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Eugenio Antonio Sierra

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Florida, Escambia County, Pensacola
A native of Spain, Eugenio Antonio Sierra arrived in Pensacola in the employ of the Spanish royal hospitals in 1785. He was appointed to the post of head practitioner at the Pensacola hospital between 1794 and 1799. In 1811, Dr. Sierra, professor of surgery, was a prominent resident of this city. He witnessed many changes in the community before his death March 12, 1849. His daughter Isabella married Dr. John Brosnaham.

(Science & Medicine) Includes location, directions, 5 photos, GPS coordinates, map.

Ebenezer Dorr

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Florida, Escambia County, Pensacola
A native of Maine, Ebenezer Dorr spent fourteen months as a prisoner of war In England during the War of 1812. He was captain of his own ship for many years, trading at ports around the world. In about 1827, Dorr moved his family to Escambia County where in 1841 he was appointed U.S. Marshall for the western District of the Territory of Florida. With Florida Statehood in 1845, he was elected the first sheriff of Escambia County.

(Colonial Era • Notable Persons • War of 1812 • Waterways & Vessels) Includes location, directions, 4 photos, GPS coordinates, map.

St. Joseph's Church

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Wisconsin, Kewaunee County, Norman
✝   St. Joseph's Church
Was Closed by the Diocese of
Green Bay
with a Final Mass on June 20th,
2010
The Site and Church Are
Now Privately Owned  

&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp                                    J.S.               8-25-10

(Churches, Etc.) Includes location, directions, 2 photos, GPS coordinates, map.

Don Manuel Gonzalez

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Florida, Escambia County, Pensacola
A native of Spain, Don Manuel Gonzalez joined the army at Madrid and was sent to New Orleans. After his discharge he was granted passage through the Choctaw and Creek Nations to Pensacola. At Pensacola, he was a successful cattle rancher. He opened a market on Plaza Ferdinand in 1816. With the transfer of Florida to the United States, he was appointed Justice of the Peace and Quarter Master General for the Florida Militia.

(Colonial Era • Native Americans • Settlements & Settlers) Includes location, directions, 4 photos, GPS coordinates, map.

Bethel Church

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Kansas, Lyon County, Emporia

This land was deeded to the
Bethel Methodist Episcopal Church
on March 24, 1882
It served several school districts,
one of which was
Central School, located
1/4 mile east of here.
It merged with
the First Methodist Church
in Emporia on June 28, 1947
This memorial is dedicated by
the Burdick - Childears Family
who homesteaded 1/2 mile north
in 1857

(Churches, Etc. • Environment • Man-Made Features • Settlements & Settlers) Includes location, directions, 3 photos, GPS coordinates, map.

Battery Langdon

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Florida, Escambia County, near Pensacola Beach

Hidden beneath this vegetation is Battery Langdon, Fort Pickens' most powerful gun emplacement. It's 12-inch guns could throw a projectile 17 miles out to sea. The first time Artilleryman M. Harry fired one of them his hat blew off, his pants split, and he saw concussion ripples in the sand. The massive bunker, begun in 1917 and completed in 1923, was covered with soil during World War II to camouflage it from enemy aircraft.

Lots of boys...would bleed from the mouth and ears because of the concussion of the guns.
R. Hoover Weems, a soldier at Battery Langdon in the 1940s

(Forts, Castles • War, World II) Includes location, directions, 4 photos, GPS coordinates, map.

All the Row Houses

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District of Columbia, Washington
All the row houses in the 1700 block of Q St. (north and south pictured above) were built in the mid-1880s by one of Washington's most prolific architects/builders, Thomas Franklin Schneider. The prosperity and growth during the 1880s in DC resulted from the enlarged role of the Federal Government after the Civil War and general prosperity of the nation.

The next major builders were Harry Wardman, 1920s, and Morris Cafritz, 1940s. Schneider's dual expertise contributed to quality housing for white-collar workers after World War II.

Across the Street to your left you can see new buildings that replaced five original residences. Their demolition in the 1960s spawned the neighborhood's preservation movement. The more than 60 remaining Victorian rowhouses, all with English basements, constitute the largest concentration of intact 19th-century homes in the city.

Sidebar:
Fire Alarm Boxes such as this one (originally painted red) were installed in the District after the Civil War. Telegraphs transmitted the box number (top) to a fire alarm center. This system was used until the 1970s when the boxes were converted to a telephone system. By the 1990s, the callbox system had been replaced by the 911 system and was abandoned.

Fire Fact | January 16, 1892

Box 318 sounded for a fire in the Church of the Covenant, southeast corner of 18th and N Sts., where President Benjamin H. Harrison was a parishioner. News of the fire spread quickly to the White House, and President Harrison raced over to witness the battle. Fortunately the church survived somewhat blackened but intact.


