Bricks of our Forefathers

It's a little surprising that, considering the number of times I've been to my wife's hometown of Albion, Illinois, I've never blogged about it.



The town of around 2000 folks has a few factors in common with Searcy. It's the seat of a dry county. One of its official buildings is the oldest in the state. The courthouse square is vibrant.

Albion, however, has managed to keep track of its history more faithfully than Searcy has. For example, the square and quite a few of the nearby streets are still paved with brick! Not only is it brick, it's brick that was originally manufactured in this town (as you can tell by the first picture, above).



The courthouse is probably older than Searcy's, but as Illinois is older than Arkansas, that likely doesn't say that much for it. It's still quite an imposing centerpiece. The little blue children have something to do with preventing child abuse, and according to Jenna's father they pop up every year around this time.



Now here's something you don't see too often. Abreast of the courthouse is a building that, these days, would be totally inept for its purpose. It's the original jail. In this country, you can tell if a building is extremely old if the shutters are actually in use. Note that the four lower windows are shuttered closed. A more austere architectural style tends to point to a very old age as well.

In fact, Albion was settled right after the war of 1812 by some English folks. This is probably the origin of the name, since Albion is literally the oldest known title for the mother country. Of course in 1812 you could probably be shot for calling England anything other than "that island of oppressor dogs," so naturally the surrounding occupants of the future Edwards County were suspicious.

But, all turned out okay.



Attention to history has left Albion with a gorgeous collection of antique storefronts, many of which are still populated with businesses. Around the corner, a Subway is inside one of the old buildings. This warms my heart. Of course, there is a standalone McDonalds just across the street, but hey, you can't win 'em all. Unless you're Subway.



Whereas Searcy's courthouse is the oldest in the state, Albion's library gets that title. It's one of those great old libraries that has a distinct smell, and of course books with stamped cards that date back to when your parents were little.



Near the aforementioned Subway is one thing that saddens me just a little. You can see that some mundane steel paneling has covered up what used to be some neoclassical details on this old bank building. The Corinthian and rows of quoins on the sides are the only pieces of its history this bank has left to it. But I've seen a lot worse in Arkansas.



For the rest of the post, let's take a stroll down the bricked streets around the business district and check out a few of the old and beautiful houses.



A very individualistic building near the courthouse might have once been a residence; most recently it has been antique shop of sorts and is now for sale. The style holds together very tightly; I find the economy of space in this building pleasing. Someone want to buy it for me?



A beautiful Queen Anne home sits just one incongruous block away from a McDonalds. Take a look at the oddly ornate chimney nestled between the tower and the gable.



A huge double-porch mansion (in the 19th century Edwards County sense; most folks wouldn't consider this a mansion these days) is across the street from the Queen Anne house. Judging by the austere style and functional shutters, it's probably one of the oldest houses in town. It strikes me as similar to this moldering ruin we spotted in Augusta. In fact, I understand the Albion house was in a state of ruin until just recently when a citizen began the process of restoration. And that's what sets towns like this apart from towns like Augusta.

And the last image of the day is...




Whoa! What the--? Is it a--or maybe a--huh? I've honestly never seen a house like this before. The gambreled roof is perched over what might be some kind of Italianate first floor, complete with dentals...but after that I'm lost. I kinda like it, though. It's nothing like any of the other houses on the street, or downtown, as far as I saw.

And that's Albion! It's really a great little town, and I promise my in-laws aren't breathing down my neck as I type this. There's a great deal of live and vibrancy that you miss in many of the small towns in rural Arkansas. Why is that, I wonder? I suppose I'll learn one day.

-Jonesy

Liquortown

Most folks around here know Augusta, Arkansas for one thing and one thing only: liquor. It's the closest town to the west that's not in a dry county, and the county-border liquor store does a lot of business with the residents of White County (including us, I'm afraid).

But a slight detour will lead you off of Highway 64 and into what the signs refer to as a "business district" (this is driving lingo for "downtown," seeing as all of the business in Augusta takes place far from here).



The road to downtown Augusta is watched over by the above courthouse, a very solid-looking building that was built partly out of an extremely old household. Most of Augusta was destroyed during the Civil War, but some of the larger homes were kept standing so the Union officers could have places to stay. I would like to think that the house at the top of the post (next door to the courthouse) was one of these homes.



There are more dogs than people in downtown Augusta. On our entire walking trip around the business district, we saw not a single person outside of a car, and even those were rare. A few people could be seen in their yards several blocks away from Main Street, but other than those souls, mostly we just heard the howling of dogs.



Augusta had its heyday in the age of steam, when most of the commerce going up and down the White River were carried by boat. Augusta foolishly waved on the railroad when they came through, then later built their own line when they realized their town was dying. That desperate attempt petered out by 1958.



In 1930, a bridge was built across the White River that represented the last portion of the river still requir ferries to cross. Later on, we spent $17 million to blow up the historic bridge and replace it with your standard 4-lane highway. I guess I could harp on that for a while, but we've all heard Joni Mitchell sing about it already.




