Ambler’s Texaco Gas Station

Posted on November 30, 2021 by admin

The National Park Service takes more of an interest in the former U.S. 66 than I would have thought. On this page, the NPS lists dozens of historic sites associated with that road, including 12 in Illinois plus a listing on “Illinois Road Segments.”

One of the sites is Ambler’s Texaco Gas Station in Dwight, Illinois, which is about half way between the northwest suburbs and Bloomington-Normal. On the way back to take Ann to ISU on Sunday, we stopped there.

Though called Amber’s by the park service, the name on site is the Ambler/Becker Station, and the NPS does mention the facility’s other designations over the decades it was a gas station (1933 to 1999): Vernon’s Texaco Station and Becker’s Marathon Gas Station.

After the place ended its existence as a car-care facility, it became a tourist attraction. Sure enough, we’d been attracted for a look, though it was closed on Sunday afternoon.

“With the help of a $10,400 matching grant from the National Park Service’s Route 66 Corridor Preservation Program, the Village of Dwight painstakingly restored the station to its former glory, taking the main office and canopy area back to the 1930s and the service bay area back to its 1940s appearance,” the NPS says. “Today, the station serves as a visitor’s center for the Village of Dwight.”

The Presidio

Posted on November 17, 2021 by admin

From Crissy Field on San Francisco Bay, a convenient walking path leads to one of the formal entrances of the Presidio, on Girard Road, and some nearby green space.

Actually Crissy Field is part of the 1,491-acre former fort, which is part of Golden Gate National Recreation Area and sprawls across the northwestern part of the San Francisco Peninsula. These days, the Presidio includes many former military structures, museums, restaurants, lodging, recreational spots, art installations, trails and lawns, but also residential and commercial properties, including Lucasfilms headquarters.

Too much to see, even in a series of days. Still, I saw a fine slice. I spent most of the afternoon of October 30 at the Presidio, taking a look at some of the large stock of former military properties.

A former band barracks.

I didn’t know that band members ever had their own barracks, but apparently they did at the Presidio. The building could accommodate 37 musical soldiers.

“The Presidio of San Francisco represents one of the finest collections of military architecture in the country and reflects over 200 years of development under three different nations,” says the NPS.

“Today, the Presidio boasts more than 790 buildings, of which 473 are historic and contribute to the Presidio’s status as a National Historic Landmark District. The building types range from elegant officers’ quarters and barracks to large, industrial warehouses, administrative headquarters, air hangars, major medical facilities, and stables.”

Who says the military isn’t concerned with aesthetics in its buildings? Was concerned, anyway.

The Main Parade Ground.

Food was available.

I had some excellent Korean food from the Bobcha food truck. It seemed like a better bet than Viva Vegan, at least to my tastes. Had a nice view while eating, too. I was at the next table down.

Not far from the parade ground is San Francisco National Cemetery.

A picturesque hillside cemetery with towering trees.

At about 28 acres, there are more than 30,000 service members interred there. It was the first national cemetery on the West Coast.

A memorial to an incident that doesn’t have that many memorials: the Boxer Rebellion.

In this case, memorializing four marines from the USS Oregon who died on the Tartar Wall defending the Legations in the summer of 1900.

As I sometimes do, I picked out an ordinary soldier to look up later.

Motor Machinist Mate First Class (MOMMI) Clayton Lloyd Landon of St. Louis, a submariner who went down with the USS Tullibee in 1944. It seems that the vessel was a victim of one of its own torpedoes, as happened sometimes.

Gunner’s Mate C.W. Kuykendall, on watch up top at the time, was the only survivor of the Tullibee sinking, having been knocked into the water by the explosion and later picked up by a Japanese ship, to spend the rest of the war as a POW. Remarkably, he tells his story in a recent video.

“I just feel like I’m lucky.” Well put.

The Misty Golden Gate & Crissy Field

Posted on November 16, 2021 by admin

After leaving the Palace of Fine Arts, I made my way to the shore of San Francisco Bay. It isn’t very far.

It was a foggy moment, though most of it burned off as the afternoon progressed. In the foreground, the St. Francis Yacht Club. Off in the distance, Alcatraz.

