Midwest Guest

Ackley covered bridge brings history to Dearborn, Michigan

The Ackley covered bridge, spanning a small pond in Dearborn's Greenfield Village at The Henry Ford, is one of more than 80 historic structures pioneering automaker Henry Ford collected as he developed the 80-acre outdoor showcase honoring America's history and its development as an industrial giant.

The bridge is one of my favorite destinations in the village, especially on a quiet spring or autumn day when it's easy to imagine how the bridge appeared at its original location in the Pennsylvania countryside.

Joshua Ackley and David Clouse built the 75-foot-long, multiple-kingpost bridge to span the Enlow Fork, a branch of Wheeling Creek, on the line dividing Washington and Greene counties in southwestern Pennsylvania in 1832.

Some area residents thought builders should use hickory wood for the covered bridge to honor Andrew "Old Hickory" Jackson, president of the United States at that time. Practicality prevailed when construction began on land owned by the Ackley family, using oak timbers from trees felled on Joshua Ackley's nearby farm. Oak was more readily available, and less prone to warp. Stones for the bridge abutments came from a nearby quarry, nails used came from a small steel mill a couple of miles upstream, and about 100 men worked on the bridge.

One of the most interesting and complete accounts I found about the building of the bridge during 1830 to 1832 came from a Facebook page maintained by Ackley family descendants. Robert A. Ackley tells how ox teams hauled timber to the site where it was hand cut, and describes the method used for the bridge's unusual shingled roof.

Robert Ackley also mentions a story related by Forrest Samuel Ackley, bridge builder Joshua Ackley's grandson. Forrest Ackley wrote that Native Americans living in the area at the time were not happy with what they saw as further incursion into their territory, and they responded by shooting arrows and rifle balls at the bridge.    

The solidly built bridge survived that and flooding in the area during 1902. It stood in Pennsylvania for 105 years before local county officials ordered it demolished. The old bridge was in disrepair by 1935, and plans called for a more modern replacement concrete and steel bridge.

The 1930s was also a time when Henry Ford began searching for a covered bridge for Greenfield Village.

Lucille (Ackley) Carroll, Joshua Ackley's granddaughter, learned of plans for the bridge's demolition and set about saving it. She learned of Ford's interest in the bridge and contacted him. She purchased the covered bridge from the Pennsylvania highway department and gave it to Henry Ford for Greenfield Village.  

Perhaps the fact that William Holmes McGuffey was born a few miles from the bridge's location sparked Ford's imagination and interest because he greatly admired the author of a series of schoolbooks popular in 19th century America. He also already acquired the cabin where McGuffey was born in 1800 at West Finley Township, Pennsylvania, for Greenfield Village.

In late 1937, Ford sent workers to Pennsylvania to dismantle the bridge, number each piece, and load the pieces onto trucks for the 300-mile trip to Dearborn. They also transported stones from the river bank in Pennsylvania, and Ford ordered yellow poplar wood from Greene County to craft replacement pieces for bridge parts too decayed to use for its reassembly in Michigan.

Members of the Ackley and McGuffey families traveled to Michigan in 1938 for the reassembled bridge's dedication at Greenfield Village.

I'm again looking forward to visiting the bridge at Greenfield Village (which opens for the season on April 15 this year) and give a special thanks to Mrs. Carroll and Mr. Ford for saving this picturesque piece of Americana.

 

Be sure to check Tuesday's story at Midwest Guest about west Michigan's Ada Covered Bridge and my earlier story about Greenfield Village.

 

Want to learn more about how Henry Ford collected other structures and artifacts for The Henry Ford Museum and Greenfield Village? Check out the book, Henry's Attic: Some Fascinating Gifts to Henry Ford and his Museum by Ford R. Bryan at Amazon.

© Dominique King 2010 All rights reserved

Things To Do
Dearborn

Restoring Warner Theater to former glory in Erie, Pennsylvania

I wasn't expecting to find a gem of architectural and motion picture history in Erie, Pennsylvania, but finding the city's Warner Theater was a pleasant surprise.