(Charity & Public Work • Man-Made Features • Notable Buildings) Includes location, directions, 14 photos, GPS coordinates, map.

Making Whiskey

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Maryland, Frederick County, Thurmont
This Still is typical of one on a family farm. Cracked corn, yeast, sugar, and water were put into a wooden barrel to ferment. The solids were removed, and the liquid was poured into the (1) kettle and heated over a (2) wood fire. Because alcohol boils at a lower temperature than water, the first steam to pass through the (3) worm was alcohol.

Cold Stream water flowing over the worm returned the alcohol to liquid, which flowed into the (4) jug. In an attempt to increase the proof, some distillers ran the alcohol through an intermediate (5) “thump barrel.” Whiskey is alcohol that has been aged in a charred oak barrel.

(Industry & Commerce) Includes location, directions, 11 photos, GPS coordinates, map.

See You at the Center

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District of Columbia, Washington
The City's Jewish Community Center opened here in 1926. Its grand presence one mile north of the White House expressed Jewish residents' prosperity and their growing contributions to the federal city and the nation. With American Jews routinely barred from social clubs, the JCC promoted Jewish identity and offered a gym, swimming pool, symphony orchestra, choral society, and basketball league. High school students thronged to dances held on the rooftop.

Housing developer Morris Cafritz, a co-founder in 1912 of the local Young Men's Hebrew Association, led a fundraising campaign to build the JCC and served as its president for eight years. The center thrived until the 1950s, when many members moved to Washington's new suburbs. In 1969 it relocated to Rockville, Maryland and sold this building to the DC Government. When later generations of Jewish Washingtonians close city living, they launched a new independent DCJCC. Cafritz' son, Calvin, helped raise funds to buy back and renovate the building, which reopened in 1996 as the Washington DCJCC.

One block north of this sign is the Church of the Holy City, the national church of the Swedenborgian denomination. Dedicated in 1896, the church was designed by Herbert Langford Warren, a Swedenborgian and founder of Harvard University's School of Architecture.

Three blocks north is the House of the Temple, headquarters of the Scottish Rite of Freemasonry, Southern Jurisdiction, USA. Completed in 1915, it was DC's first major building by John Russell Pope, who later designed the National Archives and the Jefferson Memorial. The building's museums and library are open to the public.

(Churches, Etc. • Fraternal or Sororal Organizations • Man-Made Features) Includes location, directions, 14 photos, GPS coordinates, map.

Battery 234

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Florida, Escambia County, near Pensacola Beach

Hidden beneath this vegetated mound of Battery 234 were soldiers who figured out solutions to a pressing problem: Where should artillery crews aim the guns to strike an attacking ship? It took some teamwork. Soldiers in the nearby end towers would take simultaneous compass readings of an approaching enemy ship and telephone the information to the plotting room. There, soldiers used the data to plot a triangle on the table, calculated the distance to the target, and relayed their calculation to the gun crews for precision firing.

(Forts, Castles • War, World II) Includes location, directions, 5 photos, GPS coordinates, map.

Battery Trueman

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Florida, Escambia County, near Pensacola Beach

Fort Pickens' brick walls and cast-iron guns had become obsolete by the end of the Civil War. Harbor defenses now called for steel guns in low-lying concrete batteries. Trueman's 3-inch, rapid-fire guns, mounted in 1905, guarded the inner channel and minefield against fast torpedo boats and minesweepers, the latest threats of the day. Truman's guns and equipment were moved to Battery Cullum in 1943.

(Forts, Castles • Waterways & Vessels) Includes location, directions, 4 photos, GPS coordinates, map.

Battery Cooper

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Florida, Escambia County, near Pensacola Beach

Battery Cooper's rifles popped up, disappeared, and reappeared like a jack-in-the-box. The battery, built in 1906, had two 6-inch rifles mounted on disappearing carriages. When the guns were fired, the recoil automatically lowered them behind the concrete wall, which protected the crews while they reloaded the guns. Counterweights returned them to the firing position. During World War I the U.S. Army removed the guns for possible use as railway guns in France. The guns you see today came from the Smithsonian Institution.

(Forts, Castles • War, World I) Includes location, directions, 4 photos, GPS coordinates, map.

Corning Centennial Sculpture

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New York, Steuben County, Corning
Corning was a railroad town well into the 1900’s beginning with the corning-Blossburg Railroad in 1839. In 1849 the Erie Railroad was built through the village. In 1881 the DL&W came to Corning via Gibson and the Northside. The Corning-Blossburg Railroad eventually became part of the New York Central System. In 1891 12,000 trains passed through Corning.