If I’d had another day, I might have taken a tour of Alcatraz, if tours are running again. We took a boat around the Bay in ’73, a splendid excursion I remember even now, which went past the island, and under both the Golden Gate and the San Francisco-Oakland Bay bridges. No tours went to Alcatraz at that time, in the aftermath of the AIM occupation, and I didn’t bother in 1990.

In the other direction, the Golden Gate itself, looking a mite foggy.

I walked along the Crissy Field beaches and marsh.

It’s hard to imagine now, but Crissy Field is an important place in the history of aviation. There are a few visible reminders, such as this plaque.

Up closer.

I didn’t know about Lincoln Beachey, but I do now. A flying daredevil among daredevils. He had his moment of fame until he came crashing down, quite literally, during the Panama-Pacific International Exposition.

An oddity: the last lines of the plaque.

Dedicated on Lincoln Beachey Day 1998
March 16, CY 6003, by Yerba Buena No. 1
Ancient and Honorable Order of E Clampsus Vitus

That is a fraternal order I was unaware of. Travel is broadening, isn’t it? All kinds of useless information out there, just waiting for the taking.

The org claims — not too seriously, since its whole point seems to be not too serious — a founding year of 4005 BC, meaning 1998 would be 6,003 years since then. CY = Clampus Year?

Apparently Clampers are fond of installing plaques, something we can all get behind. If Wiki is to be believed, 1930s members of the order also were possibly — probably? — behind the forgery known as Drake’s Plate of Brass. I think I read about the plate in one of those pre-Internet, true-life mystery-and-enigma books we had around the house when I was a lad, along with the likes of the Oak Island mystery, and hadn’t thought about it since.

The Palace of Fine Arts

Posted on November 15, 2021 by admin

Back in March 1990, I spent a few days in San Francisco before flying to Japan for the first time. On one of those days, which was warm and clear, I took a bus across the Golden Gate Bridge in the direction of Sausalito. I got off at some point and walked back across the bridge.

That’s a recipe for a peak experience, and sure enough, it was. A land-water view with few equals that I know. Then I pressed on, along the water’s edge, and walked back to Fisherman’s Wharf. For some distance, a narrow waterside trail was all that was open. Though the Presidio was on its way out as a military installation, at the time it was still under the jurisdiction of the Army and closed to casual walkers.

Eventually I passed through San Francisco’s Marina District. A lot of buildings were boarded up in that neighborhood, with visible damage from the earthquake the previous year.

Back to 2021. When I arrived at the Palace of Fine Arts in the Marina District on October 30, I asked myself: how did I miss spotting it on my walk all those years ago? The Palace isn’t that far from where I walked, but I’m sure I didn’t see it. I would have remembered. Maybe I was too occupied with looking out at the water.

Well, never mind. Under gray and drizzly skies, I saw it this time.

Chicago had its World’s Columbian Exposition. Somewhat later (1915) San Francisco held the Panama-Pacific Exposition, and the Palace is (in effect) a surviving structure from that world’s fair, a design by California architect Bernand Maybeck.

“The vast fair, which covered over 600 acres and stretched along two and a half miles of water front property, highlighted San Francisco’s grandeur and celebrated a great American achievement: the successful completion of the Panama Canal,” notes the NPS.

“Between February and December 1915, over 18 million people visited the fair; strolling down wide boulevards, attending scientific and educational presentations, ‘travelling’ to international pavilions and enjoying thrilling displays of sports, racing, music and art.”

It’s a survivor from the fair, but not exactly in its original form, which wasn’t built to last. Like the Parthenon in Nashville, also a relic from a fair, the Palace was completely rebuilt later (in the 1960s and ’70s), and a seismic retrofit was finished in 2009. Hope it stands a lot longer.

Sue and Ken, 1960

Posted on November 14, 2021 by admin

I was moving a random collection of maps — the only kind I have — from one place to another in my house the other day, and this photo dropped out of the folds of one of them.

An unretouched image of Aunt Sue and Uncle Ken, with their Mercedes-Benz 190D. According to the writing on the back, taken in South Dakota, where they lived at the time. The time being November 7, 1960, also written on the back.

