Historic Structures

Wrights Covered Bridge, Claremont New Hampshire

One of only eight remaining covered railroad bridges in the country. Wright's Bridge is structurally the most interesting of the four existing bridges built while Jonathan Parker Snow was bridge engineer at the Boston & Maine Railroad. The use of the arch, which is original here, effected modifications to the lattice design. Snow was an important advocate for wooden bridges into the early twentieth century. It was used as a railroad bridge until 1977 when the line was abandoned. The Concord & Claremont Railroad received a charter in 1848 for a line extending west-northwest from Concord to Bradford, Newport, and Claremont. Work was soon completed to Bradford, but financial and engineering difficulties prevented its further extension until the early 1870s. At that time a separate company (the Sugar River Railroad) was incorporated to finish the work as described in the original charter. Service was completed through Newport to Claremont by September 1872.

Trenton House Hotel, Trenton New Jersey

The Trenton House was one of Trenton's most famous and prestigious hotels in the 19th century, serving politicians in town for the work of the state legislature and travelers who arrived at the nearby railroad station. Transformed to a hotel from a Georgian-style residence in 1824, the Marquis de Lafayette stayed here duing his American tour of that year. In 1861 President-elect Abraham Lincoln was a guest at the Trenton House while traveling to his first inauguration. Lincoln was given a reception here, and he addressed crowds of citizens from the hotel balcony. The hotel was a gathering place for many other politicians during the 19th century, and the legend grew of the Trenton House's Room 100, where deals were made and political careers won 6r lost. The hotel was noted for the high quality of its rooms, service, and food. Additions and alterations to the hotel were made every few years in the latter 19th century to keep it up-to-date. The dining rooms and restaurants on the first floor continued to attract customers at the turn of the century, even as the hotel itself began to decline in the face of competition from newer establishments. The Trenton House kept its name for little over a century, but a 1927 change of ownership made it the Milner Hotel. The Depression years were hard on the business, and in 1941, the once-grand ground-floor spaces - the lobby, the billiard hall, and dining rooms were destroyed as the interior was carved up into fourteen small shops. Gradually, the upper floors of the building were abandoned, and by the 1970s, the old hotel was derelict.

Dunham's Department Store, Trenton New Jersey

Dunham's Department Store began as the Scudder and Dunham Dry Goods Store at 13 North Broad Street in 1883. The firm's success and growth made it Trenton's largest retailer by the 1930's, and it dominated this block of town in the mid-20th century.

The Wallach Building, Trenton New Jersey

Vicksburg and Brunswick Train Station, Eufaula Alabama

Railroads were part and parcel of the nation's nineteenth century industrial infancy. Antebellum Alabama planters envisioned railways exporting the region's agricultural commodities and simplifying trading between parts of the state divided by mountain ranges and unnavigable river routes. But railways grew slowly until state and regional leaders aggressively pursued industrialization after the Civil War. In the south, as historians Tom Terrill and William Cooper described, railroads formed the superstructure of the economy of the New South. They were the elemental precondition to better times. A railway mania swept the South after the Civil War, infecting politicians, businessmen, and potential railway laborers. Despite the war-related destruction, and with the help of northern capitol and government subsidies, by 1880 railroad mileage in the South doubled that in 1860, reaching 19,430 miles. Mileage tripled between 1880 and 1900 as railroads scaled mountains, transcended rivers, and thus made more land exploitable for agriculture, cattle, and industry. Alabama, with Georgia, Arkansas, and Texas, led the region in state aid to railroads and in new construction from 1865 to 1875. More than 300 companies operated lines in the South by 1890, but only 60 companies operated and owned up to 100 miles of track. Small companies, operating short stretches of track, provided the bulk of the region's railway network.

Troutman Building - First National Bank, Connellsville Pennsylvania

This building was the historic headquarters of the First National Bank of Connellsville and home to the Wright-Metzler Department Store. Wright-Metzler was eventually absorbed by the equally successful Troutman Department Store in 1925. The building was abandoned in the early 1980s. While historically known as the First National Bank Building, it was commonly referred to as the Troutman Building since 1949. According to The Daily Courier, of 8 June 1900, the initial scheme for the First National Bank Building was for a three story combination bank, office, and opera house. The newspapers describe the bank portion of the building as measuring 30'-0 x 85'-0 and the opera house measuring 66'-0 x 80'-0 feet. The exterior facings of the building were to be polished granite, white marble, and red Pompeiian brick. The building was to have a steel skeleton, making it as fireproof as possible. The interior of the banking hall was to be fitted with San Domingo mahogany cabinet work, marble wainscoting, marble counters, mosaic floor tiles, bronze metal screens, and ornamental plaster work. The upper floors were to be designed with interconnecting offices accessible from a separate entrance vestibule and stair. The plumbing and waste systems in the building were considered the most advanced for the day. The building was to be lit by both gas and electricity.

