Christmas 2012, part one
I've decided to start posting pictures and story from our 2012 Christmas trip even before we've completed it to help spread things out a bit...given that we're still out of town, I may yet have pictures to come!
Due to a nasty blizzard that swept in, we altered our original travel plans, which had us driving hard the Friday before Christmas to arrive at my sister's house in Madison...this change was a smart plan, for more than one reason--they got over 18 inches of snow in Madison, and we were able to use the delay to check out some parts of the country we had never seen! The first half of this first day of travel had a courthouse them to it:
The courthouse above is the historic one at Jacksonport, Arkansas, now part of Jacksonport State Park (http://www.arkansasstateparks.com/jacksonport/). An imposing brick structure, this town fell from prominence as the region developed, and the historic courthouse was used for a number of other purposes before being restored as part of a state park. Below is a picture of the restored interior of this building, showing part of the courtroom:
This courthouse currently houses a small museum of the history of the region, including those related to freshwater mussels (those clam-like invertebrates you may remember from the lakes and rivers we swim in). Certain types of these freshwater mussels were used in two different industries in Arkansas (which has many species of mussel). The picture below is of some mussel shells that have had button blanks cut out of them:
The thick-shelled species of mussels were scooped up or dragged out of the muck on the bottoms of the rivers using a number of interesting tools, such as the rake shown below:
(Sorry that this picture is sideways--I'm having a bit of a problem with the blog making process right now, and I may need to come back and correct this later). These buttons, when cleaned up, are quite pretty, with a translucence about them that fits their name "mother of pearl"...parts of these shells are still used to seed cultured pearls in other parts of the world:
Prior to the widespread use of modern plastics, buttons made of mussel shell were quite common. Speaking of pearls, that was the second of the major industries--people would look for the pearls that would form in these mussels:
We then drove a little further to our next historic courthouse, which is found at Powhatan Historic State Park in Powhatan, Arkansas (http://www.arkansasstateparks.com/powhatancourthouse/):
They are extensively remodeling parts of this building, so the scaffolding in the picture above obscured what is also a very impressive late 19th-Century courthouse. Below is a picture of the interior courtroom...notice the door in the background:
This door shows a decorating technique we've seen in a number of places. The sideways picture below is a little closer up, and leaves you with the impression that the door is made using an expensive burlwood veneer:
However, even closer inspection (which may not show up in the low resolution picture in this blog), it is apparent that this wood grain is not real, but rather painted on:
We have seen a number of other examples of painted wood grain or wood painted to look like marble or granite. In addition to the courthouse, they have other buildings at Powhatan, including this old jail:
Looking inside of the old jail, you sure wouldn't have wanted to have been a prisoner there--dark, dank, and cold! Can you see our third courthouse of the morning in the picture below?
Well, you may have a long time ago...this is the former village site of Davidsonville, now Davidsonville Historic State Park (http://www.arkansasstateparks.com/olddavidsonville/). This community was thriving in the 1810s and 1820s, but was largely abandoned by the 1830s. The Arkansas Archeological Survey and Arkansas Archeological Society did a number of digs on various building sites there some years ago, and found a lot of very interesting artifacts from the territorial period of Arkansas. After Davidsonville, we drove into Missouri and headed towards Missouri's highest point, Taum Sauk Mountain (http://mostateparks.com/park/taum-sauk-mountain-state-park):
This high point is easy to access (we drove to it) and is in an interesting part of the Missouri Ozarks. Just a few miles away we came across another very interesting state park, Elephant Rocks (http://mostateparks.com/park/elephant-rocks-state-park):
Elephant Rocks SP is an area of granite (igneous rock) that outcrops in the otherwise limestone-dominated (sedimentary rock) Ozarks. These pinkish to reddish rocks cover a large area, and have a very interesting history. Below, if you tilt your head right, you can see Hope showing her strength by lifting one of these boulders:
This granite is very pretty, and takes a nice polish, so it has long been used for monuments and gravestones, as well as decorative paving stones and building stones. It has been quarried commercially since the 1800s. Below, you can see how they did some of this quarrying--they would drill holes into the hard rock, and then drive metal wedges into these holes. They would keep forcing this series of wedges further and further into these holes, and eventually the pressure would split the stone along this plane:
Once split into manageable pieces, they could take them elsewhere for further processing. Below is an engine room that was built from blocks of this granite. The kids are playing on the remains of an old rail line that ran from here into the nearest town:
Nature has long been using this technique to gradually wear down these old stones, as you can see by this sideways picture of an oak tree whose roots are growing in the cracks between two large boulders:
And, of course, our lil' Stephen did his part to fit between the cracks of stone:
One of the other neat aspects of this site were the scores and scores of names carved into the stone. According to what we read on some of the interpretive signs at the park, the stonecutters that worked there would get to sign their names into the stone once they reached the level of master stonecutter:
Of course, if you did this today, your carving would be considered graffiti or vandalism, but this is rightly protected here for the history that it represents.