I found the picture in San Antonio a few years ago, tucked among others my mother had, and decided to take it home for scanning. Then it vanished. I assumed I misplaced it at my mother’s house, but instead it hitched a ride among some maps I must have brought back.

The 190D was sold from 1958 to 1961. What they went through to bring one to South Dakota, I don’t know.

The date also fascinates. Exactly one day before the 1960 election. The next day Nixon carried South Dakota handily, 55.4% to 44.5%, but I have no doubt they voted for Kennedy, and we know how the larger election turned out. But all that was still in the future for them at the moment.

The Asian Art Museum, San Francisco

Posted on November 10, 2021 by admin

I saw Oakland City Hall during my recent Bay Area visit, so I thought it only reasonable that I see 1915-vintage San Francisco City Hall as well. I already knew it is doozy, designed by Arthur Brown Jr. to replace one damaged in 1906.

So on the morning of October 30, I made my way to the building, which looks as grand as any U.S. state capitol, and more than some.

It even inspires selfies.

Unfortunately, it was closed on a Saturday morning.

Facing away from City Hall.

According to an old and pitted plaque in the ground, this public space is officially the Joseph L. Alioto Performing Arts Piazza. Wonder if anyone actually calls it that. Google Maps calls it Civic Center Plaza.

Across Larkin St. from the plaza is a tent city, behind a fence on four sides. There is good aerial view of it at this New York Post article (why that paper cares, I couldn’t say). It’s a city-sponsored experiment in dealing with pandemic-era homelessness.

From the ground, only a small part is visible.

I hadn’t come this way just to see City Hall or the nearby tent city. Rather, I was killing time before the opening of the Asian Art Museum, which faces City Hall.

The museum’s subhead — that’s what I’m going to call it — is the Chong-Moon Lee Center for Asian Art and Culture, reflecting the fact that the businessman of that name gave $15 million to museum to seed its relocation from space shared with the de Young Museum to its current location, in the former SF Main Library.

The building, designed by George W. Kelham, was completed in 1917 to replace one destroyed — you guessed it — by the 1906 earthquake. It in turn was damaged in 1989, and replaced by a new main library not far away. Seismic activity is just a fact of remaking the city, it seems.

These are slightly embarrassing times for the Asian Art Museum. Turns out the wealthy businessman whose collection was the basis for its splendid collection — Avery Brundage — reportedly had Nazi sympathies or at least anti-Semitic tendencies and (something much better documented) was on the wrong side of history in 1968 when, as IOC president, he had Tommie Smith and John Carlos kicked out the Olympics for their Black Power Salute. Oops.

For his retro-gressions, the museum removed a bust of Brundage from the foyer of the building last year. It has not, I noticed, removed the acknowledgements with each piece of art that came from the Brundage collection. Give it time.

What a collection it is. A small sample:

Greek-inspired art from the Indus River Valley, 2nd century CE. I’d heard of that, but don’t remember seeing any examples.

Thai, 11th century CE.

A detail of those monkeys.

Indian, 13th century CE.

Burmese, 15th century CE.

Chinese, 18th century CE.

Korean, 18th century CE.

Japanese, 21st century CE.

All together, the museum has more than 18,000 works in its permanent collection, with more than 2,000 items on display at any given time, variously from South Asia, Iran and Central Asia, Southeast Asia, the Himalayas, China, Korea and Japan.

The galleries mostly obscure whatever remains of the original interior —

— but I noticed an unlocked door that took me to this space, which is also used as a gallery, though not a readily visible one.

Wow. The museum shouldn’t hide this space away.

Across to San Francisco

Posted on November 8, 2021 by admin

On October 29, I slept late, and wanted a late breakfast when I finally got up. As luck would have it, there’s an excellent diner on Broadway in Oakland not far from Jack London Square. Buttercup, the place is called. I was headed that direction anyway, to catch a ferry to San Francisco, so I stopped in. Had some good pancakes there.

I traveled between Oakland and San Francisco more than once during my recent visit, each time but one taking a BART train, which is quite convenient. But on that Friday, I wanted to take the ferry to SF. The day was clear and warm, just right for a quick trip across the Bay.