We recently traveled along Lake Erie through Ohio, with the plan to go as far as east as Ashtabula, Ohio, before turning around to come back home. We somehow ended up over Ohio's eastern border in Erie, Pennsylvania, and decided to explore downtown Erie before checking the Presque Isle and Presque Isle Pierhead lighthouses and heading back west towards Detroit.

I snapped a photo of a bright red trolley car running past the historic Boston Store and Mercantile Building on State Street, before spotting the Warner Theater as I turned around to head back towards the car.

The four Warner Brothers showed films in Pennsylvania and Ohio theaters before opening their own theater in New Castle, Pennsylvania, in 1903, beginning to produce films in 1918, and incorporating Warner Brothers Pictures in 1923, the studio responsible for many classic films and beloved cartoon characters like Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, and Tweety Bird.

Warner Brothers commissioned Erie's Warner Theater in 1929. The opulent theater's construction cost $1.5 million, a surprising figure given the fact that it opened in 1931 during one of the country's worst economic depressions.

The theater, designed by Rapp & Rapp of Chicago in an Art Deco-style with the ancient Egyptian-influenced motifs fashionable at that time, opened as a grand movie palace and vaudeville stage.

The Warner Theater operated primarily as a movie theater until 1976. By the early 1980s, the city of Erie bought the theater and converted it into a performing arts center with hopes for it as the centerpiece of a downtown revival, and the Warner Theater earned a spot on the National Register of Historic Places.

A sign I spotted in the box office window listed the varied performers who appeared at the Warner Theater over the years, including Tony Bennett, Milton Berle, Johnny Cash, Nat King Cole, Alice Cooper, Bill Cosby, Sammy Davis Jr., BB King, Jay Leno, Meatloaf, Wayne Newton, The Temptations, Mel Torme, Train, and Trisha Yearwood.

By the 1990s, the Warner Theater restoration became the highest priority for arts funding among civic leaders seeing the old movie palace as a key component of downtown Erie's revitalization.

A $7 million state appropriation in 1994 and formation of the Warner Theater Preservation Trust marked the start of a period of additional fundraising and restoration proceeding in fits and starts.

Pennsylvania released the $7 million appropriation in 1997, and the preservation group raised $3.3 million by early 1998. Today, total funding for the project stands at over $20 million.

Daniel Coffey and Associates of Chicago and Crowner/King of Erie became the project architects.

Work through the remainder of the decade and into the next decade included restoration of the theater's interior with painting and restoring or replicating some of the grand decor like gold leaf and intricate tapestries, a new roof, new seating, upgraded lighting, updated heating and cooling systems, a new entrance, building expansion, and renovated restrooms.

Work on the project awaits completion with the anticipated release of another injection of money from the state for final renovations like an expanded stage, improved dressing rooms, upgraded loading docks, and restoring or replicating the grand curtain and draperies.

Today, the 2,250-seat theater, with its expansive 65-foot by 28-foot proscenium-style stage, hosts over 150 events each year that include theater performances, programs from the Erie Philharmonic and Lake Erie Ballet, weddings, and other private receptions.

Check in with the Warner Theater at its Facebook page or learn more about its history in a book by Barbara J. Hauck. Profits from sales of the book, "A Picture Palace Transformed: How Erie's Warner Theater Survived a Changing World", benefit the restoration, expansion and maintenance of the theater.

The vintage look of the Warner Theater's exterior reminded me a bit of some of the old movie theaters still barely hanging in there as I grew up in metro Detroit. I only wish we'd been able to tour the inside of the theater, which photos remind me of the opulent movie houses the beautifully restored Fox on Woodward Avenue in Detroit.

I guess it's a good excuse for another trip along the Lake Erie shore!

© Dominique King 2010 All rights reserved

Things To Do
Erie

Pennsylvania's Presque Isle Pierhead Lighthouse unique among U.S. lights

Many travelers may be familiar with the iconic Presque Isle Lighthouse pictured on special Pennsylvania license plates, but Presque Isle's unique pierhead light is also worth visiting.