To be honest, Augusta has one of the bleakest town centers of any I've ever visited. Even husks like Kensett and Wynne are more populated than this place. Oh, and it has a moldering old movie theater which I have previously blogged about. These days, besides serving alcohol to naughty Harding students, I suppose Augusta mostly struggles with its 50/50 black/white population.

One little detail that I really enjoyed about Augusta's downtown were these mosaic titles on a few of the buildings:



I know, one of them is actually stained glass. Direct all complaints to my secretary. I especially love the bank tiles that feature a period. As if to say, "THIS IS A BANK. DO NOT ARGUE."

Needless to say, the identities of these buildings as a bank and drug store changed long ago.

-Jonesy

It's pronounced "CAR-my"

A long drive to a country town is always a good way to experience the way highways used to function: passing right through the proper of a variety of little hamlets. Since I've been to Jenna's hometown of Albion so many times, a few of the preceding villages are like old friends of mine. Some of them, like Grayville, Crossville and Mt. Carmel have been mentioned on here before.

In fact, I've spoken of Carmi before in my last batch of movie theaters . Their Showtime Cinema was a favorite quick-glance-from-the-passenger-side sight. Recently, we finally got a chance to explore the town.



We've seen it all before, of course. Rows of grandfatherly business buildings, some populated, some renovated tastelessly, many vacant. Very few people--although I grant it was a very cold day. This NOT being Arkansas, however, there was a bit more to see than usual, and quite a few extraordinarily beautiful buildings.



The folks of Carmi call this fantastic collage of late 19th century styles "The Castle." Like most beautiful buildings in this country, it faced destruction in the latter half of the 20th century, but a group of historic historians saved it. It faces the courthouse just on the edge of downtown. Take a look at the little winged creatures on the rooftops.



The 1883 courthouse is the seat of Illinois' version of White County. Ours, however, is older (1870s) and commands more of a presence in Searcy's square. Carmi's downtown is more a thoroughfare, however, whereas Searcy's is a square.

Oh! There are some ghost signs.



"TIMES" probably stands for "Carmi Times," whose building is close to the river. Take a look at this picture of their amazing streamline modern sign on their current building (from my old favorite Roadside Architecture; good LORD she's been everywhere).


The entire side of this building was once a sign. "GRADE CHEWING" of course stands for the stuff stuck between Babe Ruth's teeth.


Not really a ghost sign, I know. But it is a beautifully sculpted logo on the side of a (I believe) vacant building that was once a Ford showroom. Wow! Back from the days when car showrooms actually fit INSIDE of our towns. "The Universal Car" is apparently what Henry "in the year of our" Ford dubbed his inventions way back in 1908. This sign may be that old.

Here are some more photos from in and around the business district.



A residence (I believe now used as a funeral home) with some serious Ionic columns. The fountain out front tends to freeze in a picturesque fashion in the colder months. Here is a fantastic picture of the latter.



A very 1960s exterior job on one of the downtown buildings. This business no longer exists but the neon work has been preserved.



A radio station now lives in what once was a neoclassical bank.



This is a very old-looking and well-kept house a few streets over from Main. The steel roof is unfortunate, but at least is colored tastefully. I wouldn't be surprised if this were one of the older buildings in town.



Evidence of train industry is still moldering a few blocks away from Main. There are a few abandoned factories and warehouses, including some old ghosts like this one. I couldn't find a depot at all; it may be lurking somewhere back there, but wind burn precluded a more thorough search.

On the way back to Albion, we stopped in a mucky drive to take this final picture:



These are the bones of a drive-in theater screen. The grounds nearby are mostly home now to a selection of rusting vehicles and other trash. I wanted to go farther back and see if any more of the theater remained standing, but there was the aforementioned wind burn and muck, so we retreated.

Until our paths cross again,
Jonesy

Snapshots on a snow day

It's been a while since I've just let some picture speak for themselves. And on a snow-carpeted day like this one, I think it's a good a time as ever.




Abandoned church building, somewhere in Independence County



The remains of downtown Ola



Abandoned building in Fort Smith; note the progression of columns (from Doric to Corinthian): an architectural nod to the Roman Colosseum



An old bank in what I remember to be Booneville



A former one-room school, somewhere near Strawberry



Signpost guarding the ruins of Dogpatch USA, Marble Falls



Queen Anne mansion in downtown North Little Rock



Downtown Mt. Carmel, IL; showcasing the burned-out Hadley's Cafe



The Junction Bridge, Little Rock



706 Market Street, today.

-Jonesy

Last Train to 2010

The winter marches on, and we're back again to the subject of trains. This is a good train story, though: no lamenting over buried tracks or abandoned right-of-ways or derelict depots. No, sir.

This is about the Arkansas-Missouri Railroad.

But first, Van Buren!



