John T. Beasley Building - Citizens Gas & Fuel Company, Terre Haute Indiana
The Citizens Gas & Fuel Company Building is directly associated with the development of utilities in the midwest, and with the use of gas for lighting, heat and cooking. Gas light illumination moved slowly westward across the Appalachians, from its first installation in Baltimore in 1817. By 1848, when Washington DC saw its first gas light company organized, demonstrations of the new marvel had been held in the midwest, in such metropolises as St. Louis, Dayton and Cincinnati. Only five years later, in 1853, the Terre Haute Gas Light Company received its city charter, although it would be three years more before the community could claim to be an illuminated city. Terre Haute in the nineteenth century was a small town with big ambitions. The railroads had come through in 1852, the Wabash & Erie canal ran north to Lafayette and south to Evansville and the National Road (now Wabash Avenue) was the highway to the far west. Even though, according to the 1850 census, the population was only a little over four thousand people, several intrepid local entrepreneurs planned a gas works which would serve nearly 50,000 inhabitants. The original plant, which was under construction in the summer of 1855, was built by a Mr. Bickwell of Philadelphia at a reported cost of $40,000. Like most town gas companies, Terre Haute Gas Light Company manufactured coal gas, storing it in a large gas holder at the plant, and distributing it to customers through gas mains of between three and six inches in diameter. Meters recorded the amount drawn down by each user. When the community was first lit up with gas, in 1856, between 14 and 15 miles of gas lines had been laid, 329 street lamps were illuminated and between eight and nine hundred meters had been installed. The farsighted planners had, from the beginning, looked forward to the community's growth and development. The advantages of gas-lit city streets were proudly proclaimed by the local paper in October of that first year of light: Lighting our streets with gas has commenced. Night walking will soon be brilliant.
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Andalusia Mansion - Nicholas Biddle Estate, Andalusia Pennsylvania
The house is the work of Thomas U. Walter, architect of the Capitol Dome in Washington, D.C. He enlarged a smaller and earlier house to create this Greek Revival masterpiece. The house is one of the finest examples of the temple form in the country, and is one of the few country seats left which still has its out buildings. The architect's client and the owner of the house was Nicholas Biddle, the president of the Second Bank of the United States. In 1795, John Craig, a Philadelphia merchant with business connections in the Old World, purchased land that had been used as a farm. In l8ll Nicholas Biddle married the Craigs' daughter, Jane, and acquired Andalusia.
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Indiana Hotel, Hammond Indiana
The original incorporated (1883) town of Hammond evolved to the north and south of the Grand Calumet River, expanding outward from settler Hohman's cabin (1851). The western boundary has always been the Illinois state line. Hohman was one of the earliest settlers in this area. In the 1880s there had been pressure from the Post Office to establish a name for the town. According to Harold Hammond, (the grandson of Thomas Hammond, brother to George Hammond who had started the first meat-packing plants in Hammond) there was a coin toss between Marcus M. Towle (Towle founded a residential-industrial area that would become part of Hammond) and Thomas Hammond at Four Corners (State and Hohman) to decide the name of the town. Hammond won, and succeeded Towle as Hammond's second Mayor, in May 1888 for two consecutive terms.
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Fisher-Fallgatter Flour Mill, Waupaca Wisconsin
In 1884, Robert N. Roberts and Samuel T. Oborn built the Crescent Mills in Waupaca, a community established on the banks of the Waupaca River in the Southwest corner of Waupaca County, Wisconsin. With the assistance of a millwright from Neenah, the two men erected a three-story frame flour mill and they cut a channel across the neck of a small loop in the Waupaca River enabling water to flow beneath their mill to drive turbine-powered machines. Roberts and Oborn built their mill during a period of revolutionary change in the technology of the flour milling industry and they were able to install the latest in flour milling equipment. Today, the Crescent Mill stands intact, although with expansion, renovation and several changes of ownership, the name has been changed to the Fisher-Fallgatter Mill. After eighty-five continuous years of producing flour for the state and nation, the mill was shut down in 1969.
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Summers Plantation, Opelika Alabama
The land on which the house is located was deeded to a Creek Indian named Sphiyike by the United States Government around 1832. Sphiyike sold it to Nat Macon Thornton on April 3, 1834, who in turn sold it to William Long on April 16, 1837. Shortly after purchasing the property, Long constructed the core section of the house. Before the Civil War he lost his wife and some children, who are buried near the house. On September 28, 1869, he sold the property to John Summers (1844-1896) and his wife, Rebecca Lenora McClendon of West Point, Georgia. Summers added three bedrooms, a large central hall, and a kitchen connected to the breezeway. John and Rebecca Summers and their eight children had a prosperous plantation which included cotton, wheat, corn, cattle, a blacksmith shop, and a store. After Rebecca Summers died on January 11, 1926, the house was occupied by her daughter, Berta Summers. In the spring of 1954, she sold the house to Arthur W. Cooper and his wife Dorothy Summers Cooper, granddaughter of John and Rebecca Summers. The house was used for storage until 1988 when the Coopers started restoring the building.
