Midwest Guest

Midwest travel links for July 2015

Check out some great Midwest-related stories I found online this past month:

Illinois State Capitol: Take the Tour-Join Connie on a tour of the State Capitol building in Illinois. I love vintage state capitol buildings like this because they offer so much in the way of history, art and architecture. This post reminded me of our tour of the iconic state capitol building here in Lansing, Michigan. Check out Connie's story about the Illinois capitol tour at her Midwest Wanderer blog.

Quirky Attraction: The Studebaker Museum-It's no secret that we love visiting museums with classic car collections like the Studebaker Museum in South Bend, Indiana, and to reflect Tim's experiences as a returning motorcycle rider, classic motorcycle collections. I enjoyed seeing Scott's take on the Studebaker Museum. Check it out at The Quirky Travel Guy blog. Meanwhile, do any of my readers know about any other good Midwest automobile or motorcycle museums we need to visit?

Entry to the Ford Rouge Plant-Charlie finds the most interestingly obscure sports during his two-wheeled adventures around the Motor City! Check out this small park he found in front of Ford's huge Rouge plant just downriver of the city. The park has historical markers telling the story of the plant and labor history in Michigan. I especially enjoyed seeing the plaque dedicated to the female factory workers during World War II (a.k.a. "Rosie the Riveters"). Check it out at the Bikes, Books & A Little Music blog.

Know Nebraska: Scottsbluff National Monument-Do you think of Nebraska as totally flat terrain? Muriel says "think again!" as she tours the scenic bluffs at this National Parks area in Nebraska. I found it especially interesting to learn that the Civilian Conservation Corps built some of the tunnels and other man-made features to make the park more accessible during the 1930s. Read about it at the Nebraska Outback blog.

Haunted Iowa: Places to Visit-Looking for ideas for planning a ghostly road trip? Check out Deb's list of suggested haunted places in Iowa, which includes an "An Ax Murder House" and a couple of haunted bridges. She also suggests reading The Iowa Road Guide to Haunted Locations by Chad Lewis and Terry Fisk. Check out her story at Just Short of Crazy. I've also posted a couple of ghostly stories here that include Is Ohio's Everett Road Covered Bridge haunted? and A ghostly tale in Elmore, Ohio about reported sightings of a headless motorcycle rider!  

Ohio's Everett Road Bridge

Bob the Bridge-Join Adam as he visits the Bob Kerry Pedestrian Bridge and learn what it means to "Bob the Bridge". The bridge, which straddles the Mississippi River at Omaha, Nebraska and Council Bluffs, Iowa, allows visitors to stand with one foot in each of the two states at the same time! Read the story at the Visit Flyover Country blog.

Explore Geneva-on-the-Lake-We visited this Ohio State Park several years ago, and it was fun to virtually re-visit is with Mike on his Ohventures blog. Situated along the Lake Erie coastline, the area near the park initially gained fame as "Ohio's first resort" and remains popular for family fun, its proximity to great Ohio wineries, hiking and biking trails and a number of covered bridges.

Vincennes' Red Skelton Museum-I vaguely remember seeing Red Skelton's show on television when I was very young. The show went off of the air by the very early 1970s, but there is an Indiana Museum dedicated to Skelton's work as a much-loved comedian. The museum at Skelton's hometown of Vincennes, Indiana and Kayleen found it impressively interactive and modern. Check out her story at the Indiana Insider blog.

The Wallpapers in Paul Laurence Dunbar's Dayton Home are as Lovely as his Books-When I spot someone who can make an interesting story about wallpapers, I know I've found a blogger after my own heart! I enjoyed reading about Betsy's visit to poet Paul Laurence Dunbar's home in Dayton, Ohio. We learned a bit about the poet and his connection to Orville Wright during our recent visit to Dayton, and his home is now on our bucket list for a return trip to the city. Check out the story at beesfirstappearance blog.  

