s now Obed & Issac’s Microbrewery & Eatery. Looks like a nice adaptive reuse.

We didn’t eat in any restaurants on this little trip. But it won’t be long now.

A Couple of Hours in Freeport

Posted on May 3, 2021 by admin

The week after I returned from Dallas was second-dose vaccination week for all of us in our house. When I set things up in late March, the only first-shot appointments were at far-flung pharmacies in northern Illinois, meaning the boosters would be at the same places. By the time I got back, I had the sense that I could have rejiggered things to get shots closer to home. But I didn’t. I still wanted to go to those places.

Such as Freeport, Illinois, the only town of any size between Rockford and Galena, and actually much bigger than the latter (23,700 vs. 3,100). When driving into Freeport, I saw a sign advertising a Wrigley Field replica, or miniature, or something. It wasn’t hard to find after our vaccination was done.

Little Cubs Field, it’s called, which is used for Little League, T-ball and other events, and completed in 2008 by serious Cubs fans.

The bicycle in that picture belonged to one of about a half-dozen boys, all maybe about 10 years old, who were hanging out at Little Cubs Field when I arrived and started taking pictures.

“Are you a tourist?” one of them asked me.

“Yes, I’m just passing through,” I said.

“They always take pictures,” another of the boys said to yet another, not me. The first boy then asked where I was from, and I simplified matters by telling him Chicago. I got the sense that he felt that was quite a distant location. A reasonable thing to think at 10.

Off they went, and I took some more pictures.

A short drive away, in Freeport’s small downtown, is its Lincoln-Douglas memorial. I couldn’t very well pass that up.

Every place they had a debate has a memorial now. This was the first of the statues to memorialize one of the events, unveiled in 1992, but hardly the last. Chicago sculptor Lily Tolpo (d. 2016) did the bronzes. Both she and her husband Carl did Lincolns.

The memorial also featured a plaque on a rock.

Not just any plaque, but one dedicated by TR in 1903. A president, I believe, who understood the gravitas of the office he held. Probably felt it in his bones. Not all of his successors have.

We were about to leave, but couldn’t help noticing an ice cream shop next door to the memorial.

The Union Dairy Farms, founded in 1914 and serving ice cream since 1934. We couldn’t pass that up, either, figuring it had to be good. Was it ever.

Southern Loop ’21 Scraps

Posted on May 2, 2021 by admin

Near-summer weather to a tee visited northern Illinois over the weekend — next week will be chillier, I read — with cloud puffs ambling along the completely pleasant warm air, except maybe for persistent strong gusts of wind, a mild sirocco. Those gusts didn’t keep us from walking the dog or me from idling on our deck, reading or resting my eyeballs, but they did put the kibosh on taking any meals as a family out there.

My stop in New Madrid, Missouri, on April 10 was brief, but long enough to get a look at the handsome county courthouse.

“Cornerstone ceremonies were July 4, 1915, for the Classical Greek Revival style building of white sandstone and porcelain brick with a copper box laid in the northeast corner containing copies of all New Madrid County and St. Louis newspapers and carefully prepared historical events, including the names of the citizens who contributed the $20,000, names of all county officers, etc.,” says the courthouse web site. Sounds like a dull time capsule, but never mind.

“Additional funds for finishing the courthouse and jail were authorized early in 1917, but no bids were received… Finally, W. W. Taylor, a master builder from Cape Girardeau, superintended final interior work, which included marble stairways with cast iron railings and a large rotunda with a stained glass window in the ceiling that was completed in January 1919.”

Closed on Sunday. Maybe closed for the pandemic, anyway, so the marble and stained glass and more weren’t visible to me. Hope the courthouse was built to resist seismic events (as much as possible 100 years ago), or refit in more recent years.

A survey marker at Fort Pillow State Historic Site, Tennessee. Always interesting to run across one.

A view of the Mississippi at Fort Pillow.

A retail scene from Clarksdale, Mississippi. Something Amazon cannot replace.

Despite the glowing neon, the shop — called Cat Head — wasn’t open on a Sunday morning.

A scene from rural Mississippi, where perhaps the landowner recognizes no political authority.

Even in small-town Mississippi, you’ll see these.

The American Rose Center is a 118-acre wooded spot just west of Shreveport, and home to the national headquarters of the American Rose Society.

I was a few weeks too early. A few roses were in bloom, but not many. Mostly still buds, and a lot of them. Even so, lovely grounds.

Including a Japanese-style pavilion.

As I said, a few blooms.

You don’t have to go all the way to Corsicana, Texas, to buy a fruitcake at the Collins Street Bakery. There’s a store just off I-20 in Lindale, Texas, with a cafe and a towering sign. I stopped and bought a big fruitcake, which is mostly gone now, eaten a bit at a time by me, Jay, Yuriko and Ann.

In Grand Saline, Texas, a town that salt built, is a structure called the Salt Palace Museum and Visitors Center, which is on Main Street.

Palace it is not, though it is built partly of salt, and there’s a big block of salt to examine out front.

When in Paris, Texas, what does one naturally go to see? The Paris, Texas, Eiffel Tower, of course. Despite the rain.

Less well known is a memorial to the Paris Tornado of 1982. It killed 10 people, injured many more, and did a lot of property damage.

It’s in the same park as this sad-looking memorial.

That’s the Bywaters Park Memorial, with a plaque that says: In grateful memory of J.K. Bywaters, who gave this park to the people of the city he loved so well. 1916.

In Fort Smith, Arkansas, I spotted this mural.

