The Irish Corner district of Greenbrier County, West Virginia is dominated by large family farms, the remains of early mills and industries, country churches, and stately residences. Initially isolated by rough terrain and a lack of good roads, the rural setting is seeing an uptick in residential development that could potentially change the character of the region. Many years ago, I visited the Irish Corner region and documented some of the churches and houses I came across while randomly driving down the back roads. More recently, I trekked through the area with my girlfriend to see what’s changed. We started the morning making an impromptu visit to the Prince train station as the Amtrak Cardinal line made a brief stop to allow for the departure of a few passengers. Constructed in 1946 for the Chesapeake & Ohio Railroad, the Art Moderne depot was designed by the Garfield, Harris, Robinson & Schafer architectural firm of Cleveland. It features Streamline Moderne stainless steel lettering spelling out Prince on the exterior, and terrazzo flooring inside with an embedded “Chessie” kitten logo. Up the hill from the Prince train station along Route 41 is the ironic Laurel Lodge No. 104 with its iconic lettering set in blond brick. What I assumed was an older building was actually built in 1964 to replace a burned Masonic facility in Lawton. Interestingly, furnishings and floorings for the new building came from the Thurmond Lodge in Thurmond, while brick, roofing materials, and slate came from the old McKendree Hospital. We…
Abandoned Posts
Located in rural Monroe County, West Virginia is Sinks Grove, named for the many sinkholes throughout the area. It could be mistaken for just another rural community that is slowly disappearing into the landscape, but I found it fascinating for the variety of abandoned and historic buildings that still existed. The most visually interesting out of all of them is the shuttered Bob & Bob Speleo General Store with its handpainted sign that is adorned with the faded motto “Cavers Serving Cavers.” Constructed circa 1910, it was operated as a general store and gasoline station by numerous proprietors including Roy and Edna Burwelll between 1959/60 and 1974. The building was then purchased by Bob Liebman who operated “Bob & Bob,” a spelunking supply business. Liebman was born in 1942 in Los Angeles, California, growing up with an interest in trains, bowling, caves, and caving. 1 In 1968, while attending San Jose State College, he went on his first caving trip to Soldiers Cave with a club named the “Alpiners.” The club provided helmets and carbide lamps. Hooked on underground exploration, Liebman joined the Southern California Grotto and then the National Speleological Society in 1969. In 1970, Liebman met Bob Addis at the So Cal Grotto. While traveling down the coast of Oregon after attending a caving convention in White Salmon, Washington, the pair stopped at a hardware store looking for carbide lamps which were becoming scarce. 1 Borrowing money from Addis, Liebman purchased all of the lamps and the pair…
The centerpiece of the annual Ceredo-Kenova AutumnFest in Kenova, West Virginia is the famous Pumpkin House.
While vacationing in Cape May, New Jersey earlier this year, I stumbled upon the remnants of an old military battery that played a pivotal role in the Cape May Military Reservation.
I’ve always been curious about this cool neon sign on the side of some concrete silos in Clarksburg, West Virginia.
Over the last weekend, I visited the historic but closed Columbia Theatre in Paducah, Kentucky, with a small group of local historians and talented photographers. Developed by Leo F. Keiler, the 2,000-seat Columbia Theatre opened on April 18, 1927. The elaborately designed facility featured Palladian, Moorish, and Greek architecture with a facade of blue and white terra cotta tiles that included spiraled Byzantine-style columns, classical urns, busts of Greek goddesses, a name sign illuminated with 5,000 lights, and a marquee lit with 2,000 varicolored globes. Inside, the theater was furnished in fashionable shades of green, pink, tan, and blue, the woodwork finished in an antique grey, and the columns and ornaments outlined in gold leaf. The walls were adorned with Kentucky nature scenes, while the ceiling contained an art glass installation. Four thousand patrons attended two evening performances that were capped with Elinor Glyn’s feature motion picture “It,” which starred Clara Bow and Antonio Moreno. The Columbia was extensively remodeled with steel and bronze decorative sconces and framing and reopened to crowds on August 14, 1952. A second screen was created by enclosing the balcony, which opened on January 29, 1976. In 1982, the Kentucky Oaks Mall opened on the outskirts of Paducah, which included the construction of a ten-screen multiplex theater. Facing a projected $50,000 loss, owner Jack Keiler closed the Columbia Theatre in 1987. The first step towards the restoration of the theater came in 2004 when the facility was donated to the city by the Keller family, which…
Athol, an abandoned mansion turned sanitarium in Baltimore, Maryland, burned to the ground on September 27, 2021. The mansion, home of Charles J. Baker, was constructed in 1881. Baker was the proprietor of the Baltimore Window-glass, Bottle & Vial, which later became the Baker Bros. & Company. He was also a part of the Baltimore Car Wheel Company, the St. Clair-Scott Manufacturing Company, the Franklin Bank, and the Canton Company. At Canton, Baker was instrumental in securing the construction of the Union Railroad and Tunnel that allowed the Northern Central and Western Maryland railroads access to the tidewater terminals at Canton. The house was acquired by Dr. Alfred Gundry and his sister, Edith E. Gundry, in 1900, and the property was converted to serve as the Gundry Sanitorium for the care of women who suffered from “nervous prostration or nervous exhaustion.” The Gundry Sanitorium was acquired by Glass Hospital in February 1988. The newly renamed facility, Gundry-Glass Hospital, became a 29-bed inpatient center for children aged 4 to 12 who suffered from acute psychiatric problems. On August 17, 1997, Gundry/Glass Hospital closed and laid off 130 employees.