Smithfield Street Bridge in Pittsburgh: Sunset in the City of Bridges-Tim's sister and her family live in Pittsburgh, and I especially enjoyed seeing the city's bridges when we visited there. His sister, knowing of my love of bridges, made sure we walked across the Smithfield Bridge, telling us it was one of her favorite spans in the city. I can understand the appeal of this bridge and enjoyed learning of its connection to famed bridge builder John Roebling (who was also responsible for one of my favorite bridges in Cincinnati, Ohio). Check out Karyn's nice sunset scene at the Sand and Snow...and Everywhere in Between blog.

That's it for this month's Midwest travel links list. Do you have any favorite Midwest stories or blogs to share?

Want more Midwest news and links? Subscribe to my bi-monthly Midwest Guest newsletter!

© Dominique King 2015 All rights reserved

American Impressionism: The Lure of the Artists' Colony exhibition at Ohio's Dayton Art Institute runs through May 31

I've long been a fan of Impressionism, and I've heard good things about Ohio's Dayton Art Institute (DAI), which will celebrate its centennial year in 2019.

So, it didn't take much for us to start planning a visit to the DAI when I learned of the museum's plan to stage an exhibition featuring the works of American Impressionist masters through a Twitter conversation with Eric Brockman, the museum's Marketing & Communications Manager.

Names of French artists working in the late-nineteenth century like Monet, Renoir, Morisot, Degas and Caillebotte are often the first names to pop into the minds of art lovers when they think of their favorite Impressionists' works, but the DAI's American Impressionism: The Lure of the Artists' Colony exhibition showcases the work of American Impressionists and encompasses a longer time period running roughly from the 1880s through the 1930s.

Study in Paris became a must for late-nineteenth century artists who wanted to practice and master the then-new Impressionist style. American expatriate artists like John Singer Sargent and Mary Cassatt spent a number of years painting in France as the age of Impressionism dawned during the 1870s, but by the early 1880s, Americans began experimenting with the techniques on their own and establishing art schools and art colonies in the States.

This exhibition draws liberally from work produced at the summer art colonies where American artists learned from respected American Impressionists, perfected their own techniques, collaborated with other artists and simply spent time in nature to create more Impressionist masterpieces.

The DAI's exhibition arranges more than 100 paintings and prints produced by the artists by the location of the colonies like Cos Cob and Old Lyme in Connecticut; Cape Code, Cape Anne and Rockport in Massachusetts; New Hope, and Philadelphia in Pennsylvania, Taos in New Mexico and communities in California playing major roles in developing Impressionism in America.

Aimee Marcereau DeGalan, the DAI's Curator of Collections and Exhibitions, joined us on our tour of the exhibition to offer insights about the exhibition, the artists and the distinctive features of American Impressionism in general.

DeGalan pointed out that the French Impressionists generally had a looser style, while the American artists produced work that was often more linear and focused on pastoral scenes.

 

 

Winter in the Valley by Edward Willis Redfield

The American Impressionist colonies were usually near major cities, but still far enough into the surrounding countryside to provide the pastoral scenes favored by en plein air painters.

DeGalan also told us that innovations like the invention of portable (and re-sealable) paint tubes by 1840 made it easier to paint outdoors, and the development of square- or chisel-shaped brushes during the late 1800s allowed artists to produce more precise color edges in their works.

Impressionist paintings usually depict a moment in time, and the use of color theory concepts like placing complementary colors next to each other gave the paintings a unique "vibration" or sense of movement.  Broad, visible brush strokes, the use of a lighter color palette and outdoor subjects also distinguished the work of Impressionists from earlier artists.

Detail from Redfield's Winter in the Valley

DeGalan also talked about the importance of exploring the effects of light and atmospheric conditions in the Impressionist movement as she pointed out how the portrayal of light differed in paintings produced in the eastern half of the United States from works created in western locales like California.

