It’s time to continue heading west towards home in Montana as the clock is ticking and winter is coming. The weather has changed dramatically and though it is sunny in most of these pictures, the temperatures are in the low 40’s with wind chills in the low 30’s. The first part of our dash across Middle America begins in western Pennsylvania and heads into Indiana.
The route through Pennsylvania has roughly paralleled the Lincoln Highway, first transcontinental highway across the United States for automobiles, stretching from New York City to San Francisco and dedicated in 1913. The highway essentially followed dirt roads which in turn followed old native paths and climbs up and down the ridges of western Pennsylvania, often at grades of 9-10%.
The Lincoln Highway Association is committed to preserving the history of the highway and just southeast of Latrobe, PA, maintains a small museum called the Lincoln Highway Experience in an old roadhouse.
Lincoln Highway Experience
The museum includes two buildings, the first is the Johnston House, a residence, stagecoach stop, tavern, and now museum originally built in 1812. Attached to the south end of the Johnston House is a modern structure which houses the larger artifacts.
The first floor of the Johnston House contains displays explaining the history of the Lincoln Highway through a wide variety of artifacts. The room where an introductory video is viewed also contains an 1864 Grand Steinway piano.
A sample of displays includes one involving the history of license plates. New York State required license plates on all automobiles as early as 1901 but the plates were actually made by the owner. Massachusetts became the first state to require state-issued license plates in 1903. Early license plates where made of iron and covered with a porcelain enamel.
Early travelers experienced the new requirements of auto travel: gas stations and motels. The car in the picture is a restored 1937 Packard.
Roadside diners popped up, often in long buildings resembling railroad cars. This is a restored 1938 diner.
The hills of western Pennsylvania posed challenges for auto travelers and even earlier for the railroads that were expanding. The Pennsylvania Railroad expanded west in the mid 1800’s and in 1852 the town of Latrobe was platted along the railroad in the hills east of Pittsburgh.
Latrobe, PA
A location next to the railroad and nearby coal deposits lead to Latrobe becoming an early industrial hub. The remnants of the boom of the first part of the 20th century can be seen all around. The compact historical city center isn’t very busy the day I visited.
Latrobe is famous as the birthplace of Mr. Rogers, a TV icon known for his children’s show from 1968-2001. Mr. Roger’s “neighborhood” was just north of the downtown core. He was born in 1928 in the house on the left but lived most of his childhood just around the block at the house on the right.
A small park downtown honors Mr. Rogers with a bench where you can site and be his friend.
In addition to Mr. Rogers Latrobe is known as the birthplace of golfer Arnold Palmer and also is the home of the banana split! The first documented banana split was created by pharmacist apprentice David Strickler at Tassell’s Pharmacy in Latrobe in 1904. He’s also credited with designing the glass boat that his dish was served in.
Leaving Latrobe we swing south around the Pittsburgh metropolitan and enter the state of Ohio at the historic town of Steubenville. The road continues to twist in and around small hills and valleys as we approach the Ohio River.
A precipitous drop brings us down to the Ohio River at the town of Wellsboro, West Virginia. It’s hard to see the river in this picture but it is at the base of the cliffs in the background.
The highway snakes up the West Virginia side of the river until crossing over to Ohio at Steubenville. The river banks are lined with factories, some still active, some not.
Fort Steubenville, OH
The area west of the Ohio River began to be settled after the Revolutionary War. The government ordered that the land be surveyed preparatory to being sold and in 1786 the First American Regiment was sent to protect the surveyors and settlers. Major John Hamtramck and 150 soldiers arrived on the west bank of the Ohio River and built a fort as a winter quarters in October of 1786. The fort was only occupied for that winter and then the soldiers were dispersed throughout the new territories but the settlement that had begun to grow around the fort continued to thrive and was named Steubenville. Fort Steubenville has been reconstructed on the original site just adjacent to downtown Steubenville. A model of the reconstructed fort is in the visitor center and gives a picture of what we are about to walk through.