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Owen Plantation House, Bessemer Alabama
Like the nearby Saddler House, the Owen House is a fine example of an important folk house type in 19th Century Alabama. The two story frame structure with an unenclosed central hall or dogtrot is a common variation of what is generally called an I house, and represented a high economic and social status. Constructed during the late 1830's by Thomas H. Owen, the house reflects a taste for elegance in the wainscotting which is painted to resemble marble, the shiplapped wall treatment and paneled box columns of the front porch, and the finely executed mantels. In 1833, the same year that he married Mellissa Saddler, Thomas Owen purchased several acres of land along the Eastern Valley Road and built a small, two-room house. By 1838, he had enlarged his land holdings and begun construction on a larger and finer house. The Owen family was one of the early pioneer families in Jefferson County, having arrived in 1816 from South Carolina, and like the other members of his family, Thomas Owen devoted much of his time to his community and church. A devout Methodist, he was one of the founders of the Pleasant Hill Methodist Church and was instrumental in the establishment of the Pleasant Hill Academy, one of the leading educational institutions in early Jefferson County. In addition to his plantation, Owen operated a small general store in Jonesboro.
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Hampton Mansion, Towson Maryland
The tract of land on which Hampton Mansion was built had been acquired in 1735 by Colonel Charles Ridgely (1702-1772) from Clement and Ann Hill. The 1500 acre tract, Northampton, had been inherited by Ann Hill from her father, Henry Darnall, who had patented it in 1695. The land, in the Gunpowder River valley of Baltimore County, formed the nucleus of the Ridgely holdings which at one time totaled more than 24,000 acres. Captain Charles Ridgely (1729-1790), Colonel Ridgely's son and for whom Hampton Mansion was built, inherited the property in 1772 after his father's death. The Captain died July 28, 1790, six months after Hampton Mansion traditionally was completed. His wife, Rebecca Dorsey Ridgely (1739-1812), according to his will had the option to retain eight acres and the house in which she and Captain Ridgely lived prior to the completion of the mansion, probably the Overseer's House, or the mansion and 300 acres.
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Thames River Railroad Bridge - Groton Bridge, New London Connecticut
The national railway network that was to be one of the critical catalysts in the industrialization of the United States was largely completed between 1840 and 1880. Most early railroads were short lines that attempted to tap economic resources of the hinterlands of cities. By the second quarter of the 19th century, cities east of the Mississippi, particularly those in the northeast, began to build longer lines and consolidate shorter ones to tie them more closely together. The New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad provides an excellent example of how railroad systems were created and how they advanced transportation technology, including movable bridges, with their economic power. The New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad was first formed by a consolidation of the Hartford and New Haven Railroad Company with the New York & New Haven Company, when the two railroads entered into a partnership agreement. The capital was divided, and the New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad was established on August 6, 1892. Lengthy and intricate patterns of acquisiton were common to railroading in the late 19th century. Empires were created as well as monopolies on the transportation of goods. The peak growth years of the American railroads were the early 1900s and, of those, the teens (1911-1919) were the final surge. The decline of the railroads after those years was due partly to the excesses of transportation monopolies in the last quarter of the 19th century and partly to a combination of rising costs and competition from other modes of transportation.
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Joint High School, Rochester Indiana
The original name of Joint High School is from the joint agreement between the City of Rochester School System and Rochester Township to form one high school. Rochester High School was started in 1874 in Central School, which was across Pontiac Street and was commissioned by the State Board of Education on December 16, 1884. By 1912, there was a need for more classrooms and laboratories which made the construction of a new high school necessary. The school board spent several years working on developing a plan for the new structure. These efforts included visiting other schools in other cities, examining plans, and hiring an Indianapolis architect, Charles E. Bacon, to perfect the plans. City school board members were Mr. True, Mr. Leonard, and Mr. Copeland. The township trustee was Mr. Wylie and his advisory board was Mr. Kline, Mr. Matthias, and Mr. Rogers. These men are given credit for providing a building the community really needed.