Magnolia Hotel, Seguin Texas

The original building, constructed of an early type of concrete, was built in 1846; the builder is unknown. At a somewhat later date the concrete structure was bought by a Doctor Read, who in all probability added much of the frame structure as it exists today. Down thru the years the hotel was operated by several different families, and it is generally supposed that as the business grew, the hotel was enlarged. In the days prior to the advent of the Southern Pacific railroad, a stage stand vras operated in conjunction with the hotel.

Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Train Station, Laurel Maryland

The Baltimore & Ohio was the first railroad line constructed in this country for both freight and passenger service on a comprehensive scale. Construction began in 1828 and by 1830 the first 15-mile section, running from Baltimore to Ellicott's Mills (Ellicott City), Maryland, was complete. The Washington Branch of the B&O, completed in 1835, came from the Baltimore line through Prince George's County and into Washington. It entered Prince George's in Laurel and continued in a southwesterly direction, carrying passengers and freight on to Beltsville, College Park, Riverdale and Hyattsville. The Laurel station was designed by Baltimore architect E. Francis Baldwin. John w. Garrett, then president of the B&O Railroad, hired Baldwin in the mid-1870s to design a number of stations as well as the B&O's new headquarters building. He designed at least thirty railroad stations along the B&O, probably beginning with the Point of Rocks station in 1875. His designs reflected the picturesque Queen Anne style, popular during this period. Despite similar floor plans and basic functions, no two designs were exactly alike. Both the Laurel and the Hyattsville stations were erected from Baldwin designs in 1884. Baldwin also is known to have designed stations at Branchville, Riverdale and Beltsville. The Laurel station, however, is the only Washington Branch station extant (Harwood).

Missouri Pacific-Texas Railroad Train Station, Alexandria Louisiana

In 1882 the Texas and Pacific Railroad Co. received the franchise for the Texas to New Orleans line of the New Orleans Pacific Railroad Co. and on September 11 of that year, the first regular service between New Orleans and Shreveport was established. This service was followed by five other lines connecting Alexandria to various locals in Louisiana, Texas and Arkansas. With the establishment of these lines, the lumber industry in central Louisiana, which was basically a sleeping giant, gained considerable momentum, bringing Alexandria to the brink of its so called golden age. Many Northern lumbermen came to Alexandria to capitalize on this new wealth in wood. By the last decade of the century, visible signs of this new railroad-based economy began to appear: 1888 saw the opening of the town's first bank since the Civil War and the first large lumber mill was established by two Pennsylvania natives -Mr. Joseph A. Bentley of Hotel Bentley fame and Mr. Zimmerman.