Once through the museum we enter the fort.
Just inside the gate the interior of the fort unfolds before our eyes.
Inside each of the major buildings a diorama has been created to explain the function of that building.
The view from the blockhouse on the river side of the fort is down across the Ohio River to the cliffs on the far side.
Looking back to the north the buildings of downtown Steubenville rise above the fort.
The first floor of each blockhouse housed soldiers. The 25 feet by 25 feet room was divided by a two-sided fireplace in the middle. 14 men were housed in each side, meaning that 14 men lived in a space 25 feet by 12.5 feet. It was cozy!
Continuing the tour clockwise around the fort is the blacksmith’s cabin.
From the front of the blacksmith’s cabin I look south to the blockhouse and beyond. The bridge in the background crosses from West Virginia to Ohio but I couldn’t take it as the steel trusses only give a height of 10 feet and the Lunch Box is 10 feet, 8 inches. I had to go a couple of miles further up the West Virginia side to a newer bridge to cross over to Steubenville.
The fourth side of the fort contained the officer’s quarters. The large building was divided into three parts: officer’s room on the left, parlor and eating area in the middle, kitchen and captain’s rooms on the right.
Definitely a well-constructed fort! Leaving Steubenville we strike out northwest across the Ohio hills. The hills begin to be separated by wider valleys, most of which were long ago cleared of the dense forest for farms.
The area around the small village of Berlin is the heart of Ohio Amish country. Tidy farms carpet the hills and along the highway is a constant stream of small businesses (especially Amish furniture and farm products) designed to attract tourists.
Occasionally a buggy passes by.
Millersburg is the county seat for the area and the clock tower of the county courthouse rises above the small village center.
The striking courthouse was completed in 1886.
The local Walmart is located in a more open area south of the village center. The design is the familiar blue and gray but if you look closely at the right side of the picture you’ll see the roof of a long shed not seen at Walmart’s elsewhere.
This is the center of Amish country and Walmart has built a buggy shed to accommodate Amish shoppers. The shed is empty at the moment but as I drive in front of the store there is ample evidence that I haven’t missed a buggy or two by much (look on the pavement beyond the crosswalk for some “horse apples”!)
Continuing southwest the rolling hills of central Ohio unfold all around.
While it is sunny, the temperature is 33 and the wind is howling. Not great weather for walking around Mt. Vernon, OH, so I skip the downtown area and head for the Ariel-Foundation Park southwest of the city center.
Ariel-Foundation Park
A number of heavy industries thrived in the 20th century in Mt. Vernon and one of those was a Pittsburgh Plate Glass (PPG) factory. PPG was founded in 1883 and quickly became the country’s largest producer of thick plate glass. The company diversified into other fields and in 2017 sold the last of its’ glass operations in order to concentrate on paints and coatings. PPG opened a plate glass factory in 1907 in Mt. Vernon and gradually expanded until the facility covered 70 acres. The Mt. Vernon plant closed in 1976 and the site fell into disrepair and decay. The city assumed ownership in 2012 and transferred ownership to the non-profit Foundation Park Conservancy which created the Ariel Foundation Park on the site. The park is dominated by the 280 feet tall chimney, now an observation tower. The Lunch Box huddles at the base of the chimney, my refuge from the brutal wind…
It was cold and windy as I climbed the tower to get views of the park (if it sounds like I am whining, I am, it was cold!) Ruins from the PPG buildings, sculptures from steel beams, and glass creations dot the park grounds that were once a polluted factory site.
A large open warehouse is now an event center.
If the weather had been better I would have explored more but as it was I jumped back in to the Lunch Box and turned west into Indiana. The hills are gone and the vista is of fields and corn stalks.
The bustling town of Crawfordsville, IN, is our next stop.