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Charles Major School, Shelbyville Indiana
The school was constructed on the former site of the Shelbyville Seminary. Although the seminary could have remained on the site when the new building was constructed, it was not practical. The seminary was constructed in 1822 with another building added in 1855. The new school building, constructed in 1922, was named after Charles Major, a local author of childrens' books. A statue depicting a young boy from one of Major's books, The Bears of Blue River, was placed outside of the main entrance of the school. It has since been moved to the Town Square. The original building was constructed in 1922; an addition was built in 1949. The addition was constructed to replicate the original portion of the building. There has been some alteration to the windows on the rear facade, and all of the doors have been modernized. A 2-story arched window and two oriel windows have been infilled on the southwest facade.
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Indiana National Bank Building, Indianapolis Indiana
After a fire on 18 Sept. 1895 that destroyed the bank's quarters, the directors commissioned D. A. Bohlen and Son, Architects, to design a new building. Oscar D. Bohlen of the architectural firm and bank president Volney T. Mallott went to New York City to look at banks. Construction began 1 Feb. 1896. The building was occupied on 12 Jan. 1897. The building was designed in the Classic style and was fireproof. The exterior was of Indiana oolitic limestone, carved by H. R. Saunders, sculptor. The interior was finished in white Italian marble. The dimensions were given as 128 feet long, 63 feet wide, and 36 feet high. It is interesting to note that The American Architect and Building News carried drawings by Marsh, Israels and Harder, architects, titled Competitive (Unsuccessful) Design..., dated 1895. This plan centers on a circular, domed rotunda, quite different from the rectangular banking chamber of Bohlen's design. A competition, then, preceded the award of the commission to D. A. Bohlen and Sons.
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Union Pacific Railroad Depot, Kelso California
Construction of the railway line between Salt Lake City and Los Angeles, via Las Vegas, began in 1901 with the formation of the San Pedro, Los Angeles, and Salt Lake Railroad Company by prominent Senator Williams Andrews Clark. In 1902, half of the railroad's stock was acquired by the Union Pacific Railroad, which was looking for an outlet to the California coast from its terminus in Ogden, Utah. The line opened for business on 1 May 1905. In 1916, the company shortened its name to the Los Angeles and Salt Lake Railroad. In 1921, the Union Pacific Railroad bought the remainder of the railroad's stock from Senator Clark, although it continued to use the LA & SL RR name until 1988. The settlement at Kelso began in April 1904 as a tent camp for the railroad construction crew, known as Siding No. 16. By 1906, several warehouses, as engine shed, a lunchroom with attached sleeping quarters, and a small wood frame depot had been constructed. The settlement was renamed Kelso after one of the camp's warehousemen. Kelso became an important railroad town both because of its location as a helper station where trains could take on an additional locomotive for climbing the Cima grade to the east, as well as because local wells provided a reliable source of water for refueling steam locomotives.
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Montgomery County Jail, Crawfordsville Indiana
Designed by architect E.J. Hodgson and built by Hinkley and Norris in 1882, the Montgomery County Jail was an unusual experiment in penal engineering: a cylindrical cage which rotated around a central axis. The Montgomery County Jail is the oldest of six human squirrel cages, lazy susan jails, or rotary jails built in the midwest, and used a rotary system patented by W.H. Brown, S.F. Haugh, and John L. Ketcham. The rotary system proved dangerous in operation, but it represented in theory an attempt to use 19th century engineering methods to solve current social problems. In 1882 the idea of employing a circular design in prison architecture was not new. In his treatise on prison reform, The Penopticon, Jeremy Bentham suggested a circular prison, and in 1791 he designed a circular prison with stationary cells built into an exterior wall. In 1800 Benjamin F. Latrobe modified Bentham's idea of a circular prison in the design used for the state prison in Richmond, Virginia.
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Bells Ford Covered Bridge, Seymour Indiana
In 1834, Indiana's first covered bridge was built on the National Road near Straughn. Historians estimate that at least 600 covered wooden bridges were built in Indiana. Over time, most of these bridges were lost to floods, replacement, neglect or arson. In 1930, when the Indiana Historical Society and the Indiana Highway Department formed the Covered Timber Bridge Committee to document the state's surviving covered bridges, there were less than 200 remaining. Today, there are ninety covered bridges in Indiana. The Bells Ford Bridge is the only surviving combination Post truss bridge in the United States. It symbolizes the significant role railroads played in the development of bridge truss technology in the mid-nineteenth century. It is an excellent example of the work of McNairy Claflen & Company of Cleveland, Ohio, an important nineteenth century bridge fabricating firm.