Kenworthy Hall - Carlisle-Martin House, Marion Alabama

In February of 1858, Edward Kenworthy Carlisle acquired 200 acres, encompassing the gentle rise between two small creeks, with a fresh natural spring at the base of the hill. Many of his relatives owned land and lived in plantation houses in the area, and since 1843 Carlisle had lived in a one-story brick dwelling on land that he purchased, located in the neighboring section of the township. After that date he slowly began to acquire lands around the present site of Kenworthy Hall, eventually amassing approximately 440 acres by the time he deeded the property to his wife in 1867. Carlisle wrote his first letter to Richard Upjohn on May 4th, 1858, inquiring about ideas and terms for designing a country house. Carlisle saw an image of his future house, however, in mid-March of the same year, when his brother-in-law, Leonidas N. Walthall, shared the Richard Upjohn design he chose not to build and suggested it as a possible design for Carlisle. Walthall was so well pleased with Upjohn's services and gentlemanly manner that he apparently tried to encourage many of his neighbors to engage R. Upjohn & Co. as their architect. I have a friend who is preparing to build a house, Walthall wrote in March, 1858. I think the design No. 2 which you sent me would suit him exactly. The correspondence shows that the official planning stages for the house took place from May, 1858 until into early 1859, when letters continued to discuss details about the villa's design even as supplies began to arrive the long route from New York to Carlisle's building site near Marion. On September 1st, 1858, Carlisle expressed his concern at not yet finding a builder for his house so late in the year and estimated when each stage might be completed. But now late in the season and not more than the foundations can be done before the fall and winter rains commence, he wrote. So the brick work will be mostly put up next spring and the early part of the summer, he calculated, but all this depends on the contract when one [is] made. By November 4th he had engaged a builder and wrote to Upjohn that the foundation now laid off and work to commence, marking the official beginning of Kenworthy Hall's construction. The available Carlisle to Upjohn correspondence ends abruptly in December, 1859, but letters exchanged between Robert Jemison, building an Italianate villa in Tuscaloosa designed by John Stewart, formerly of the Philadelphia architectural firm of Sloan and Stewart, and Philip Bond, a master brick mason who supervised the brickwork for Kenworthy Hall, shows that Bond expected to complete his work in Marion by early June, 1860. The house's design, construction, and convenience characteristics also reflect the era in which it was built, including gas lighting, massive newel posts, and circular sawn exposed timbers in the attic.

John Stetson Hat Company, Philadelphia Pennsylvania

The Stetson Company began manufacturing hats in Philadelphia in 1865. John B. Stetson moved production to the site on Germantown Avenue in 1874. Stetson died in 1906, but the firm he founded continued to flourish for many years thereafter, finally ceasing operations on the site in 1971. The plant at one time employed over 5,000 people and contained a total of about 1,400,000 square feet of floor space in its buildings. It was then (circa 1920) the largest hat factory in the world. There were only two American hat-making centers in Colonial times, Danbury, Connecticut, and Orange, New Jersey. The Stetsons settled in Orange, New Jersey, and it was there that John B. Stetson was born in 1830. After learning his trade in his father's hat manufactory in Orange, the younger Stetson started a small plant of his own in Philadelphia in 1865, and moved to the Germantown Avenue location in 1874.

Sand Key Lighthouse, Sand Key Florida

This is one of the most important lights on the coast of the United States. It was first lighted on July 20, 1853, and is the second oldest of the six iron screw pile light houses which extend from Fowey Rocks to Sand Key to mark off-shore keys, shoals, and reefs which are hazardous to coastal shipping. It is the only one of these lights not standing entirely in water. The original brick conical tower, keeper's quarters, dock, etc., were completely destroyed in the hurricane of 18U6. A light ship was stationed here until 1853, when the iron work tower was completed. J.W.P. Lewis who designed this tower was one of the most noted American designers of lighthouses. Lt. George B. Meade, in charge of the construction, was also responsible for Carysfort Light. Ten years later he was in command of the Union forces at Gettysburg.

Longacres Park Horse Track, Renton Washington

The development of Longacres began June 23, 1933, when successful Seattle real estate investor Vinson Joseph Gottstein signed a ten-year lease option for 101 acres of the James Nelson dairy farm in the Green River Valley. In anticipation of the project, Gottstein had organized the Washington Jockey Club earlier that spring. From the newly-formed Washington Horse Racing Commission, he secured a 40-day racing season to commence on August 3rd, and hired architect B. Marcus Priteca to begin preliminary design work. Priteca's earliest extant drawing for the project is a site plan of the Nelson farm parcel, dated June 21, 1933. Subsequent drawings for the initial phase of development date from June 30 through July 18, overlapping several weeks of actual construction work in July. To meet the August 3rd deadline, construction proceeded at a pace remarkable even by the standards of that era. Twentyeight days from the first shipment of lumber to the site, the track was completed. A plentiful force of willing labor, made possible by widespread Depression unemployment, allowed work to continue into the night. Despite one serious downpour, construction remained on schedule.3 On opening day, August 3, 1933, Longacres boasted a freshly painted red and silver grandstand, a two-story clubhouse with open verandas, a paddock, a jockey's building, and various smaller structures. Across the sandy racing oval and its undeveloped infield was an orderly backstretch complex of some 40 stables.