The DAI American Impressionism exhibition comes to the museum from Pennsylvania's Reading Public Museum. The Reading Museum's location just 55 miles northeast of Philadelphia and ready access to the annual shows and exhibitions of the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts there enabled the museum to build an especially fine collection of art from the American Impressionists who studied and taught in that region.

Artists who taught at Philadelphia included William Merritt Chase, one of the first American artists to fully embrace Impressionism and draw students to the area.

Chase looms large in this exhibition as items related to him in it include a couple of his own paintings, one of his paint palettes and a painting from artist and student of Chase, Charles Webster Hawthorne, and prominently inscribed "To My Master Wm. Merritt Chase".

 

 

The exhibition also features artists like John Singer Sargent, Mary Cassatt, Childe Hassam, John Twachtman, John Fulton Folinsbee and more.

The American Impressionism exhibition kicked off 2015 as the DAI's Year of American Art and runs through May 31. The other exhibitions focusing on American Art this year at the DAI include Call to Duty: World War Posters (July 4 through October 4, 2015) and American Sampler: Grandma Moses and the Handicraft Tradition (November 21-February 21, 2016).   

Check the DAI web site for more information about the exhibitions, museum hours and admission.

Want to learn more about American Impressionism? Check out American Impressionism by William H. Gerdts, American Impressionism: A New Vision, 1880-1900 by Katherine M. Bourguignon, Frances Fowle and Richard R. Brettell or Pennsylvania Impressionism by Brian H. Peterson.

I'll do another story focusing on the Dayton Art Institute and its history later this year.

Thanks to the Dayton Art Institute for hosting our tour and lunch at the museum.

© Dominique King 2015 All rights reserved

Photos © Dominique King and Tim Marks All rights reserved

Photo Friday: Pittsburgh bridges, camera club winner

Capturing images with my camera is a large part of what I do when I start researching a story here at Midwest Guest.

Tim and I both invested in good quality cameras long before I had this blog--and long before there was such a thing as a digital camera. Tim even had a darkroom set up in the basement so he could process his own photos at one point.

This year, Tim became president of the Motor City Camera Club, a group he joined a few years ago. I've gone with him for occasional club programs over the past few years, but I had no intention of joining or entering and competing any of the club's monthly photo competitions.

I somehow ended up becoming a member of the club a couple of months ago (and sorting through my photo archives and heading out with the club for some of their photo shoots).

I've actually placed a few images in club competitions, so it seems like a good time to run a few more Photo Friday features.

 

Today's image is one that originally appeared here with a story about the Duquesne Incline in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. I liked this view from the top of the incline, especially because it included a few of Pittsburgh's famous bridges.

Pittsburgh Bridges placed third in the Digital Photo competition assigned topic category (Bridges/Park Bench) for December 2014.

You can also connect with the Motor City Camera Club on Facebook.

© Dominique King 2015 All rights reserved

Photo Friday: View from the top at Pittsburgh's Duquesne Incline

I wrote a story yesterday about one of Pittsburgh's two surviving funiculars, or inclined plane railroads, in Pittsburgh's best view from atop the Duquense Incline.

The trip to the top of the city's Mt. Washington via this unique late-nineteenth-century conveyance is one of the Pennsylvania city's most visited tourist attractions and offers a great view of the city's numerous bridges.

Here are a couple of alternate shots I didn't use in yesterday's story.

Also be sure to check out my Pittsburgh bridge stories, Roberto Clemente (Sixth Street) Bridge and A walk across the Smithfield Bridge.

Want to learn more about historic inclines? Check out Pittsburgh's South Side (Images of America) by Stuart P. Boehmig to learn about Pittsburgh's and The Inclines of Cincinnati (Images of America) by Melissa Kramer to learn about that Ohio city's historic inclines and their eventual disappearance.

Thanks to Debbie Dubrow of Delicious Baby for creating and coordinating Photo Friday to link travel photos and blog posts across the Web.