My next blog post (or two) will continue our Christmas adventure...
Due to a nasty blizzard that swept in, we altered our original travel plans, which had us driving hard the Friday before Christmas to arrive at my sister's house in Madison...this change was a smart plan, for more than one reason--they got over 18 inches of snow in Madison, and we were able to use the delay to check out some parts of the country we had never seen! The first half of this first day of travel had a courthouse them to it:
The courthouse above is the historic one at Jacksonport, Arkansas, now part of Jacksonport State Park (http://www.arkansasstateparks.com/jacksonport/). An imposing brick structure, this town fell from prominence as the region developed, and the historic courthouse was used for a number of other purposes before being restored as part of a state park. Below is a picture of the restored interior of this building, showing part of the courtroom:
This courthouse currently houses a small museum of the history of the region, including those related to freshwater mussels (those clam-like invertebrates you may remember from the lakes and rivers we swim in). Certain types of these freshwater mussels were used in two different industries in Arkansas (which has many species of mussel). The picture below is of some mussel shells that have had button blanks cut out of them:
The thick-shelled species of mussels were scooped up or dragged out of the muck on the bottoms of the rivers using a number of interesting tools, such as the rake shown below:
(Sorry that this picture is sideways--I'm having a bit of a problem with the blog making process right now, and I may need to come back and correct this later). These buttons, when cleaned up, are quite pretty, with a translucence about them that fits their name "mother of pearl"...parts of these shells are still used to seed cultured pearls in other parts of the world:
Prior to the widespread use of modern plastics, buttons made of mussel shell were quite common. Speaking of pearls, that was the second of the major industries--people would look for the pearls that would form in these mussels:
We then drove a little further to our next historic courthouse, which is found at Powhatan Historic State Park in Powhatan, Arkansas (http://www.arkansasstateparks.com/powhatancourthouse/):
They are extensively remodeling parts of this building, so the scaffolding in the picture above obscured what is also a very impressive late 19th-Century courthouse. Below is a picture of the interior courtroom...notice the door in the background:
This door shows a decorating technique we've seen in a number of places. The sideways picture below is a little closer up, and leaves you with the impression that the door is made using an expensive burlwood veneer:
However, even closer inspection (which may not show up in the low resolution picture in this blog), it is apparent that this wood grain is not real, but rather painted on:
We have seen a number of other examples of painted wood grain or wood painted to look like marble or granite. In addition to the courthouse, they have other buildings at Powhatan, including this old jail:
Looking inside of the old jail, you sure wouldn't have wanted to have been a prisoner there--dark, dank, and cold! Can you see our third courthouse of the morning in the picture below?
Well, you may have a long time ago...this is the former village site of Davidsonville, now Davidsonville Historic State Park (http://www.arkansasstateparks.com/olddavidsonville/). This community was thriving in the 1810s and 1820s, but was largely abandoned by the 1830s. The Arkansas Archeological Survey and Arkansas Archeological Society did a number of digs on various building sites there some years ago, and found a lot of very interesting artifacts from the territorial period of Arkansas. After Davidsonville, we drove into Missouri and headed towards Missouri's highest point, Taum Sauk Mountain (http://mostateparks.com/park/taum-sauk-mountain-state-park):
This high point is easy to access (we drove to it) and is in an interesting part of the Missouri Ozarks. Just a few miles away we came across another very interesting state park, Elephant Rocks (http://mostateparks.com/park/elephant-rocks-state-park):
Elephant Rocks SP is an area of granite (igneous rock) that outcrops in the otherwise limestone-dominated (sedimentary rock) Ozarks. These pinkish to reddish rocks cover a large area, and have a very interesting history. Below, if you tilt your head right, you can see Hope showing her strength by lifting one of these boulders:
This granite is very pretty, and takes a nice polish, so it has long been used for monuments and gravestones, as well as decorative paving stones and building stones. It has been quarried commercially since the 1800s. Below, you can see how they did some of this quarrying--they would drill holes into the hard rock, and then drive metal wedges into these holes. They would keep forcing this series of wedges further and further into these holes, and eventually the pressure would split the stone along this plane:
Once split into manageable pieces, they could take them elsewhere for further processing. Below is an engine room that was built from blocks of this granite. The kids are playing on the remains of an old rail line that ran from here into the nearest town:
Nature has long been using this technique to gradually wear down these old stones, as you can see by this sideways picture of an oak tree whose roots are growing in the cracks between two large boulders:
And, of course, our lil' Stephen did his part to fit between the cracks of stone:
Some individual boulders here are the size of buses:
One of the other neat aspects of this site were the scores and scores of names carved into the stone. According to what we read on some of the interpretive signs at the park, the stonecutters that worked there would get to sign their names into the stone once they reached the level of master stonecutter:
Of course, if you did this today, your carving would be considered graffiti or vandalism, but this is rightly protected here for the history that it represents.
My next blog post (or two) will continue our Christmas adventure...
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