Bethlehem Train Station, Bethlehem Pennsylvania

This one and one-half story brick mansard roofed station with canopy skirt supported by elaborate brackets on all four sides stands on the north side of the Central Railroad of New Jersey tracks in Bethlehem. One room deep by four long, bilaterally symetrical with a central telegrapher's bay, it sports elaborate bracketed cornices at both top and bottom of the mansard faces and barge board with crossed timbers, florals, and stars in the eaves at its central cross gable. Built in 1873. The Bethlehem Jaycees leased the station in 1962 from the railroad and restored it as a restaurant with the consulatlon of Charles H. Bauber, AIA, (Newark, NJ) . Between 1977 and 1979, it was subleased by the operators of Train's Inn Restaurant, an operation that went bankrupt in August 1979.

Spring Villa House, Opelika Alabama

William Penn Yonga built this home and was the original owner. He was his own architect. After a trip to California, during the gold rush, Penn Yonge settled on a beautiful piece of wooded land, near a little village named for his family, Yongesborough. At first he must have lived in a log cabin. But later he built a more pretentious home on his wooded plantation, near a very fine spring.

Henry Ford Plantation, Richmond Hill Georgia

Henry Ford, the great American industrialist, first visited the Savannah area in 191 7. In that year, Ford explored the Georgia coast and Ogeechee River by yacht with his close friend and famous naturalist, John Burroughs. By that time, Henry Ford was a household name for the great automobile dynasty he founded in Detroit, Michigan. He was also the world's first billionaire. On occasion, Henry Ford, John Burroughs, Harvey Firestone, and Thomas Edison subsequently took camping trips up the Ogeechee River and elsewhere.

Muscogee Manufacturing Company Mill, Columbus Georgia

In 1844 the Coweta Falls Factory, the first textile mill within the Columbus city limits, went into operation at the site of the present Muscogee Manufacturing Company. Major John H. Howard and Josephus Echols built the Coweta Falls mill on the northernmost of 37 water lots set aside for private developers by the city of Columbus. Water Lot 1 cost the developers $3,500; mill construction costs totalled $6,000. Contemporary newspapers described the mill as a 75 x 48 foot, five-story brick structure with, a tin roof. A mill bell in the belfry atop the roof called the hands to work. A dam, built by Howard and Echols just north of the mill, diverted water into a power canal which ran to water lots 1 through 29. The canal served several other ante-bellum mills, including the Howard-Factory and the Eagle Manufacturing Company. Power was transmitted hydromechanically to the 1,100 spindles and 20 looms in the Coweta Falls mill.

Dey Mansion, Preakness New Jersey

Dirck Dey, the third generation of the family in America, settled in Preakness as early as 1707. He bought the land upon which this house stands on October 9, 1717. Dirck built the present house about 1740. However it is possible that he left the completion of the residence to his son Theunis. Dirck was a freeholder of Bergen County and a member of the New Jersey Assembly from 1748 - 1752. It is thought that the east wing of the house was the part built by Dirck Dey. He gave this building to his son Colonel Theunis Dey who added the west wing with the 12 foot hall. This place has also been called Bloomsburg Manor. There are several letters from Esther or Hester Dey, daughter of Colonel Dey, that were thus headed.

Cavalier Jouet Mansion - The Old Chateau Elizabeth New Jersey

Stone-Young Plantation, Burkville Alabama

The Stone-Young Plantation, located about seven miles from Montgomery is one of the finest examples of an old southern plantation home, (The slave quarters and minor buildings which were quite extensively and widely known were destroyed by fire in the late 1920s. The old mansion, oat kitchen and smoke house offer an outstanding example of work done during this period along the more pretentious line. The main house is of brick stuccoed, with markings imitating stone and two storied - portico on the front, small one story wings at the rear with minor porches on the respective fronts. The house is magnificent in its proportions and an exceptionally fine example of the Greek Revival. The detail of the front entrance, with balcony over it, the front and side porches, the flat parapet, the iron grills and railing, the interior trim and stair are all done in a way which is typical and expressive of the finest work done during this period. The usual block plan with the square rooms on each corner and.the wide hall is followed here. The outside kitchen and smoke house are of brick with hipped roofs and are extremely pleasing in their proportions and simplicity. This house with the pollard house and the Loretta Academy, which are very close parallels, offers an outstanding example for record and study of this period. The foundations of the house are briex; floors are of pine boards; exterior walls are stucco over brick marked off to imitate stone, the interior walls are plaster over wooden laths, the roof is of metal with standing seams.