Recap of an American Roadtrip, part 1
a complicated, contentious, and long-drawn-out process of racial desegregation and gender integration
...in which we find out what's happening these days at the sites of last week's boring postcards!
Ralfroy Motel
2½ miles east of Boise’s Business District on Highways 30 and 20
BATTLE OF PIQUA MARKER
The Battle of Piqua Marker is still there. It commemorates a series of skirmishes in which
the Shawnees and their British Allies were defeated by General George Rogers Clark with his army of Kentucky Frontiersmen. This battle greatly advanced the cause of the American Revolution on the Western Front.This isn't exactly false, but the "British Allies" seem to be a guy who had a store that the Shawnee liked to shop at. And sure, Piqua was the most important battle of the "Western Front," but to the extent that it had "fronts," the American Revolution was all Eastern Front, right?
Well, whatever. The monument was erected in 1953, so the little kids in the first picture are likely in their early 70s today. I wonder if they ever knew they were on a postcard.
There is as much information about the marker as you could possibly want at the Historical Marker Database, from which I borrowed this nice photograph taken by Dale K. Pennington. I think the marker looks kind of sweet poking out of its little bed of Echinacea.
LANIER BOYS’ HIGH SCHOOL, MACON, GA.
The building shown in the postcard also no longer exists. It was burned down by hooligans in April 1967. I can't figure out exactly where it stood. But the building of its one time counterpart for girls, Miller High, still exists as an attractive abandoned ruin near the current Central High Campus.
FLAGSHIP HOTEL
I don't know about you, but if someone came to me seeking investment for a big hotel built on stilts over the Gulf of Mexico in Galveston, my first question would be, "but wouldn't it get beat to hell by every passing hurricane?" And the answer would be yes. Yes, it would.
That's a photo after 1983's Hurricane Alicia, but it was 2008's Hurricane Ike that finally shut the Flagship down. And so it is that the Flagship Hotel no longer exists.
On its old pilings, the Galveston Island Historic Pleasure Pier now stands. It is a prefabricated version of an old-fashioned tourist boardwalk, and it looks to be the very epitome of "pleasure" as envisaged by a ten year old boy hopped up on cotton candy and high fructose corn syrup.
It, too, will be beat to hell by every passing hurricane, but it will be much, much cheaper to repair.
American Falls of Niagara under illumination.
5 comments:
Well! The Battle of Piqua marker is nowhere near the city of Piqua, but it is actually quite close to the area where I lived in elementary school! Who knew? I see a Springfield road trip in the works, also taking in the Westcott House, a Frank Lloyd Wright home from 1904, and Hartman Rock Garden http://www.hartmanrockgarden.org/learn.html
I believe that the city of Piqua is where the people of Piqua moved to after losing the battle of Piqua.
> but to the extent that it had "fronts," the American Revolution was all Eastern Front, right?
I like that Spain, a US ally at the time, romped around the Midwest, coming up the Mississippi to St. Louis and on through Illinois and even into Michigan, taking a British fort there.
Apparently, as a result of these things, Spain sought to acquire this region from Britain when the war was over. But the US and Britain seemed to agree "screw Spain", gave them nothing and promptly forgot all about Spain's role in the war.
Hello. And Bye.
Hello! Bye!
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