We drove a few miles farther along the peninsula after visiting the Presque Isle Lighthouse to the road turning off towards a Coast Guard base at the southeastern tip of Presque Isle, where a pierhead light marks the narrow entrance into the protected harbor between the city of Erie on the mainland and the long bar of Presque Isle jutting out into Lake Erie.

The pier was a popular place for fishers the day we visited, and we saw at least one angler pull in a sizeable fish as we strolled along the concrete pier out to the light.

The city of Erie already had a land lighthouse, built in 1818, but difficulty navigating into the inlet brought a beacon at the harbor entrance in 1830, housed in a small wooden light tower.

Mariners sometimes had difficulty spotting the pier light until they were right by it, and the pier light got a new sixth-order Fresnel lens in the mid-1850s. The lighthouse and improved lighting didn't help much when a schooner attempting to enter the harbor in 1857 during a storm collided with the lighthouse, destroying the tower and the lens.

A temporary light hung on a gallows frame at the pier until a new pier light tower went up in 1858.

Perhaps officials had the fate of the original pier light tower in mind when they ordered a cast-iron tower sheathed in steel for an estimated cost of $5,250.

The 34-tall Presque Isle Pierhead Light (or Erie Harbor North Pierhead Light) tower is unique among lighthouses in the United States, being the only surviving example of the square and pyramidal style light tower in the country.

Changes at the harbor over the years meant changes for the little pierhead light as traffic increased in the harbor, necessitating changes in its pier perch.

A major change came in 1882 for the lighthouse with a move 190 feet further along the pier. Another move of 509 feet along further the pier and automation of the light happened in 1940.

The home that housed a number of the light's 15 keepers through 1940 still sits on the grounds of the nearby Coast Guard Station.

In 1995, the Coast Guard changed the tower's fixed red light to a red flashing light. The lighthouse's fourth-order Fresnel lens also went to the Erie Maritime Museum at that time. The pierhead tower with its solar powered light is still an active navigational aid for area sailors.

Erie has a rich maritime history (much of it beyond the scope of my lighthouse articles). Readers interested in learning more might want to start by checking out the Erie Maritime Museum Web site, especially the page recounting the story of Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry and his victory over the British in 1813 during the Battle of Lake Erie and the War of 1812.

© Dominique King 2009 All rights reserved

Things To Do
Erie

Pennsylvania's Presque Isle Lighthouse, one of Lake Erie's first lights

We recently hopped over the state line from Ohio into Pennsylvania and the city of Erie to check out the state park and lighthouses on Presque Isle and learn about Erie's importance in Great Lakes maritime history.

The Presque Isle Lighthouse sits on a beautiful Lake Erie beach, and its square tower makes it a little different from a lot of the round-tower lighthouses I've seen along the Great Lakes primarily in Michigan and Ohio.

French soldiers controlled the area in the 1700s as a strategic military location and named the six-mile-long peninsula, jutting out into Lake Erie, Presque Isle (French for "almost an island"). The British gained control of Erie during the French and Indian War in 1760, and it became part of the state of Pennsylvania in 1792 after the American Revolution.

Erie holds the distinction as being the site one of the first U.S. lighthouses on the Great Lakes, with a tower built on the mainland in 1818 (Buffalo, New York, also established a lighthouse in 1818). Erie gained importance as a shipping port, especially with the opening of the Erie Canal in 1824 and subsequent extensions of the shipping canal network connecting the eastern United States to the western frontier.

Swampy terrain presented problems, and a layer of quicksand far below the original lighthouse caused it to sink into the ground. A sandstone tower replaced the original light in 1867 (deactivated in 1899). Visitors can view the exterior of this tower in a city park, although we weren't able to get there this trip.

Our travels this time took us out along the scenic drive in Presque Isle State Park to visit the Presque Isle Lighthouse.

Placing a lighthouse on the peninsula made sense because it would help mariners safely navigate past the spit of land on an otherwise fairly straight coastline.

Construction began in 1872, but the area terrain again challenged builders.

A scow loaded with 6,000 bricks bound for the construction site was lost at sea. Washouts were another concern with the ever-present threat of separation from the mainland during storms.