Tobacco growing came to this area before the Civil War. Corning soon became the area’s “tobacco” center and home of a cigar making industry. In 1887 Corning’s 12 cigar making companies produced well over ½ million cigars with women and girls providing much of the labor. Several cigar making companies were owned by women.

Corning’s destiny to become “The Crystal City” was sealed with the establishment of the Corning Flint Glass Works in 1868. The firm incorporated as Corning Glass Works in 1875 and became Corning Incorporated in 1989. The company was an early advocate of research and product development. It has provided the community with leadership and a solid economic foundation.

The opening of the Chemung Canal in October 1833 was the beginning of the growth of Corning which was located at the terminus of its Feeder Canal. In a few years the Corning-Bloosburg Railroad would be built to bring coal from Pennsylvania to transfer to the canal and thus be connected to the Erie Canal System. Corning’s commercial success began.

A “castle” sat upon Corning’s Southside hill from 1858 until 1965. It was originally built as a state arsenal on land given by members of the original Corning Company. It served as headquarters for Companies C & D of the 60th Regiment of the New York State Militia and as an arsenal until 1873 when it was purchased by St. Mary’s Parish which ysed it for an orphanage, convent, and kindergarten.

(Industry & Commerce • Natural Resources • Railroads & Streetcars • Settlements & Settlers • Waterways & Vessels) Includes location, directions, 9 photos, GPS coordinates, map.

Battery Van Swearingen

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Florida, Escambia County, near Pensacola Beach

All alone in the glaring sun...scanning the horizon...looking for but hoping not to see an enemy ship or plane—guard duty was no picnic for the Coast Artillery during World War II. Soldiers stood guard around the clock in three- or four-hour shifts. At night "you'd hear something moving," one soldier said, "and you couldn't tell if it was a German off a U-Boat or not." The battery, built in 1898 for two 4.72-inch Armstrong rifles, was converted into a range-finding station for Battery Payne in 1922 and used throughout World War II.

This battery was named for Capt. Joseph Van Swearingen of the 6th U.S. Infantry. He was killed on December 25, 1837, in a skirmish with Seminole Indians at Okeechobee, Florida.

(Forts, Castles • War, World II) Includes location, directions, 3 photos, GPS coordinates, map.

Battery Payne

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Florida, Escambia County, near Pensacola Beach

In 1922 Hugo W. Papp looked on as the gun crew practiced firing one of Battery Payne's rapid-fire rifles. The recoil tore the gun from its mount and hurled it down the steps at Papp. In an instant he was dead. This was the only time that a life was taken by any of the guns at Fort Pickens' batteries, which never saw combat. The two 3-inch rifles here, like those at Battery Trueman, had a 360-degree sweep of fire, making them excellent protectors of the inner harbor and the Pensacola Navy Yard.

(Forts, Castles) Includes location, directions, 4 photos, GPS coordinates, map.

Battery Cullum, Battery Sevier

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Florida, Escambia County, near Pensacola Beach

Gun crews performed a carefully choreographed ballet every time they loaded and fired an artillery piece. One slip-up in the teamwork could cause serious injuries or death. Crews practiced aiming at a target, opening the breech, loading and ramming the projectile into the barrel, inserting the primer charge, and firing—all in 30 seconds. After drilling again and again, the soldiers were given a little time to relax, occasionally even to go crabbing or fishing along the beach.

(Forts, Castles • War, World I • War, World II) Includes location, directions, 4 photos, GPS coordinates, map.

St. Paul United Methodist Church

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Texas, Dallas County, Dallas
In 1873, several inhabitants of Freedman's Town, a community of recently freed people just north of the Dallas city limits, met with Methodist Ministers Rev. H. Oliver and Rev. William Bush under a brush arbor to organize the area's first African American Methodist Episcopal Church. Oliver became St. Paul's first pastor. Dallas Postmaster Anthony Norton donated the first church site upon which the congregation built a small frame sanctuary, which was also used as a school for African American children. In partnership with the Perkins School of Theology, the church provided training for African American ministers. Samuel Huston College (later Huston-Tillotson University), organized in 1876, held its first classes at the church.

In 1901, the congregation began constructing a new brick-clad sanctuary by digging and finishing a concrete basement, called "Noah's Ark," where services were held during the 26 years it took to complete the sanctuary. Construction proceeded fitfully as material became available. Tradition holds that the façade has five different shades of brown brick because, for many years, parishioners brought bricks for the offering. Finally completed in 1927 under the leadership of Pastor George Deslandes, the sanctuary cost $80,000. The Gothic Revival style was derived from a design by William Sidney Pittman, Dallas' first African American architect. Although around 1950 highway construction began to demolish the North Dallas neighborhoods served by the church, St. Paul endured as a political, cultural and spiritual center under the leadership of Pastor I.B. Loud (1948-1980) and his successors. Marker is Property of the State of Texas

(African Americans • Churches, Etc.) Includes location, directions, 2 photos, GPS coordinates, map.