Which is on the backside of this building — First National Bank — next to the bank’s drive-through lanes.

In Bella Vista, Arkansas, which is in the extreme northwest part of the state just south of the Missouri line, is the Mildred B. Cooper Memorial Chapel, a structure dating from 1988, designed by designed by E. Fay Jones and Maurice Jennings. Jones is best known for the Thorncrown Chapel, also in Arkansas.

Sure, the sign said an event was in progress. A wedding, of course, since my visit was on a Saturday. But I saw people clearly dressed for a wedding pouring into the parking lot as I arrived, so I figured I might have caught the place between weddings.

No. People were still inside, with some kind of event going on, so I figure as soon as one wedding ceremony is over on a warm spring Saturday at Mildred B. Cooper, another gets underway. I took a good look at the exterior, anyway. Understated elegance.

In Collinsville, Illinois, you can see the “world’s largest catsup bottle.”

It has its own fan club and web site.

“This unique 170 ft. tall water tower was built in 1949 by the W.E. Caldwell Company for the G.S. Suppiger catsup bottling plant — bottlers of Brooks old original rich & tangy catsup,” the site says.

Philistines almost had it torn down. “In 1995, due to the efforts of the Catsup Bottle Preservation Group, this landmark roadside attraction was saved from demolition and beautifully restored to its original appearance,” the site continues.

The Pink Elephant Antique Mall in Livingston, Illinois, not far northeast of St. Louis, has a big pink elephant in front, as I’ve posted. But that’s not all. Not by a long shot.

This is the mall — a complex of buildings stuffed with antiques, collectibles and other junk. There’s a diner, too.

I didn’t inspect them closely, but I take the statues out front to be made of fiberglass (maybe cast in Wisconsin).

A sign under that fellow wearing the MAGA hat — now, what was his name again? — said NOT A POLITICAL STATEMENT. LOVE HIM OR HATE HIM.

Finally, the grounds included something I’ve long wanted to see, but never had gotten around to, a Futuro House.

The windows, some completely open, were at about eye level for me. Ever wonder what’s in a Futuro House?

Not much, at least this one.

Boneyards Along the Way

Posted on April 29, 2021 by admin

On the second day of my recent trip, as I was leaving Carbondale, Illinois, I spotted the small but pretty (and unimaginatively named) Woodlawn Cemetery. Founded in 1854, it’s two years older than the city. Everything was wet from the heavy rain the night before.

There are a number of Civil War graves.

“In April, 1866, three Carbondale-area Civil War veterans… proposed that the community… gather on the last Sunday of April to honor their fallen comrades and neighbors, by cleaning and decorating their graves,” says the cemetery’s nomination for the National Register of Historic Places.

“On the appointed day, April 29, more than 200 veterans plus approximately 4,000 area citizens gathered at Woodlawn Cemetery… Gen. John A. Logan addressed the assemblage.”

Evidently, this and later commemorations deeply impressed Logan, who on May 5, 1868, issued GAR General Order No. 11.

The 30th day of May, 1868 is designated for the purpose of strewing with flowers or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country during the late rebellion, and whose bodies now lie in almost every city, village, and hamlet churchyard in the land…

While visiting Clarksdale, Mississippi, I spent a few minutes at Heavenly Rest Cemetery.

In the background are two buildings of First Baptist Missionary Baptist Church (1918), historic in its own right.

At Vicksburg National Military Park is the 116-acre Vicksburg National Cemetery, which holds the remains of 17,000 Union soldiers, a higher concentration than any other cemetery, according to the NPS.

“After the creation of Vicksburg National Cemetery [in 1866], extensive efforts were made by the War Department to locate the remains of Union soldiers originally buried throughout the southeast in the areas occupied by Federal forces during the campaign and siege of Vicksburg — namely, Arkansas, Louisiana, and Mississippi. However, by the time of these re-interments many of the wooden markers had been lost to the elements, and identification of many of the soldiers was rendered impossible.

“Nationwide, 54% of the number re-interred were classified as ‘unknown.’ At Vicksburg National Cemetery, 75% of the Civil War dead are listed as unknowns…”

The cemetery is closed to burials now, but after the Civil War a number of later servicemen were buried there, including the curious story of Flight Sgt. Edgar Horace Hawter of the Royal Australian Air Force, re-interred there in 1949 from New Guinea.

“Confederate dead from the Vicksburg campaign originally buried behind Confederate lines have now been re-interred in the Vicksburg City Cemetery (Cedar Hill Cemetery), in an area called Soldiers’ Rest,” the NPS says. “Approximately 5,000 Confederates have been re-interred there, of which 1,600 are identified.”

Cedar Hill Cemetery wasn’t hard to find.

Most of the cemetery isn’t Soldiers’ Rest.

Most of the stones are modest, but there are a few larger ones.

Evergreen Cemetery in Paris, Texas, was green enough, and wet with recent rain when I arrived there on April 16.

As a veteran of the Texas Revolution, Dr. Patrick W. Birmingham (1808-1867) rates a Texas flag.

Another plaque told me that Jesus in Cowboy Boots was part of a memorial at Evergreen, but maddingly it didn’t offer any direction about where such a thing would be found. So I did what we moderns do, and did a Google Image search for that term. I got an image easily.

Turned out I was practically standing next to it.

It was a little hard to make out at first, but yes, it does look like that figure is wearing boots rather than, say, sandals. It’s not clear it’s actually a depiction of Jesus, but as Atlas Obscura points out, the name has stuck.

Been There, Seen That

By Dees Stribling

Category Archives: Public Art