Nestled in the heart of Greenbrier County, West Virginia, the Blue Sulphur Springs Resort whispers tales of its grandeur and subsequent oblivion from a past era.
Tucked away under the dense canopy of McDowell County, West Virginia, lies the forgotten Prunty Trade School.
While taking aerial photographs near the Francis Scott Key Bridge close to Baltimore, Maryland, I unexpectedly came across Fort Carroll, a deserted sea fort situated in the midst of the Patapsco River.
The drive along Zenith Road to the unincorporated community of Zenith, West Virginia is a step back into time.
Work is progressing on the stabilization of the shuttered Sweet Springs Resort in eastern West Virginia.
Charcoal timber, iron ore, and limestone supplied material for numerous furnaces that produced pig iron, munitions, and tools in Kentucky, Ohio, and West Virginia. One of the most preserved is the Buckeye Furnace near Wellston, Ohio. The Buckeye Furnace was financed by the Newkirk, Daniels & Company and constructed by Thomas Price in 1851. It initially produced 7½ tons of iron per day, operating 42 weeks out of the year. Output was later increased to 12 tons of iron per day. The furnace was sold to H.S. Bundy in 1862, the Perry Austin & Company in 1864, and the Buckeye Furnace Company in 1867 and was operated until 1894.
Between 1922 and 1923, the Virginian Railway laid down what would become the Glen Rogers Branch, a 15-mile track carved into the rugged landscapes of West Virginia.
The American Lung Association was formed in 1904 in response to the epidemic of tuberculosis, a serious infectious bacterial disease that was the leading cause of death in the United States. Commonly referred to as consumption, tuberculosis was characterized by fatigue, sweats, and general wasting of the patient. There was no reliable treatment for the disease. Some doctors prescribed bleeding and purgings while others advised their patients to rest and exercise. Very few recovered and about 450 Americans died of tuberculosis each day. Typically, tuberculosis sanatoriums were privately operated or locally controlled facilities. For Kentucky, Louisville was the only city to take on such a task after they established a tax, levied by the city and county, which enabled the construction of Waverly Hills Tuberculosis Sanatarium in 1909-11. It was followed by Hazelwood Sanatorium, also in Louisville, and Jackson Hill Sanatorium in Paducah. Provisions were also made for tubercular inmates at the Eddyville Penitentiary and the Western State Asylum for the Insane. All of those facilities were designed for incipient cases and those who had a more advanced case of tuberculosis had to seek medical attention in other states if they could afford it. Furthermore, the state institutions could house less than 100 patients altogether. In 1912, the General Assembly of Kentucky established the State Tuberculosis Commission that authorized the construction of specific hospitals for the care and treatment of people affected with tuberculosis. It wasn’t until 1944 when the General Assembly created the State Tuberculosis Hospital Commission and six…
On a sunny afternoon, I explored the remnants of the Chesapeake & Ohio Railway Lexington Subdivision near Ashland, Kentucky by air. The 109-mile route between Lexington and Ashland had been completed in 1881 by the Newport News & Mississippi Valley Road and its predecessors, including the Lexington & Big Sandy Railroad, the Elizabethtown, Lexington & Big Sandy Railroad, and the Ashland Coal & Iron Railway. The line eventually fell under the control of the Chesapeake & Ohio Railway and its successor, the Chessie System. Years of declining traffic caused all but 11 miles of the route to be abandoned by 1985. The remaining portion of the Lexington Subdivision between Ashland and Rush was left in place to serve Kentucky Electric Steel at Coalton, brick kilns at Princess, and an Armco pipe fabrication shop at Summit. The Big Run regional landfill, first proposed in Coalton in the 1990s, was constructed between 2001-04. Originally proposed to collect only 7,000 tons of trash over its lifetime, the landfill’s plan was amended to allow for as much as 43 million tons of trash from New York and New Jersey to be accepted by rail. To accommodate the heavier, taller railcars, a three-track yard was constructed at Coalton, welded rail was installed on curves, and the Ashland and Princess tunnels were enlarged to accommodate the taller cars. By 2013, Big Run had become the state’s largest landfill and one of the biggest in the nation, accepting more than 3,500 tons of waste per day. The Lexington Subdivision,…