Got a good view of downtown Oakland from the back of the ferry.

Along with a look at the port of Oakland and its infrastructure.

Interestingly, BART is above ground after it crosses over to western Oakland, so you can see the port — the same vast array of towers and containers — from the land as well.

Fairly close to the end of the run, the ferry passes under the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge.

In the tourist imagination, it’s the neglected cousin of the Golden Gate Bridge, dating from the 1930s as well. Tourist shops still sell postcards near Fisherman’s Wharf, and I had an opportunity to look at some of their racks. The Golden Gate Bridge is a common image, maybe the most common for cards of San Francisco. The Bay Bridge? Very few.

What the bridge needs is a little color. Painting the entire thing a new color would probably be cost prohibitive, but what about painting the central anchor between the two spans of the western section of the bridge (between Yerba Buena Is. and downtown San Francisco)? Or maybe hiring some big-deal artist to put a highly visible work on it. The anchor is pretty dowdy as it is.

Also, name the bridge after the Emperor Norton. After all, in a series of far-sighted decrees in the late 19th century, Norton I ordered that a bridge be built in that very spot.

The first such decree, in 1872:

Whereas, we observe that certain newspapers are agitating the project of bridging the Bay; and whereas, we are desirous of connecting the cities of San Francisco and Oakland by such means; now, therefore, we, Norton I, Dei gratia Emperor… order that the bridge be built from Oakland Point to Telegraph Hill, via Goat Island [Yerba Buena].

There were three such proclamations.

A naming hasn’t happened yet, but the good people of the Emperor Norton Trust are working on it.

The ferry takes you to the Ferry Building, fittingly enough, along the Embarcadero, with its handsome clocktower, a late 19th-century design (but after Norton’s time) by A. Page Brown. The clocktower is reportedly patterned after the 12th-century Giralda bell tower in Seville, Spain.

The Ferry Building interior is also handsome, sporting a large food hall, the creation of an early 21st-century restoration of the building. Unfortunately, my pancake brunch meant I had no appetite to try anything there.

“Opening in 1898, the Ferry Building became the transportation focal point for anyone arriving by train,” the building’s web site says.

“From the Gold Rush until the 1930s, arrival by ferryboat became the only way travelers and commuters – except those coming from the Peninsula – could reach the city. Passengers off the boats passed through an elegant two-story public area with repeating interior arches and overhead skylights. At its peak, as many as 50,000 people a day commuted by ferry.”

For years, the Embarcadero Freeway obscured the view of the building. No wonder I didn’t remember seeing it before. Why did anyone think building a freeway in front of this building and part of the Embarcadero was a good idea? Well, Nature took care of that bad idea in 1989.

The Good Reuben James

Posted on October 31, 2021 by admin

An anniversary worth noting, because it so seldom is: the sinking of the USS Reuben James, now 80 years past to the day.

Still famed in story and especially song, if you’re willing to listen. Illustrated in our time by an unusually thoughtful video. The Weavers did a good version of the song as well.

ISU Quad Walkabout

Posted on October 11, 2021 by admin

Heavy rain for a while today and cooler temps, but not till afternoon, so there was time for one more lunch on my deck.

Ann invited us to visit her over the weekend, which we did, heading down to Normal on Saturday morning and returning Sunday afternoon, spending the night in a motel near I-55. Daytime temps were nearly as warm as when I dropped her off at ISU in August.

Toward the end of the day on Saturday, it had cooled enough for a short walk — including the dog, whom we brought — around the prettier parts of campus. Mostly that meant the ISU Quad. What’s a university without a quad or two?

As mentioned yesterday, most of the foliage is still green. An eastern approach to the Quad.

“The Hand of Friendship,” which honors Robert G. Bone.

Bone (1906-1991) was the ninth president of Illinois State Normal University, which was renamed Illinois State University during his tenure. Though only president for 11 years (1956-67), he oversaw a lot of construction, including the tower where Ann lives. Later, the school’s student center was named after him.

