Forest Park Visitors’ Center, Revisited

I photographed the Forest Park Visitors’ Center way back in September of 2012, on what was a cloudy day. I went back on a sunny day and captured these pictures. There were more beautiful flowers out front here, as well. This is an interesting building, which started as a streetcar shelter, suffered a fire, and…

Current Affairs This Summer

I went by the Theophile Papin House on the last Saturday of June. It’s being demolished. It’s sad, but honestly, it had been so heavily altered that it wouldn’t really have been feasible or worthwhile to restore it back to its original appearance. It would have been an ersatz structure. During demolition some interesting stone…

Dr. Edmund E. Babler Memorial State Park

Sculptor Charles Keck produced this handsome monument of Dr. Edmund Babler out in the state park that bears his name. I could have sworn I already photographed this park at some point, but I guess I was wrong. Babler is way out west, in the middle of Wildwood, and I’m glad it’s here, because it…

North Bank, St. Anthony Falls, Minneapolis

The north bank of the Mississippi is where Pillsbury, yes that Pillsbury, had its mills and grain elevators. Much of its huge physical plant is now condos, and it is really a beautiful area today, much like we saw yesterday. The old tail race of the turbines is still there, showing the history of the…

Flour Mills, St. Anthony Falls, Minneapolis

Yesterday, I looked at the Stone Arch Bridge, the centerpiece of Minneapolis’s revitalized riverfront in the center of the city. The St. Anthony Falls brought industry to the area, using the water to power mills. Many of the mills are still here, even if some have fallen into ruin. Instead of viewing the buildings as…

August A. Busch Memorial Conservation Area

Formerly owned by the Federal government, the August A. Busch Conservation Area was purchased in his memory by his widow Alice Busch in 1947. I had always thought it was much older, and the government had requisitioned it during the war. There are still bunkers left over from the war (and in other parts of…

Bluff View Park

Opened on August 7, 2015, Bluff View Park off Old State Road is a wonderful new addition to St. Louis County Parks. There seems to be a previous history to the acreage, as there are the remnants of an old fence line with concrete posts that cuts through the property. And then, you come out…

Quarry, Rockwoods Reservation, Revisited, February 2020

It was a beautiful unseasonably warm day yesterday, so I headed out to Rockwoods Reservation. I had heard some reports of devastating flash floods washing out trails and bridges, so I was not able to access the mines that I had photographed back in 2013. You can just see them through the trees below off…