October 2020 – Gardens to Gables

October 25, 2020

A few years ago, I started an occasional series aimed at looking behind the perfection of the façade of a historic house. Sometimes the story that is told by the backside of a building varies greatly from the staid front! In 1939, Frances Benjamin Johnston, an American photographer, captured beautiful black and white images of (read more)

Categories: Alabama architecture, Other Places

Tags: #bartonhall, #francesbenjaminjohnston, #greekrevival, #nationalhistoriclandmark

October 12, 2020

At the beginning of the 20th century, the Grayson County School Board embarked on an ambitious school building campaign across the west-central Kentucky county. Around 100 one-room schools were ultimately constructed, serving schoolchildren in scattered, small, rural communities. One of the survivors is the one-story, 30-foot long Walnut Grove School, built in 1911. Since my (read more)

Categories: Grayson County, Schools

Tags: Kentucky one-room schools, one-room school

October 7, 2020

Twenty years can really change a person – or a building. As to the former, I think I would barely recognize the me of 20 years ago (and that’s not a bad thing!). Searching for a house documented two decades ago is often a desolate task culminating too often with the notation “no longer extant.” (read more)

Category: Clay County

Tags: Oneida Baptist Institute, T-plan, vernacular Kentucky architecture

October 5, 2020

The first (and maybe last!) time I felt joyful and excited about filling a car up for gas was during high school. I drove a light blue Ford Tempo that I christened Buffy, and like most teenagers at the time, I loved the freedom of being able to drive. Even spending my hard-earned dollars to (read more)

Categories: Bell County, Historic Filling Stations

Tags: Filling station, historic gas station, Kentucky roadside architecure

October, 2020

Back(stories): The Cunningham Plantation (Barton Hall), Colbert County, Alabama

Walnut Grove School, Grayson County, Kentucky

T-plan House, Oneida, Clay County, Kentucky

Historic Gas Station, Pineville, Bell County, Kentucky

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