Van Buren lies just north over the river from the much larger city of Fort Smith. Van Buren is like Fort Smith's kid brother. Unfortunately, Fort Smith got into drugs and carousing and general raucous behavior, while Van Buren kept itself under a warm hat of responsibility and historical self-respect. What I'm trying to say is, its downtown is ever so much more beautiful than Fort Smith's, even though the latter town used to be some kind of breathtaking destination-town. For example, the above building (probably Van Buren's most famous) is an 1889 bank building that resulted from a feud between two bankers: since in the late 19th century the complexity and beauty of brickwork was indicative of a business's prosperity (and now you shouldn't be wondering why I am nostalgic for such times), one banker just up and built a bank right next to his rival's, only built his to be as architecturally marvelous as possible.

As it happened, none of it would really matter. Neither the "Crawford County Bank" nor the "Citizen's Bank"--the smaller of the two buildings, belonging to the other rival--managed to pull their business into the 21st century. Both of them (as well as the even older bank across the street) lost out to some bank buildings that probably didn't even use bricks.

But in the end, Van Buren got to keep its built environment, and the Crawford County Bank now adorns all of the little "Visit Downtown Van Buren" brochures. Fort Smith, on the other hand:



They sacrifice their built environment so ten more people can park their cars on a Friday afternoon. Oh, sure, they left the pediment and some of the pilasters of this building so people (like me) can see them and just wonder what used to be there. The face remains, like the only piece of a shattered family heirloom we can't bear to throw away.

But let's get back to the matter at hand. Whatever railroad depots and tracks and excellent things Fort Smith had are long gone. Van Buren's, however, are not only still standing, but are still quite in use:



Yes, it's your average Italianate depot with the addition of a mission-style shingle setup, much the same as many of Arkansas's smaller towns', but the presence of a sizable crowd is what makes the difference. And what's that? That thing just to its right?




Ah yes. A train. The Arkansas-Missouri Railroad is a small, privately owned line operating out of western Arkansas and southern Missouri. Like the Maine Eastern Railroad, the Arkansas-Missouri operates a freight line as well as a passenger excursion line. They have a number of different excursion packages, stopping in little towns up and down the west edge of Arkansas. We could have chosen one with a seat in a caboose, or one with an acted-out train robbery (complete with blank-shooting pistols). We chose the one that went from Van Buren to Winslow and turned around. Not the most exciting, but take a look at the inside of the car:



It's vintage 1920s. The seats were springy, but did we care? The car is a relic of a time when care went into the making of everyday objects, transforming mundane environments into ones of beauty. Of course, a family trying to get from Little Rock to Memphis because their grandmother is about to die probably would not care if the car was just a steel box, and sure, anyone who sees the same beauty every day might forget it exists.

I wouldn't, though. The sublimity of the car and our surroundings transfixed the four of us (me, Jenna, Drew and Kelsey Spickes). The trip took us through little towns, shallow gullies, cages of blasted granite, pitch-black tunnels, deep gorges at the bottom of which lie the bones of the American telegraph network...

The conductor on our car was an old man, hard of hearing but full of stories. He told us about the train trips he would take in his early childhood on this same route, stopping at the tiny depots every town once had. Each station would only yield a person or two, if any, but one thing was guaranteed: the train would load bottles of milk from every depot. This was an image burned in his mind.

The little towns we chugged through weren't so notable except for an anecdote or two the conductors would relate here and there. Winslow was little more than an arbitrary place with an extra track to turn the train around. But one town I will always remember: Mountainburg. Here's why.

There are three towns in Arkansas that start with the word "Mountain." They are Mountain Home, Mountain View, and Mountainburg. Mountain Home is famous for being the Arkansan version of Florida: old people go there to pretend the rest of the world doesn't exist. Mountain View is famous for attracting musicians from not just around the state, but from around the country, and for just being all around one of the best towns ever. Mountainburg is famous for dinosaurs.

Yep. When we passed the dust-mote sized hamlet, our conductor told us what he used to tell passengers about Mountainburg: "I used to say it was the only place in Arkansas you'd find dinosaurs," he said. "Then I found out about this place up north that has 'em too." Well, the "place up north" is, of course, the late Dinosaur World, but that's too tangential to go into now.

Mountainburg has two dinosaurs. Click here to see what they look like. We could just make them out from the window of our car, and that little glimpse made my day. Of course, the train had already made my day four or five times over, but hey, you know.

Seems like I need to wrap this story up. The funny thing is, I actually enjoyed this train trip more than the one in Maine. Something about the scenery, the antique car, the food, the conductors...it was just better. One more leisure railroad remains for me to encounter in Arkansas, and my ultimate goal still stands: ride a steam locomotive. All in years to come. Don't touch that dial.

In the meantime, I bid farewell to 2009. It has been a good year for Time Fishing. Maybe not so consistent, but good nonetheless. I look forward to fishing in 2010...

-Jonesy
P.S. Take a look here to see pictures of dinosaur statues all over the country. This is awesome.