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Lembeck and Betz Eagle Brewery, Jersey City New Jersey
The Lembeck & Betz Eagle Steam Ale Brewery was founded by Henry F. Lembeck, a businessman from Jersey City, and John Betz, a beer brewer from New York City. Betz was the son of John F. Betz, the first German ale brewer in America, who operated the John Betz brewery in Philadelphia. It was in his father's brewery that John Betz learned his trade. Lembeck operated a grocery store in New York City which he moved to Jersey City. At some point in time, Lembeck was a sales agent of John Betz Ale and made the acquaintance of the younger John Betz. In 1868, Lembeck and Betz formed a partnership to build a brewery, which they named the Lembeck & Betz Eagle Steam Ale Brewery. In 1869, they completed construction of a four-story brick brew house on Ninth Street between Grove and Henderson Streets in Jersey City, New Jersey, and opened for business. As the business grew during the 1870s, the brew house was expanded with additions to the east and to the rear, the addition of another story to the main building, and changes to the facade. By 1879, Lembeck & Betz produced 31,532 barrels of beer, ranking it third among the 57 breweries in New Jersey which together produced nearly 520,000 barrels annually. One of the main factors in choosing the site was the availability of good industrial land located adjacent to a branch line of the Erie Railroad which ran down Tenth Street. Bulk commodities moved by rail, and the Erie provided direct rail connections to upstate New York, the primary source of hops and malt for beer making. Naturally, the close rail line also facilitated the delivery of coal, building materials, and equipment necessary for the continued operation and expansion of the plant. The 1928 Hopkins map shows a rail siding coming down Tenth Street and entering the complex between the Bottling House and the Original Brew House. The date of the building of this siding was not determined. By 1893, Lembeck & Betz were obtaining malt via the Erie Railroad from Lembeck's malt house in Watkins, New York. The H.F. Lembeck and Co. malt house fronted on Seneca Lake and was the principal feature of the town. Following the incorporation of the brewery, the ownership of the malt houses came under the corporation. To what degree the railroad was used for transport of the finished product is not known. Presumably the majority of the beer was delivered to homes and taverns by the company's horse-drawn wagons. By 1893, the company owned 72 horses, 24 new beer trucks, and 12 ale trucks.
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Beechwood - Isaac Kinsey House, Milton Indiana
The Kinsey house and farm complex were constructed during 1871-73, and designed by Richmond architect Joel Stover, his only known extant work in Indiana. The two-story High Victorian Italianate residence is distinguished by polygonal side hays, and an ornamental entry porch, delicately detailed in wrought-iron, with a main doorway completely framed by an arch of square stone blocks with beveled edges and embossed panels. Articulating the hip roof is a deep denticulated cornice braced with elaborate decorative brackets. A rectangular cupola trimmed at the eaves with sheet-metal brackets and cresting crowns the main roof. The house is adjoined by a dairy house and smoke house, and eleven additional outbuildings stand on the property. Isaac Kinsey (1821-1896) was a prominent farmer and industrialist in Wayne County during the second half of the 19th century. The eldest son and the fourth of nine children of Oliver and Sarah Kinsey, Isaac was born May 19, 1821 in Chester County, Pennsylvania.
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Central of Georgia Railway Station, Savannah Georgia
The Central of Georgia Railroad was organized in 1833 and by 1850 had outgrown its original facilities in Savannah. Trackage increased from 190 miles in 1843 to 527 miles by 1855. To meet these demands, William M. Wadley, then Superintendent, conceived a plan for a comprehensive, integrated complex, including passenger and freight depots and shops for the construction and repair of locomotives and rolling stock. When completed in 1855, the Central's facility was described in Zerah Colburn's New York Railroad Advocate as the most complete and elegant railroad station in the country. The construction of the passenger depot building is an illustration of the impact of the events of April 1861 on the industry of the South. Begun in 1860, the completion of the head house was interrupted by the Civil War. It stood unfinished for over fifteen years, gradually decaying until 1874 when the railroad was finally able to resume construction on the station. By that time, much of the timber framing had deteriorated and had to be replaced. It was finally opened in 1876.