The Quad also counts as the heart of the arboretum that spans the campus — the Fell Arboretum, to cite its formal name, honoring one Jesse Fell.

Fell (1808-87) was the sort of businessman that America spawned in the 19th-century — lawyer, real estate speculator, newspaper publisher and sawmill owner. Specific to Illinois, he was a friend of Lincoln’s. He founded towns in central Illinois and helped organize counties there as well, and is considered a founder of ISU.

As for the arboretum, apparently Fell not only profited from cutting down trees, but was a fanatic when it come to planting them, so ISU named it in his honor.

Elsewhere, we saw a plaque on a rock honoring the horticulturist who designed the original landscape for the campus, William Saunders (1822-1900), who also happened to be a founder of the National Grange of the Order of Patrons of Husbandry, an organization I had only scant knowledge of before. That is to say, little that I remember, though I’m sure heard about the Granger movement in a U.S. history class. Always good to learn or re-learn something.

In the middle of the Quad is a lush garden.

The centerpiece is the Old Main Bell, dating from 1880.

Old Main was the campus’ first building, which stood from 1857 to 1958. A memorial honors the building not far from its bell. Unusually, it depicts all four elevations of the building.

We wandered on. This is Cook Hall.

“One of Illinois State’s most interesting buildings and the oldest one still standing on the Quad, Cook Hall was originally built to be a gymnasium,” ISU tells me. “It was completed in 1897 and was named after John Williston Cook, the University’s 4th President (1890-1899). He earned his diploma in 1865 from Illinois State Normal University and in 1876 he became a Professor of Mathematics.

“The building has also been known as the ‘Old Castle’ or ‘The Gymnasium.’ The governor at the time, John Altgeld, had a great liking for medieval castles and insisted all new state construction during his term in office resemble castles. You’ll find a Cook Hall look-alike at many other state schools; they are called ‘Altgeld’s Folly.’ ”

Really? I had to look into that more, and found this Wiki item about Altgeld Castles. It does indeed seem that a raft of crenellated, or quasi-crenellated buildings at Illinois state schools dates from the 1890s. I remember seeing Altgeld Hall at UIUC, but didn’t know it was part of a pattern. An eccentric pattern. That’s two things I learned (or relearned) today; makes for a good Monday.

Forest Home Cemetery & Arboretum, Milwaukee

Posted on September 29, 2021 by admin

A touch of fall in southern Wisconsin.

A touch more every day, for sure, but this is how the foliage appeared on Saturday at Forest Home Cemetery & Arboretum, Milwaukee, which is mostly still green.

The cemetery’s chapel was part of Open Doors Milwaukee over the weekend. It is a handsome structure, completed in 1892.

“With an exterior of gracefully aged reddish-brown Lake Superior sandstone, the interior features stately buttresses, fine leaded-glass windows and spacious conservatories containing lush tropical foliage,” the cemetery web site notes, a little heavy on the adjectives. “Many of the tropical plants are decades-old and provide a comforting ambiance that truly sets the Chapel apart from others built before, or since.”

The conservatory elements are on either side of the main nave-like room. I put it that way because, according to a docent on site, no denomination has ever consecrated the space.

As for the cemetery proper, some 118,000 people reside there.

The nonprofit that runs the cemetery publishes a wonderful, 20-page full-color guidebook and was giving them away for Open Doors Milwaukee. Maybe they’re always given away, but anyway I got one and used it liberally during my visit.

“Forest Home Cemetery was established in 1850 by St. Paul’s Episcopal Church as a cemetery for the city,” the guide says. “As Milwaukee expanded, the cemetery became the final resting place for 26 mayors, more than 1,000 Civil War veterans and countless prominent people who left their marks on Milwaukee’s history… the property was one of the first landscaped sites in Milwaukee offering a natural respite. Designed by Increase A. Lapham, known as Wisconsin’s first naturalist, it is considered one of the finest examples of a rural garden cemetery in the Upper Midwest.”

Increase Lapham. Makes me smile. Name your babies Increase, hipsters. You could do a lot worse, considering the distinction of this particular Increase.

