Statues of Unlimitations

Almost every courthouse in Illinois has one or more statues outside. Certainly, the most common are memorials to service men and women, and many of those are dedicated to Civil War Union soldiers. This monument notes that 1,200 men from Bond County (in south central Illinois) fought for the Union and participated in battles including Vicksburg, Shiloh, Chickamauga and Belmont. You can also see in the distance flag poles which are surrounded by memorials to those who served (and continue to serve) in other conflicts.

Bond County Courthouse, Greenville, Illinois

A great many of the courthouses are graced by Illinois’ greatest lawyer. You can find statues of Abraham Lincoln in parks, historic sites and museums throughout the state. Several have him paired with Stephen Douglas in locations where they debated. My favorites, though, are those outside the courtrooms where he rode circuit. The image below is outside the Christian County Courthouse. When he rode circuit, the Christian County courthouse was a wooden building and pigs would sometimes get below the raised floor. When the squealing was disturbing his closing arguments, Lincoln asked the judge to issue a “writ of quietus” to the pigs. This statue by John McClarey commemorates the event. McClarey’s statues of Lincoln in engaging scenes can be found throughout the state, but this is McClarey’s only statue of a pig. The statue is called The Last Stop because Taylorville was the last stop as the lawyers and judges rode through the courts of the 8th Circuit before returning to Springfield.

As an aside, I highly recommend Dan Abrams’s new book Lincoln’s Last Trial: The Murder Case that Propelled him to the Presidency. The trial in Springfield was indeed his last before the election, and unusual for the time, had a complete transcript. Robert Hitt, who had been assigned by Chicago papers to transcribe the Lincoln-Douglas debates a year before, was sent to transcribe this trial. Hitt, who later became a member of Congress, is a fascinating character in his own right.

Christian County Courthouse, Taylorville, Illinois

The borders of southern Illinois are guarded by some interesting statues. The town of Chester on the Mississippi River was the home of Elzie Crisler Segar, the create of Popeye. Statues of Popeye and other characters from the comic strip are found throughout town. Outside the Randolph County Courthouse is one of Popeye’s girlfriend Olive Oyl, along with Swee’Pea, who would get into the spinach at times, and the bizarre creature Eugene the Jeep.

Randolph County Courthouse, Chester, Illinois

But dwarfing even Lincoln and Popeye is a statue of a true superhero. While Smallville, Kansas might have been the hometown of Clark Kent, the Illinois Legislature has officially declared that alongside the Ohio River, and a gambling boat, the City of Metropolis, is the true home of the Man of Steel. So where better to place a memorial to truth, justice and the American Way, than outside the courthouse.

Massac County Courthouse, Metropolis, Illinois

San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park - CLOSED

This little jewel near Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco is closed during the government shutdown. The park is near the end of the Hyde Street streetcar line and offers a stroll along the Hyde Street pier filled with historic ships. Along with craft on the pier, the San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park has museums, visitor and research centers on the shore.

Lumber Schooner, C.A. Thayer

The first ship is an 1895, three-masted schooner designed to carry lumber along the Pacific Coast. You can look on to the city, or look up and imagine yourself at sea.

The masts

The massive 1907 steam tug Hercules towed ships around South America, through the Panama Canal and helped build the navy base at Pearl Harbor.

Steam Tug Hercules

Though there are many other ships along the pier, the last I’ll mention is the 1890 steam ferryboat, the Eureka. Before the Golden Gate bridge, which you can see to the left of the Eureka in the image below, this side-wheel paddle-boat ferried passengers and vehicles across the bay.

Ferryboat Eureka

Originally built to carry freight trains across the bay, after WWI it was reconstructed to carry automobiles and passengers. She continued carrying autos until 1941 even after bridges were built across the Bay. Then she went back to moving train cars until she broke down in the middle of the bay in 1957.

The bridge view brings us back to looking at the San Francisco skyline.

The Eureka’s bridge

Trolling

Trolls from Denmark invaded Morton Arboretum in Lisle, Illinois last spring before our national protective fence could stop them. They won’t be deported until at least this summer, so head on over to see if you can spot the creatures created by Thomas Dambo.

Joe the Guardian may spot you driving on I-88

But beware, the trolls set traps.

And if they do catch you . . .

Or invite you home.

But ultimately, they’re just lovable.

.--. .. .--. . ... .--. .-. .. -. --. National Monument, AZ

One pleasure of travel is stumbling on the unexpected. It was a 90 minute drive from where I stayed in Kanab, Utah to the airport in St. George. The highway meandered into northern Arizona, where just off the road was Pipe Spring National Monument—a rather uninspiring name, except the word “spring” in the desert packs a big punch. Now if only time travel would alone us visit here two hundred years earlier when this was a true oasis.

Native Americans lived here for millennium, harvesting the grasses that grew for miles around the spring and the animals that came for the water. In the mid-Nineteen Century, ranchers brought cattle that ate, trambled and killed off the grasses. Natives, ranchers and the government have sine disputed water rights, and the result is the spring will likely dry up in less than 20 years.