Workers constructed a crude road through the swamp between the lighthouse site and the mainland, a road later planked with boards to help make it more passable, and eventually paved with concrete in 1925. That path exists today as a short hiking trail.

Workers completed the lighthouse, at a cost of $15,000, in 1873.

Today Presque Isle is near Erie's busy downtown, but the Presque Isle Lighthouse's first keeper, Charles Waldo, characterized the location as "the loneliest place on earth".

The original 40-foot tower had five layers of brick, to help it withstand the frequent storms, and housed a whale oil light. Workers increased the tower's height to 57 feet in 1896 to increase the light's range, and painted it white in 1898 to increase daytime visibility.

Other changes over the years included: electrification of the light in 1924, construction of a peninsula road in 1927, and automation of the light in 1962. The lighthouse earned a spot on the National Register of Historic Places in 1983.

The Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources took over ownership of the lighthouse in 1998, and the lighthouse with its keepers' dwelling serves as a private residence for Presque Isle State Park management.

Be on the lookout as you drive through the area for special Pennsylvania license plates that picture the Presque Isle Lighthouse, with much of the money generated by sales going to lighthouse preservation and promoting maritime history in Pennsylvania.

I wish we could have climbed the 70-plus iron stairs to the top of the tower, but the lighthouse only rarely opens for public tours. You can see the lighthouse from the park road, or park along the road to take a short walk around the lighthouse and down to the Lake Erie beach for the best views of the tower.

© Dominique King 2009 All rights reserved

Things To Do
Erie

Plymouth Whalers prepare to drop the puck on 2009-2010 season

Drop the puck!

Regular readers of Midwest Guest know it's occasion for celebration as I hold a harbinger of advancing autumn in my hand--tickets for a Plymouth Whalers pre-season hockey game.

The Whalers are part of the Ontario Hockey League (OHL), a Junior Major-level team where 16- to 20-year-old athletes competing to become part of a National Hockey League (NHL) team often start their professional careers.

Our Whaler season tickets are an affordable alternative to high-priced NHL "Big League" tickets and mean we can feed our hockey fix with high-level, fast-paced hockey throughout the entire season.

We've had Whaler season tickets since the early 1990s, so we've seen former Whalers like David Legwand, Chad LaRose, Pat Peake, Todd Harvey, Robert Esche, Fred Brathwaite, James Wisniewski, Chris Thorburn  and Bryan Berard at the early stages of their professional careers--before they eventually landed in the NHL.

The Whalers, mindful of their largely family-oriented audience and Michigan's sluggish economy, held the line on ticket prices this year. A 34-game season ticket package costs $269 to $399, while individual game tickets cost $11 to $15. The team offers several other value package and group pricing plans, including a special 9-pack ticket package for $90 to help celebrate the team's upcoming 20th OHL season.

We've got great center-ice seats, although there isn't a bad seat in the venue's 3,500-seat hockey arena configuration (the arena holds as many as 4,500 for concerts, graduations and other events).

Some of my favorite things, beyond the great hockey action, about watching a game at the Whalers' arena? Great aisle seats, reasonably priced Canadian beer (not the over-priced, watered-down dreck that passes for beer at the NHL arenas I've visited) and the Whaler practice of playing both Canadian and American national anthems before each game, even for games between two U.S.-based teams.

We always look out for hockey action when we travel, even in the summer.

We went out to Erie, Pennsylvania last month and checked out the home arena of the OHL Erie Otters. I tried a door, and it opened. Imagine our surprise to find we'd stumbled onto an Erie Otter practice session!

As you can tell, I'm more than ready for the season to start and eagerly anticipating our first look at this season's team at 2 p.m. on Saturday, September 5 at a pre-season game with our cross-river rivals, the Windsor (Ontario) Spitfires.

The Whalers open their regular home season at 7:05 p.m. on Saturday, September 19 against the Oshawa (Ontario) Generals at the Whalers' Compuware Arena in Plymouth, Michigan.

© Dominique King 2009 All rights reserved