© Dominique King 2012 All right reserved

Pittsburgh's best view from atop the Duquesne Incline

The best view of downtown Pittsburgh with its rivers and bridges has to be from atop the Duquesne Incline, a nineteenth-century inclined plane railroad or funicular.

The incline is one of the city's most distinctive features and a popular attraction for visitors, although some locals still find it one of the best ways to get from downtown Pittsburgh to the neighborhoods atop Mount Washington.

The incline's tracks closely follow the trail of an early coal hoist, which appeared on Mount Washington (a.k.a. "Coal Mountain") as early as 1854 to transport coal from the mountain to residents in the neighborhood atop the hill.

Industrial Pittsburgh rapidly expanded during the 1860s, with more and more residents settling atop the mountain as businesses settled on the flat land in the river valleys.

People tired of taking footpaths up and down the steep hill, so Samuel Diescher, a civil and mechanical engineer, designed the incline. He went on to construct the majority of inclined planes in the United States, and the Duquesne Incline became one of four serving Mount Washington at one time.

The Duquesne Incline opened on May 20, 1877, and it carried people, as well as freight, horses and cars to neighborhoods in the hills during its earliest decades.

The incline cost $47,000 to construct and passengers during the early years paid a base fare of five cents.

Today the base price for a one-way fare is $2.25, which is still a pretty economical price for a popular tourist attraction. Better yet, there is a free parking lot at the foot of the hill for the visitors taking the incline.

The Duquense Incline is just west of the Fort Pitt Bridge and faces the Ohio River. It is just under 800 feet long and 400 feet high, traversing a 58-percent grade at an average speed of 4 to 6 miles per hour.

Two cars, one going up and one going down, attached to the opposite ends of a cable, counterbalance each other while an operator in at the top of the hill drives the engine. The engine needs only enough power to overcome friction and the weight difference between the passengers in each car. A diesel auxiliary generator operates the incline in case of a power failure.

Inclines became popular during the late-nineteenth century, with 17 appearing on the hills of Pittsburgh in the quarter century following construction of the Monongahela Incline in 1870.

One incline could transport several thousand people each day, but better roads and improvement of other means of transportation like cars led to closing of most inclines during the early twentieth century.

Today, only the Duquense and Monongahela Inclines remain in operation.

The Duquense Incline nearly closed entirely during the early 1960s. The owners closed it in 1962 for repairs, and then decided it was too expensive to do the repairs needed in order to re-open it.

Residents of the Duquense Heights neighborhood atop Mt. Washington rallied to save the incline, raising $15,000 and forming a non-profit group to help fund its operation and re-open it in 1963.

Pittsburgh's Port Authority purchased the incline the next year, leasing it back to the Society for the Preservation of the Duquense Incline for one dollar and returning the dollar to the society as a donation.

Major improvements since the preservation society took over the incline include stripping grey paint from the interior of the 25-passenger incline cars to reveal original cherry wood panels with oak and Birdseye maple trim and constructing an observation deck on top of the cable room.

The day we visited, a college orientation group visited deck, and we learned a lot about the city and the incline by listening to the group's guide!

There is also a small gift shop at the top where I bought a cute wooden incline ornament for my Christmas tree.

The Duquense Incline operates year round, seven days a week.

Check out Aaron's story, Pittsburgh: Duquense Incline and Mt. Washington, and Shannon's story, Pit-Stop At Pittsburgh's Duquesne Incline for other takes on visiting the incline (See? I told you it was a must-do for Pittsburgh visitors!).

Read my other Pittsburgh stories, Catching a Pittsburgh Pirates baseball game, Roberto Clemente (Sixth Street) Bridge in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and A walk across the Smithfield Bridge in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Want to learn more? Check out Pittsburgh's South Side (Images of America) by Stuart P. Boehmig to read more about inclines in Pittsburgh and The Inclines of Cincinnati (Images of America) by Melissa Kramer to learn about that Ohio city's historic inclines and their eventual disappearance.