This is a view from “Winsor Castle,” the home and fort constructed by the Latter Day Saints in the 1860s. It was built as much to defend against the U.S. government as the Kaibab Paiute Tribe who had lived there. When Utah Territory government officials would attempt to enforce polygamy laws, Mormon women would be sent to the Castle just inside the Arizona border. Brigham Young was the first president of the Deseret Telegraph Company that connected LDS settlements to Salt Lake City. Stations could be no more than 50 miles apart, and the telegraph line shown above connected Pipe Springs to Salt Lake City. Some say the communication line was also a potential escape route for LDS leaders during tensions between the church and U.S. government.

Winsor Castle, Pipe Spring National Monument

The fort was built on top of the spring that ran from the hill on the right to a pool on the left. The next image is of the bedroom on the second floor on the right side buildings.

Ranger tour

You can see the thickness of the walls through the windows (gun ports) and the door. Since the fort was built along a hill, one could escape (a prying government official), by running out the door on the second floor.

Below this room is the kitchen. One wife who was sent here for a long time, tired of cooking in the hearth, insisted that a wood burning stove be ordered and delivered from Chicago.

Winsor Castle kitchen

On the west side of the fort, the Pipe Spring flows into a trough along the wall. This room, cooled by the water, and the one next to it were used to make and store butter and cheese before being tithed to Salt Lake City.

As the water and land were being exhausted in the 1920s, a curious incident led to acquisition of the land for the National Park Service. Stephen Mather, the first National Parks superintendent, and the Union Pacific Railroad president were touring the Southwest finding ways to promote the National Parks—and train travel to the Parks. When driving from Zion National Park in Utah to the north rim of the Grand Canyon, their car got stuck in the sand near Pipe Springs. The rancher got them out of the sand and invited them to the Winsor Castle — and found a way to unload the property. Sell it to government. Pipe Sands became a way stop between Zion and the Grand Canyon. The two rooms below became a spot for passengers to rest and eat on their way between the parks. You can see that some carved names and initials in the mantle.

Spring room

Cheese room

Part of the long negotiations to acquire land for the National Monument resulted in an agreement that the Park Service, Paiute Tribe and ranchers would each have access to one-third of the spring water. The water gathers in pool outside the fort. But the flow has reduced drastically and will likely stop in the near future.

Pipe Spring pool

Pipe Spring National Monument, Arizona

The wagon looks out into the Arizona desert that less than two centuries earlier was a grassland oasis. Misuse of the land and water resulted in devastation of the environment. Just as at Pipe Springs, the U.S. government, private interests and Native American interests are currently disputing land that had been preserved as Bears Ears National Monument. The current administration’s opening of southern Utah to mineral exploitation will result in destruction of Native heritage as well as the desert environment. Oh, and don’t plan to visit Pipe Springs presently. The gates are locked as leverage to build a wall that itself would result in environmental degradation as well as animal habitat and migration destruction.

On a mission

As 2019 starts, I’m beginning a new travel photo blog. For the past ten years, I’ve tried to focus my Friday Foto blog on images of nature. However, I also love visiting and photographing historic and urban locales, so this blog will explore those environments. Let’s start with what might be the oldest Western building in the United States, and I’ll bet you’ve never heard of it. I hadn’t until I visited this church still used for services.

Spanish missionaries built their first church in Socorro, New Mexico in 1598, and it is believed they began this structure in 1610. For centuries, the interior and exterior walls of the church were covered in mud plaster, as with all adobe brick buildings. The laborious process needed to be redone nearly every year. After World War II, concrete stucco began to be used to cover the structures thinking it would better protect the building. Concrete stucco lasted longer, making it cheaper, and allowed the poor communities to more efficiently maintain their buildings.

It was also, literally, their downfall.

The concrete trapped moisture in the walls of the building. The trapped water quietly, relentlessly deteriorated the sand, straw and other natural materials in the adobe bricks. The bricks dissolved, walls bulged, the centuries-old wooden roof beams split and cracked. The church was closed in 2010 for a several year restoration. Many neighboring mission churches collapsed or were so damaged, they never reopened.

Mission San Miguel, Soccoro, New Mexico

Two centuries later, Fr. Junipero Serra, a Franciscan friar left his native Spain for Mexico. In 1769 in San Diego, he founded his first mission in what is now California. In front of the Santa Barbara mission is a statue of Fr. Serra, with one of the classic El Camino Real bells which still mark the 700 mile route from San Diego to Sonoma.

Saint Junipero Serra, Mission Santa Barbara, California

Moorish Fountain, Mission Santa Barbara

Serra’s fifth mission was Mission San Luis Obispo de Tolosa. Unlike the other mission churches he built, this had an L-shaped nave. Below, you can see the arch to the right of the alter where the other nave angles off.

Mission San Luis Obispo nave

The 21st and furthest north of the California missions is Mission San Francisco Solano in Sonoma. Unlike the others pictured above, it is no longer an active house of worship, but is a state park.

Mission San Francisco Solano, Sonoma, California