“A self-educated engineer and naturalist, Increase Lapham [1811-1875] was Wisconsin’s first scientist and one of its foremost citizens,” the Wisconsin Historical Society notes. “He wrote the first book published in Wisconsin, made the first accurate maps of the state, investigated Wisconsin’s effigy mounds, native trees and grasses, climatic patterns and geology, and helped found many of the schools, colleges and other cultural institutions that still enrich the state today.”

More important than the text, the guidebook includes a detailed map and a color-coded key to the notable burials at Forest Home.

Yellow: Beer Barons; Pink: [Other] Industrialists & Business Magnates; Brown: Pioneers, Inventors & Publishers; Orange: Mayors & Founders; Aqua: Notable Women; Red: Black Leaders & Abolitionists; Purple: Entertainers, Artists & Art Collectors; Deep Blue: Military Heroes; Green: Tragic and Distinctive Burials, such as the memorial to the victims of the 1883 Newhall House Hotel Fire, which General and Mrs. Tom Thumb survived, the grave of John “Babbacombe” Lee, and five victims of the 1903 Iroquois Theatre Fire in Chicago.

All together, the guide lists 65 notable burials. Far too many to see during our hour jaunt through the property, but I managed to find a few, which as always is enough. I was especially interested in finding beer barons. A whole category for beer barons; that’s Milwaukee for you.

Valentin Blatz (1826-94).

Frederick Pabst (1836-1901).

The cenotaph of Joseph Schlitz (1831-75).

If I knew it, I’d forgotten that Schlitz died in the sinking of the SS Schiller off the Isles of Scilly on May 7, 1875. The ship is carved on the cenotaph.

Those three were among the largest memorials in the cemetery, but hardly the only striking ones.

I chanced across the stone memorializing company founder A.O. Smith.

As an industrial concern, A.O. Smith has experienced an interesting trajectory. Over the years, it has made bicycle parts, steel vehicle frames, bomb casings and other munitions for the World Wars, brewery tanks, water heaters, air conditioning components, boilers and more. It’s still headquartered in Milwaukee.

We noticed that the statue on top of the memorial of one Emil Schneider had toppled to the ground at some point recently.

The head and hands are missing. Go figure.

Toward the end of our walk, we noticed George Marshall Clark (1837-61), whose spanking new stone was dedicated only a few weeks ago, on the 160th anniversary of his lynching.

As I said, there was only time to see a small fraction of the notable burials. Among the others listed, I’d heard of a few that we didn’t see, such sausage king Fred Usinger, Gen. Billy Mitchell and insurance executive Edmund Fitzgerald, who lent his name to the ore carrier that famously sunk in Lake Superior in 1975.

Many more stones memorialize interesting people I’d never heard of, including Increase Lapham, see above. The world is full of such. That’s one reason to visit cemeteries, or at least those with useful guidebooks.

A selection, including slightly edited text provided by the guide:

Harrison C. Hobart (1815-1902). Union Gen. Hobart was captured at Chickamauga. Along with two other officers, he devised a plan to dig an escape tunnel, working in secret for months until 109 prisoners crawled to freedom.

Christopher L. Sholes (1819-90). Inventor of the QWERTY keyboard typewriter.

Georgia Green Stebbins (1846-1921). Stebbins was the keeper of the North Point Lighthouse for 33 years. Her father, Daniel Green, initially held the job, but was in ill health, so Stebbins unofficially performed his duties for seven years before being appointed to the position.

Xay Dang Xiong (1943-2018). Xiong was a Hmong veteran from Laos who risked his life in secrecy working with the CIA during the Vietnam War. He spent 16 years in the Royal Lao Army fighting in numerous battles while commanding 4,500 troops… Col. Xiong received a full military burial.

Carl Zeidler (1908-42). Elected mayor of Milwaukee in 1940, Zeidler requested a leave from his duties in 1942 to fight in WWII. He died six months later when his ship, the USS LaSalle, was torpedoed and everyone on board perished. Because his remains were never recovered, he was memorialized with a cenotaph. (His brother Frank Zeidler (1912-2006), three-term socialist mayor of the city, is also in the cemetery.)

Been There, Seen That

By Dees Stribling

Category Archives: US History