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Joseph Wheeler Plantation, Wheeler Alabama
The General Joseph Wheeler Plantation, which is primarily significant for its associations with General Joseph Wheeler, retains much of its 19th Century plantation ambience and appearance and contains three structures representative of three generations of plantation life in 19th Century Alabama. The three main structures include: a one-story log house constructed around 1818 by the Hickman family which homesteaded the plantation; a two-story log and clapboard home constructed as the family's permanent residence during the 1820's; and a two and a half story frame home which was built by Wheeler during the latter portion of the 19th Century and served both as the center of his large and prosperous plantation and as his home until his death in 1906. Joseph Wheeler symbolizes restoration of rule in the postbellum South and political reconciliation between that section and the North. A renowned cavalry officer in the Confederate Army, Wheeler became an Alabama planter after the Civil War, and beginning in 1884 he won eight successive elections to the U.S. House of Representatives. Like many other so-called Bourbon Democrats, he maintained a paternal attitude toward blacks, opposed civil rights legislation, and called upon southerners to forget the war and devote their energy to industrialization. Wheeler never became a powerful figure in Congress, but his intelligent speeches on a variety of subjects made him one of the best known men in Washington. In 1898, while still a member of the House, he resumed his military career. To erase the last vestiges of sectionalism and make the Spanish-American War a national effort, President William McKinley appointed Wheeler a major general of volunteers. He became the only corps commander in U.S. military history who had held a similar position in the Confederacy.
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East Point Lighthouse, Maurice River New Jersey
Due to the importance of the maritime industry to the Delaware River and Bay area, between 1764 when the area's first lighthouse was built at Cape Henlopen, Delaware, and 1926 when the last manned-type lighthouse was built at the Harbor of Refuge near Lewes, Delaware, over 50 separate lighthouse or lightship stations were once in operation. Today, all of the lightship stations have been discontinued, none of the lighthouse sites has a year-round keeper or custodian, and only 20 of the historic lighthouses or keeper's dwellings still exist in this area. Of those remaining structures, the former Maurice River Lighthouse is the oldest in the Delaware River and Bay area, and the second oldest in the states of New Jersey and Delaware, with only the Sandy Hook Lighthouse of 1764 having existed longer. The structure now known as the East Point Lighthouse is also the only operating lighthouse still standing on the shores of the Delaware Bay. The lighthouse is the second oldest existing in New Jersey, and is the only lighthouse of its type known to exist on the East Coast of the United States. Sometimes referred to as a Cape Cod style lighthouse, the design for the former Maurice River Lighthouse was adapted for the construction of a number of the first lighthouses to be built on the West Coast beginning in 1852.
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Miah Maull Shoal Lighthouse, Delaware Bay New Jersey
The Miah Maull Shoal Lighthouse is a well-preserved embodiment of the cast-iron and concrete caisson foundation technology which was used from 1876 to 1913 in lighthouses that occupied waterbound sites in the northeastern United States. At least 50 such lighthouses were built. Miah Maull Shoal, designed in 1907 and completed in 1913, was the last example of this type built before reinforced concrete technology was introduced; it was also one of the last major navigational aids built in the Delaware Bay. As part of a string of lighthouses in the bay and the lower Delaware River that were in place before World War One, Miah Maull Shoal helped foster the improved navigation of the Delaware that was crucial to the success of the Hog Island Shipyard (now the site of the Philadelphia International Airport), which was established in 1917. By the end of the conflict, Hog Island had become the largest shipyard in the world. The Miah Maull Shoal itself, which was named for an eighteenth-century Delaware mariner, was 800 yards wide and 3,000 yards long at a depth of 13 feet — a significant hazard to large modern ships, which required a much greater draft. The need for a deep channel, both for commercial and for military purposes, was foreseen during the early years of this century. Now known as the Philadelphia Ship Channel, it was called for by Congress in the River and Harbor Act of 1909 to be a 35-foot deep channel at least 800 feet wide from the Philadelphia and Camden wharves and shipyards to the mouth of Delaware Bay, to replace an existing 600-foot wide, 26-foot deep channel begun in 1885. Subsequent improvements have deepened the channel to 40 feet.
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Cherokee Plantation, Fort Payne Alabama
Cherokee Plantation is reputed to be the oldest home in Alabama, dating to 1790. Oral history indicates that the house was built by Daniel and Molly Ross in 1790 when they moved from Turkey Town, near Gadsden, to Will's Town, now Fort Payne, with infant son, John Ross. The two-story log cabin they built fronted the Great War and Trading Path which traversed Alabama from north to south. In 1838 the Path became the Trail of Tears and was used when the Cherokee Nation in this portion of Alabama was removed from the stockade at Fort Payne. John Ross, who grew up in the house, later moved to the area around Chattanooga, founded Ross' Landing and Rossville, Georgia. Ross became one of the most famous and influencial chiefs of the Cherokee Nation and was Chief of the Nation at the time of its removal in 1838. In 1834 Andrew Ross, brother of John Ross, son of Daniel and Molly Ross and Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Cherokee Nation, resided in the house which had by that time been greatly expanded. Being 1/8 Cherokee, he was regarded as a full Cherokee and as such was required, under the terms of the Treaty of 1828, to make a valuation of all his property. Ross was evicted from the house in 1838 during the removal of the Cherokee Nation from the area.
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