Club Desire

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Mississippi, Madison County, Canton
~Front~ The Club Desire, which stood across the street from this site, was one of Mississippi's premier blues and rhythm & blues nightclubs from the late 1940s through the early 1960s. Owner Clarence Chinn presented the top national acts, including B. B. King, Bobby Blue Bland, Little Junior Parker, James Brown, Ivory Joe Hunter, Big Joe Turner, Hank Ballard & the Midnighters, and the Platters. In the '60s the club also served as an important meeting place for civil rights workers.
~Back~ Club Desire – or New Club Desire, as it was actually named for most its tenure – was a Canton landmark for several decades, renowned for providing the African American community with first-class entertainment in a celebratory but elegant atmosphere, with strict codes enforced for dress and behavior. Its shows drew patrons from Memphis and New Orleans, and former Cantonites from Chicago and points beyond often attended family reunions and gala holiday events here. Founded by Clarence Chinn (1906-1995) in the 1940s as the Blue Garden, the club was rebuilt after a fire and renamed New Club Desire in the early ‘50s. The name Club Desire was first used by a popular nightspot on Desire Street in New Orleans.

The club also earned a place in blues recording history in January 1952 when Modern Records of California rented it to set up a portable tape machine to record several songs by legendary Canton singer-guitarist Elmore James (1918-1963). Modern’s talent scout, Ike Turner from Clarksdale, played piano on the session. Two local members of James’s band, Ernest “Frock” Odell and Precious “Little Hat” Whitehead, were probably also on the recordings. Most published accounts of this session have erroneously cited the name as the Club Bizarre.

Ironically, despite James’s posthumous fame among blues fans, he and other local down-home bluesmen rarely played at New Club Desire, although they did perform for Clarence Chinn’s brother C.O. (1919-1999) at his café on Franklin Street, as well as for Frank Williams at a big dance hall in the Sawmill Quarters. New Club Desire favored touring blues and soul bands with horn sections and professional talent revues. B.B. King, Bobby Bland, and Hank Ballard & the Midnighters were recalled as particular favorites, and the talent roster also featured Little Milton, Albert King, Ted Taylor, Memphis Slim, Joe Simon, and many more. Clarence Chinn sometimes coordinated bookings with Tom Wince, who owned the Blue Room, a prominent Vicksburg venue, so that acts could play in both towns while on tour.

After Chinn decided to focus his energy on real estate and housing, New Club Desire was operated by Leonard Garrett, George Raymond, and Eddie Newton. Raymond and C.O. Chinn were Canton’s leading civil rights activists in the 1960s. At various times New Club Desire was used for private parties and meetings of civic, social, and civil rights organizations. The club closed in the 1970s.

(African Americans • Arts, Letters, Music • Civil Rights • Entertainment) Includes location, directions, 5 photos, GPS coordinates, map.

Scranton Cemetery

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Texas, Eastland County, near Cisco
Settled in the 1870s, the Scranton community grew to include a post office, stores, a cotton gin, blacksmith, school and academy. In Oct. 1896, Joseph Jackson Ray and Sarah Frances (Morgan) Ray donated land for a Baptist church and graveyard. The earliest burial had already occurred in July, that of Alvin Sprawls, infant son of H.B. and M.E. Sprawls. A cemetery association formed in 1968. The Scranton community center hosts funeral services, visitations, and an annual Scranton homecoming. Dozens of military veterans dating from the Civil War are buried here, along with early settlers, educators, and public officials. The cemetery is a testament to the pioneering men and women of the community.
Historic Texas Cemetery - 2012

(Cemeteries & Burial Sites • Settlements & Settlers) Includes location, directions, 9 photos, GPS coordinates, map.

Ibex

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Texas, Shackelford County, near Moran
Oil drilling in the 1920s transformed this area from cattle ranches to a boomtown. In 1919, the Ibex Oil Co. drilled a successful well into the Caddo Lime Formation. Soon other drilling companies came and wooden derricks spread for miles. In 1921, Ibex sold their leases to the Landreth Co. Ed Landreth built a gasoline refinery, water-powered by a dam on Hubbard Creek. Lone Star Gas, Humble Oil and other companies built facilities and dozens of employee homes. Other families slept in tents or open pastures. In the 1920s, the Ibex community had a school, grocery, dry goods, hotels, cafes, and a central phone office. The post office operated from 1923-53 before the population fell. Today, foundations and smokestacks remain from the industrial past of Ibex.

(Industry & Commerce • Settlements & Settlers) Includes location, directions, 7 photos, GPS coordinates, map.
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