Every historic building has a story to tell
I like to “collect” buildings by type, and the historic, small town bank is one I am always excited to find. Most are no longer in service, and many are crumbling. But a few sparkle with renewed life, and the Farmer’s Bank Building, now a cafe, is a bright spot for the community of Smiths (read more)
My first trip through Union County, in Western Kentucky, occurred during a week of spring floods. Our plan to travel along small, meandering rural roads close to the river was often thwarted by standing water. Although our circuitous route missed the county seat of Morganfield, we did stop in the coal-mining town of Sturgis, established (read more)
Abandoned architecture is a hot item on social media – and serious business for some photographers and urban explorers. The ruins of this country, though, are much more recent than those of England (as are most things), with many fewer centuries of history and stories. I adore the historic architecture of America- but comparing the (read more)
A giant silver coffee pot on the side of the road possesses a certain sort of magic, almost certainly the power to encourage drivers to conduct a hasty U-turn to make sure that what they saw was, yes – a building shaped like an enormous coffee pot. The metal clad, round building, with an attached (read more)
It’s been a exhaustively hot summer in Kentucky this year. Although graced by the technology of central air conditioning, I’ve thought with longing about children’s books I read decades ago that described the decampment from urban cores to shady mountain retreats (I believe the Bobbsey Twins series even had a “fresh air camp for children” (read more)
I’ve never really considered Kentucky to be a purely southern state – one of the things I love most about this Commonwealth, in addition to its geographic contradictions, is its ability to defy categorization and labels. And after spending five days in Mobile, Alabama, I return to the Bluegrass thankful that we are not the (read more)
My first Frank Lloyd Wright experience was shortly after college, when my mother and I visited Fallingwater, the iconic house he designed for Edgar Kaufmann, and Wright’s nearby Kentuck Knob, both in rural southwest Pennsylvania. I’ve since returned to both sites, my enchantment with the architecture, site development, and every intricacy that Wright controlled not (read more)
Categories: Architecture, Historic Preservation, Landscapes, Other Places, Tourism
Tags: Fallingwater, Frank Lloyd Wright, Kentuck Knob, Prairie School, Taliesin, Wisconsin
Tourism – especially heritage tourism – can be a tough business for some communities. Small towns find their tourism dollars cut, if not eliminated, and spending money to highlight a town’s history might seem like a poor allocation of funds. I would argue the exact opposite, and there are many people who can quote the (read more)
Categories: Architecture, Historic Preservation, National Register of Historic Places, Other Places, Railroads, Theaters, Tourism, Virginia history
Tags: C&O Railway Heritage Center, Chesapeake and Ohio, Clifton Forge Virginia, CSX Railroad, Frye and Chesterman, Heritage Tourism, Historic Masonic Theatre
“I hear the train a comin’, It’s rolling ’round the bend…” The first two lines of “Folsom Prison Blues,” sung by Mr. Johnny Cash, not only brought the man in black fame, but it catapulted California’s second oldest prison into popular culture mythology.* There are no catchy mid-20th century songs about the 19th century stone (read more)
I’ve had some lovely times in pubs across Britain (I even remember some of them!) – a social occasion made richer, usually, by the building housing the pub. Towns and villages across Britain lay claim to a number of quirky, endearing buildings which accommodate public houses. The character of these buildings, for me, includes not (read more)
Categories: Architecture, England, London, Tourism
Tags: British Pubs, C.S. Lewis, Eagle and Child, Inklings, J.R.R. Tolkien, Lake District, Oxford, Pubs, writers
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