© Dominique King 2012 All rights reserved

A walk across the Smithfield Bridge in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

We visited Pittsburgh and went to see a baseball game with Tim's sister, who suggested walking across one of her favorite bridges in the city, the Smithfield Bridge, on our way to the ballpark.

I can easily see the charm in this old bridge. It has a unique design and interesting history, plus I loved learning about the crossing's link to legendary bridge architect John A. Roebling.

Multiple alterations to the current span over the years may lessen the bridge's historic character for some scholars, but the bridge still stands as a National Historic Landmark and embodies a huge piece of Pittsburgh history.

The Smithfield Bridge is the oldest surviving river bridge in Pittsburgh, but it is actually the third bridge to span this particular Monongahela River crossing.

In 1818, Louis Wernwag built the first bridge at this site. The wooden bridge, called the Monongahela Bridge, replaced a ferry and cost $102,000.

A runaway river boat seriously damaged the bridge in 1832, and the Great Fire of 1845 destroyed it.

A Roebling-designed wire rope suspension bridge was the second bridge at this crossing and opened as the Smithfield Bridge in 1847.

Roebling's design reused the abutments and six piers from the earlier bridge and featured eight 188-foot-long spans.

By the late 1800s, increased traffic caused the bridge to sway to really sway under the loads, hastening its obsolescence.

Self-taught bridge engineer and architect Gustav Lindenthal received the commission to design a replacement for the old wire rope suspension bridge.

The Czech-born Lindenthal immigrated to the United States to improve his career prospects, coming to Philadelphia to work as a mason, draftsman and engineer on buildings for the 1876 Centennial Exposition. By 1881, he was working as an engineer in Pittsburgh.

Lindenthal's design used unique lens-shaped, or lenticular, trusses that give it a unique look.

The lenticular trusses help distribute the tension and weight in a way that relieves a lot of the load on the supporting pylons. Builders can also fabricate the trusses on the ground and lift them into place atop the supporting structure.

Lindenthal used the old stone piers from the previous bridges and further economized by using steel, rather than iron, for the bridge.

The new Smithfield Bridge opened to traffic in 1883.

Lindenthal designed his span with future expansion in mind, and increasing traffic soon made multiple renovations and alterations necessary.

The original version only had one lane, but advent of electric streetcars led to widening the bridge's deck in 1889. Workers widened the bridge again in 1911. The bridge had rails for streetcars and carried double-tracked trolley busses until 1985.

Pittsburgh's city architect Stanley L. Roush designed new portals for the bridge in 1915, replacing Lindenthal's more ornate wrought-iron portals at each end of the bridge. Roush's portals included ornaments featuring a miner holding a pick, a man holding a gear and the City of Pittsburgh coat of arms.

Deterioration and a short clearance over the river led to a decision to demolish the Lindenthal bridge in the early 1990s. The Pittsburgh History and Landmarks Foundation lobbied successfully to save it, and the bridge underwent a major rehabilitation in 1994 and 1995.

Workers removed the rail lines, resurfaced the road to create three vehicle lanes, reinforced the steel structure, and installed architectural lighting.

The bridge's superstructure was an aluminum-grey color for most of its life until the 1990s rehab restored it to the original color scheme specified by Lindenthal of sandstone-yellow portals with royal-blue trusses. The rehab also restored the bridge's six copper finials previously removed because of deterioration to their original place on top of the portals.

Today the bridge is one of the city's most heavily traveled pedestrian crossings. We saw plenty of foot and vehicle traffic, even as repairs took place during our visit.

Read Catching a Pittsburgh Pirates baseball game to learn more about the ballpark and our trip to see a ball game there, the nearby Roberto Clemente (Sixth Street) Bridge in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and Roebling Bridge links Ohio, Kentucky and Brooklyn to learn more about my favorite Roebling-designed bridge.

