There was a golden layer of leaves on the ground in Bellefontaine Cemetery when I visited a couple of weeks ago, and the light made everything glow.
Tag: Neo-Classicism
From the Vault: Augustana College
More of my photos dug up from September 2011 reveal the beautiful Old Main Hall at Augustana University, built in 1883 in what I would describe in an Italianate/proto-Beaux-Arts style. It is most certainly not Beaux-Arts in the purest sense as popularized by Cass Gilbert or McKim, Meade and White, but is not purely Italianate…
Clermont, Iowa
Update: See Montauk, the estate of former Governor William Larrabee. Also updated with new and improved and additional photography in July of 2024. As I came over a high hill in the rugged northeastern corner of Iowa on U.S. Route 18, I looked down into the valley below and I could have sworn I was…
South Side of Potomac Street, Gravois Park #2
Over the next three weeks on Thursdays and Fridays, I’ll be looking at the three east-west streets parallel to Cherokee Street in Gravois Park, the neighborhood to the south of the famous commercial artery. This is where the east-west streets are “Indian Tribes” and the north-south streets are the “State Streets.” Moving further west, the…
Louis Obert Monument, New St. Marcus Cemetery
I can’t imagine that Louis Obert was not thinking of his fellow beer baron Anton Griesedieck’s monument in Bellefontaine Cemetery when commissioning his own grave in New St. Marcus Cemetery, where the stepson of Adam Lemp and his family is buried. The Moll Monument, also in Bellefontaine, could easily have been inspiration. His brewery was…
Campbell and Ranken Monuments, Bellefontaine Cemetery
I stopped around the center of Bellefontaine Cemetery and noticed a couple of elegant family plots, including the Campbell and Ranken squares, each centered around an obelisk. But I was also intrigued by this monument with a mother and two children. I love how the limestone has effervesced over the years, giving unique textures to…
Brock Mausoleum, Bellefontaine Cemetery
The Dr. David Brock Mausoleum sits in what would have been one of the most prominent locations in Bellefontaine Cemetery when it was originally founded and the front gate was along the eponymous road and fort, now North Broadway. As can be seen in the photograph above, this George I. Barnett-designed mausoleum once had an…
Historic Entrance, Bellefontaine Cemetery
The original entrance off of Bellefontaine Road, now North Broadway, is a majestic, gently sloping valley that allowed horse-drawn carriages to reach the ridge line that forms the main road of Bellefontaine Cemetery. It rises up slowly, only cutting through the natural contours of the land in a couple of places; otherwise, the grass is…
Princeton, Illinois
The weather was weird in Princeton when we came through, but it is a really beautiful town, with a long history going back before the Civil War. It has two “downtowns,” one down by the county courthouse, and the other up by the rail depot. Another commercial strip has developed near Interstate 80. I believe…
Bellefontaine Cemetery, Early August 2018
For some reason I had never noticed the Spink Mausoleum hiding in the trees, with its massive stylized Ionic columns flanking its bronzes doors. An upside-down torch symbolizes life ended, as that is how you extinguish a torch. I have never extinguished a torch, so I will have to take their word for it. I…