The plane carrying Buddy Holly, The Big Bopper and Ritchie Valens didn’t make it very far, and it crashed in a field several miles north of Clear Lake. The local news has a good summary of the cause of the crash, so I won’t rehash it here. Unlike the freezing cold, snowy winter night of…
Tag: Historic Sites
Surf Ballroom, Clear Lake, Iowa
Buddy Holly played the Kiel Auditorium in St. Louis on April 15, 1958. Less than a year later, he, the Big Bopper and Ritchie Valens would be crisscrossing the Upper Midwest in the dead of winter, hitting small ballrooms such as the Surf Ballroom in the small town of Clear Lake on the shore of…
About That Lynch Guy
Interest has renewed lately to place a plaque commemorating the infamous last location of Lynch’s slave pens at the northeast corner of Clark Street and South Broadway, now the location of the Stadium East Garage. Lynch operated this location for a relatively short time from around 1860 to 1861 or 1862 when the Union Army…
East St. Louis Updates
I was in East St. Louis recently and thought I would look and see how things are doing. There’s some good news and some bad. The bad news is that continued disinvestment has led to infrastructure having to be condemned, as is the case of the 26th Street Bridge, a major conduit for traffic over…
Fort D, Cape Girardeau
I was excited to learn there was a surviving Civil War era fort remaining in Cape Girardeau, high on a strategic hill on the south side of downtown. For whatever reason, it was never destroyed and survives in a residential neighborhood. Constructed by Union Army engineers sent down from St. Louis, the influence of those…
Wickliffe Mounds
Showing the importance of the confluence, there are actually many Pre-Columbian archeological sites near Cairo. One well-preserved site is Wicliffe Mounds. Above is the ceremonial mound. The other mounds were the locations of houses and burials. Apparently this place was owned privately for years and was a sort of roadside attraction of dubious quality for…
Returning to Cairo, Ten Years Later
It’s been ten years since my last visit to Cairo, Illinois, and it felt like it was time to check in on the town that played a critical role in the history of America, and in St. Louis. It was from here that Ulysses S. Grant, formerly of St. Louis, launched his invasion south, changing…
Main Street, St. Charles, Revisited
We were wandering down Main Street in St. Charles and realized I hadn’t really taken very good photos of these buildings, which are primarily in the Greek Revival style. I’ve photographed some of them before in September of 2014. These are some very old houses, and their backsides are of interest, too. Most are built…
The Pony Express and Patee House, St. Joseph
Moving up into the hills of St. Joseph, we encounter the Patee House Hotel (pronounced “Pay-tea,” no accent on the first e), which played a critical role as the offices for the Pony Express and is now an eclectic and fun museum. Heavily influenced by an early Italianate style, the most stylish hotel in St….
Auburn Avenue, Mount Auburn, Cincinnati
Mount Auburn? That sounds interesting, I thought to myself, and then discovered that there was a historic site related to future president William Howard Taft. After taking a terrible photo of his boyhood home, I photographed many of the houses along Auburn Avenue, which follows the crest of the hill. The siting of Mount Auburn…