Want to learn more about Pittsburgh bridges? Check out Pittsburgh Bridges: Architecture and Engineering by Walter C. Kidney or Bridges of Pittsburgh by Bob Regan.

© Dominique King 2012 All rights reserved

Photo Friday: Pittsburgh Bridges

If you love bridges as I do, then visiting Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, is a must.

Here are a couple of views of a few Pittsburgh bridges, including the famous Three Sisters bridges, from the observation deck atop Mt. Washington at the Duquesne Incline.

Check out yesterday's story to read about one of the Three Sisters, the Roberto Clemente (Sixth Street) Bridge, and look for upcoming stories about Pittsburgh's Smithfield Bridge and riding the Duquesne Incline.

Want to learn more? Check out Pittsburgh Bridges: Architecture and Engineering by Walter C. Kidney or Bridges of Pittsburgh by Bob Regan.

Thanks to Debbie Dubrow of Delicious Baby for creating and coordinating Photo Friday to link travel photos and blog posts across the Web.

© Dominique King 2012 All rights reserved

Roberto Clemente (Sixth Street) Bridge in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Anyone who knows of my fascination with bridges will not be surprised to discover that I enjoyed Pittsburgh and exploring the city's Roberto Clemente Bridge, as well as other nearby spans.

We walked across the bridge, fittingly enough, on our way to a baseball game at the PNC ballpark.

This span across the Allegheny River in downtown Pittsburgh, also known as the Sixth Street Bridge, takes its name from the baseball right fielder that played 18 seasons for the Pittsburgh Pirates before his untimely death at the age of 38.

Clemente often worked with charities to benefit Puerto Rico and Latin American countries, delivering food or baseball equipment to those in need. He died in a 1972 plane crash off of the coast of Puerto Rico while on the way to deliver aid to earthquake victims in Nicaragua.

While there was strong sentiment to name the ballpark for Clemente, his name ended up on the bridge as part of a compromise after the Pirates sold naming rights to the park to the locally-based PNC in 1998.

The Roberto Clemente Bridge wasn't the first bridge built at this crossing, though.

The first bridge was a wooden covered truss bridge with multiple spans supported by masonry abutments and piers that opened in 1819 as a toll bridge. The 1037-foot-long span became popular as a promenade for pedestrians who paid two cents toll for each crossing.

That span gave way to a John Roebling-designed suspension bridge in 1857. Roebling designed one of my favorites, a bridge connecting Cincinnati (Ohio) and Covington (Kentucky), but he is particularly famous for his design of New York's Brooklyn Bridge.

Operators reduced the toll to one cent for male pedestrians and allowed women to cross for free. Reduced tolls and the public's fascination with the new-fangled suspension bridge increased traffic and bolstered the bridge company's profits.

The bridge also began carrying rail traffic across the river, but the advent of electric street cars made it obsolete because it wasn't wide enough or strong enough to carry the additional weight.

In 1892, workers floated parts of the bridge 12 miles to use in Coraopolis as a Theodore Cooper-designed span featuring a pair of 440-foot-long bowstring trusses replaced it at Sixth Street.

Calls to replace that bridge began in the late 1890s when requirements for higher bridge clearances over the water found numerous Pittsburgh bridges in violation.

World War I delayed enforcement of the clearance requirements, but it became necessary to replace the bridge by the mid-1920s.

The Allegheny County architects and engineers developed a unique design for the span using steel eye-bars in place of the more traditional wire cables to answer the county's political and commercial concerns, as well as a mandate for a suspension bridge from the Municipal Art Commission. The design features rigid towers holding the ends apart instead of heavy anchorages to at each end of the bridge for cables.

The Sixth Street bridge design and construction became the design model for a trio of nearly identical suspension bridges near each other. The bridges, known collectively as The Three Sisters, are among the only surviving examples of spans using large eye-bar construction.

The Sixth Street Bridge measures 995 feet long and features 78-foot-tall towers.