Crawfordsville, IN
Crawfordsville is a town of about 17,000 people and is the only chartered town in Montgomery County. It was founded in 1823 on the banks of Sugar Creek and prospered as the center of western Indiana farm country and home to Wabash College. We’re stopping here because it is also home to one of the first “rotary” jails in the United States and I’m curious! Downtown Crawfordsville is typically of towns that prospered in the late 1800’s.
The 1876 county courthouse dominates the compact city center.
Just down the street from the courthouse is the 1882 county jail and sheriff’s residence. The front of the structure housed the sheriff on the ground floor and later a matron for supervision of women on the second floor, the rear was the county jail. The jail was in use until 1973.
The sheriff’s residence was quite elegant in design. The front door opened into a stylish foyer with the parlor on the left.
When the building was constructed gas lights were installed throughout, later electricity was added. A unique chandelier in the parlor has both an electric candle and a gas lamp.
The parlor opens up to the dining room which opens directly into the jail (the door on the left.) The jail did also have a separate public entrance on the north side of the house.
The view into the jail from the dining room is into the jail lobby and sheriff’s desk. Note how thick the cell block wall is. Once inside I turn around and look back into the dining room.
The rear of the building housed a circular cell block which had eight wedge-shaped cells on each level of a two-story turntable. There was only one opening in the circular cage that contained the cells, the cell block was rotated and prisoners released one at a time.
On the second floor a catwalk surrounded the rotating jail cells to help with supervision, though there still was only one opening where the opening from the cell matched the opening in the surrounding cage.
The mechanism of the rotation was so finely built that the entire cylinder is turned by a hand crank! Leaving Crawfordsville our path now heads across Illinois to the town of Galesburg.
Galesburg, IL
Galesburg was founded in 1837 as the result of a rather unique plan to create what was then known as “manual labor colleges” in the Mississippi River Valley. George Washington Gale had developed the concept of a college built upon the foundational belief that academic endeavors were enhanced by manual labor. This also had the additional benefit of allowing men of limited means to attend college and provide the college with inexpensive labor. In 1836 Gale promoted a subscription- and land-purchase based plan for settlement in the area that would become Galesburg. Knox College opened in 1843 and from the beginning was a center for the anti-slavery movement. On October 7, 1858, Knox College was the site of the fifth debate between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas. The debate was held on the east side of “Old Main”, the oldest building on campus, completed in 1857 with the main entrance facing the southern green.
The back of Old Main, equally impressive, faces the 1886 Knox County Courthouse across a peaceful plaza.
A platform was built for the debate above the first floor windows on the east wall of Old Main, Lincoln and Douglas had to climb out of the second story windows to stand on the platform. A crowd of nearly 15,000 people spread out on the lawns east of Old Main to hear the men debate. Standing in what would have been the middle of the crowd I have the same view of the east façade as they would have had in 1858…
Old Main marks the northern edge of the Knox College campus and fronts a large green space to the south where the more modern buildings rise. Surrounding the central plaza are other buildings from the early years of the college.
A couple of blocks north of the college is the modern main street of Galesburg, a small city of around 33,000 people today.
While the college was an important contributor to the local economy, much of Galesburg’s growth during the 20th century can be attributed to its importance as a railroad center, sitting astride the main Chicago, Burlington and Quincy (CB&Q) railroad tracks between Chicago and St. Louis and home to a massive railyard. The railyard and multiple train tracks are still in use, running south of the city center and college campus, but just a shadow of what they would have looked like during the peak years. (A side note, my father worked for Burlington in Billings as a truck driver and both my brother and I can recall that he made several trips to Galesburg during the 1960’s for work-related purposes.)
One of the early railroad workers was a Swedish immigrant, August Sandburg. He raised his family in a modest three-room cottage south of the railroad tracks and here in 1878 famed poet and writer Carl Sandburg was born.
The visit to Galesburg wraps up my trip through the Rust Belt as the weather is turning and it’s time to run for home before the snow flies (though it already did when I was in Ohio!).
Next Up: Spring 2023 Somewhere Warm, I Hope!
Post a Comment