The bridge opened to traffic on October 19, 1928 and won an award for beauty from the American Institute of Steel Construction in 1929.

In 1986, it earned a spot on the National Register of Historical Places.

The four-lane bridge has a pedestrian walkway, although it closes to car traffic on Pirates' baseball and Steelers' football game days and becomes a pedestrian-only route to PNC Park and Heinz Field.

Being able to take the "T" (the city's trolley or train) into the city and walk the bridges made it much easier for us to navigate downtown for a stress-free trip to and from the ballpark.

Read Catching a Pittsburgh Pirates baseball game to learn more about the ballpark and our trip to see a ball game there, and Roebling Bridge links Ohio, Kentucky and Brooklyn to learn more about my favorite Roebling-designed bridge.

Want to learn more about Pittsburgh bridges? Check out Pittsburgh Bridges: Architecture and Engineering by Walter C. Kidney or Bridges of Pittsburgh by Bob Regan.

Interested in learning more about Roberto Clemente? Check out Clemente: The Passion and Grace of Baseball's Last Hero by David Maraniss or The Team that Changed Baseball: Roberto Clemente and the 1971 Pittsburgh Pirates by Bruce Markusen.

© Dominique King 2012 All rights reserved

Catching a Pittsburgh Pirates baseball game

We grabbed the chance to catch a Pirates' baseball game when we recently visited Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, for a family party.

Pittsburgh's PNC ballpark, opened in 2001, has the open design favored by a lot of the newer ballparks, but it makes particularly good use of the city's skyline and its location on the shore of the Allegheny River. Most fans have a great view of the cityscape and the Roberto Clemente (or Sixth Street) Bridge from their seats, plus the two-deck design means the highest seat in the house is just 88 feet from the ball field.

The PNC ballpark is the fifth home of the Pirates since 1887, when they joined the National League. The team has a long and interesting history, which includes playing in the first World Series in 1903 (when they lost to the Boston Americans 5-3), being coached by current Detroit Tigers' coach Jim Leyland from the mid-1980s through the early 1990s, and having legendary players like Honus Wagner (who has the distinction of being pictured on one of the world's rarest baseball cards).

We had a great view of the field and Pittsburgh's downtown from our seats along the third baseline, and the seats were amazingly comfortable for being in the middle of the row.

We had a perfect view of Boston Red Sox Kevin Youkilis' crazy batting stance, too. I'm still puzzling over how the pitchers figure out where to throw the ball to him.

I love checking out the crazy promotions and local eats you find at sporting events. Pittsburgh has its bright-green parrot mascot to whip up enthusiasm for the Bucs (one of the team's nicknames derived from "buccaneer"), a between-innings race between four folks dressed as pierogies, and local delicacies like the massive coleslaw- and fries-topped beef sandwich I got from Primanti Brothers concession stand, along with a Yuengling beer to wash it all down.

We got to the ballpark by riding on the "T" (trolley or train) from the suburbs and taking it right downtown.

The city closes the Roberto Clemente Bridge to vehicular traffic on game days, opening it entirely to pedestrians crossing the river and going to the game. Tim tipped his family off to my affection for bridges, so we got off of the T a stop earlier so I could walk across the Smithfield and the Roberto Clemente Bridges on the way to the game (and, yes, there will be Pittsburgh bridge stories here sometime later this year!).

The Pirates took two games of the three-series they played with Boston that weekend, although they lost the game we saw to Boston 2-4.

Still, bridges, baseball, a sandwich nearly as big as my head, and some Yuengling beer made my day at the ballpark with the Pirates a winner.

Curious about the Pirates, Honus Wagner and Roberto Clemente? Check out The Team That Changed Baseball: Roberto Clemente and the 1971 Pittsburgh Pirates by Bruce Markusen, Pittsburgh Pirates by David Finoli, or Honus Wagner: On His Life & Baseball edited by William R. Cobb.

© Dominique King 2011 All rights reserved

Things To Do
Pittsburgh

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