The Nevada Sale Barn

Still in use, thanks to LMA

The sale barn in Nevada*, Missouri, sits on nine acres on the east side of town, just a block off Highway 54. I took this picture of it when I was traveling with my sister last month.

I was curious about this little sale barn, so I searched online and found photos and a description of the property in the archives of a real estate company. It appeared to be vacant at the time the photos were taken. The floor plan of the barn is exactly what I would have guessed it to be. Every sale barn I've ever visited in the American Midwest has a similar layout. 

There's a small sale arena enclosed by a high fence. The arena is surrounded on three sides by stadium-style seats for buyers and onlookers. On the opposite side of the arena, facing the seats, there are two gates: one to bring livestock into the arena, and the other to take livestock out. Between the two gates, the auctioneers face the audience from a raised box.

I don't think any auctions are held in the Nevada sale barn anymore, but the yards are still used for livestock marketing.  The property is now owned by Mo-Kan Livestock Market Inc. of Butler, Missouri (a town about 30 miles north of Nevada.)  It is a receiving station for Mo-Kan, and cattle are accepted on Wednesdays from 10 AM to 6 PM. I read on the Mo-Kan website that Mo-Kan transports cattle from the station to their Thursday auction in Butler for a fee of $3/head.

Mo-Kan streams their cattle auctions and accepts bids over the internet. Of course, they also take bids from buyers who attend the sale in person, but the internet helps them offer the livestock to a wider market. The internet auctions are facilitated by LMA Auctions, an arm of the Livestock Marketing Association (LMA).

LMA has about 800 members like Mo-Kan, across the United States and Canada. The mission of LMA is stated on the homepage of the website: "We are committed to the support and protection of the local livestock auction markets. Auctions are a vital part of the livestock industry, serving producers and assuring a fair, competitive price through the auction method of selling."

If it weren't for LMA and internet auctions, the Nevada sale barn might be just another abandoned building.
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* The people of Nevada, MO, pronounce their town's name with a "long a;" that is, the second syllable rhymes with "way."

EFG's One More Again Thrift Store

New thrift shop in Hopkinsville, KY

Keely and I enjoy second-hand stores, so we were excited when we saw a sign on a Virginia Street corner  for a new thrift in downtown Hopkinsville. We checked it out as soon as we had a chance.

The EFG One More Again store is located on the corner of 6th Street and Virginia, with an entrance on 6th Street (next to Young's Hardware.) This business place (actually two side-by-side buildings) was formerly a furniture store. I don't know the rest of the history of the structures, but to me, they appear to be at least a century old.

"EFG" stands for Evangelical Free Gospel, the church group that runs this thrift shop. They meet at the store for worship. I think the lady tending the store told me that they meet on Saturday nights. She said that the group had previously met in a different location, but they lost their pastor and had to take a new direction. So, they rented this business place and opened the thrift shop.

The inside of the store is spacious so I didn't get that "too-close" feeling that some over-crowded, high-piled junk stores give me. These photos were both taken downstairs. A wide doorway connects the two buildings. As you can see, EFG offers the typical thrift shop selection of merchandise -- totally random!

We climbed an extremely worn stairway in the corner building to the second floor of the shop. (The other building of the shop has stairs to the second floor that are wider and in much better repair.)

The upstairs is divided into a number of rooms. Keely and I spent most of our time in the book room, where we found some good, ex-library children's books. We both left with our arms loaded. I was relieved to discover that we wouldn't have to go back down the same stairs we came up, as my bifocals sometimes bother me on stairways. Keely speculated that there might be a freight elevator somewhere in the building that they used to bring the books and other merchandise upstairs.

The second-floor windows of the corner building have interesting embellishments. The photo above was taken from the sidewalk. I used a graphics procedure on that photo to make the image below. It shows the details at the top of the building better, although I think the windows are longer than the altered perspective suggests.

I picked up a business card at the check-out counter, and here is some of the information from it:

One More Again Thrift Store
118 E. 6th St.
Hopkinsville, KY
Operated by members of EFG Church to give back to the local community.

The card also notes that they will pick up garage sale leftovers.

Memories of a Homesteader's Dugout

One underground room, a dirt floor and roof, and fleas

An Oklahoma dugout photographed c. 1909.
The family is probably sitting in the only available shade.
Source:http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2004665280/
From a picture postcard series by J. V. Dedrick

James Barton came to Republic County, Kansas, in 1871, from Marshall County, Iowa, as a young child. His parents homesteaded near modern-day Cuba, Kansas. Looking back on the family's trip by covered wagon, Mr. Barton remembered that it "was a mighty long and hard walk from Iowa to Kansas for a seven year old, barefoot boy!"

The following paragraphs are excerpted from an account of homestead days that Mr. Barton wrote in 1936.

In the spring [of 1872] father built our dug-out. Now you young folks, who think your pretty homes are not comfortable enough, you should have seen our first Kansas home -- one underground room, dirt floor, dirt roof, and fleas and snakes for company. You never saw so many fleas-- we always blamed the buffalo and buffalo grass for these fleas, for all sod-house and dug-out families had them.

Our first crop was cut by father and a Mr. Zavodsky with a "cradle" scythe, -- a hard beginning for our parents, but how we children enjoyed the pretty country-- miles and miles of "Blue-Stem" in places three and four feet high, and just a lot of fun to play and hide in! There were no roads -- no towns -- no churches -- no schools -- no doctors -- and no railroads... When father went for provisions, it took him about a week to drive it with oxen, where you young folks now could motor it in an hour and a half...

While herding cattle we would see lots of buffalo heads and bones, undoubtedly left behind by Indians. Wild game was plentiful, including countless prairie chickens and quail everywhere. That first fall, we saw several deer and antelope grazing on our rye, but our nearest buffaloes were west of the Republican River. However, we often had buffalo steak brought back by other pioneer hunters. My father never owned a gun. I don't know what we would have done, had some of our Indian scares developed into reality.

Source: James Barton's pioneer memories of Republic County, Kansas.

My great-great-grandparents Ashbel and Martha Mapes were among the earliest settlers of Republic County, arriving in 1869, so this account is very interesting to me.

I have heard people say that in the Nebraska Sandhills, a quick "dugout" was sometimes made by simply laying a board roof across a wind-eroded "blowout" in a hill.

Here are three more photographs of dugouts from the Library of Congress. I think all of these are more elaborate in construction than most of the initial underground shelters that pioneer familes dug. If you have time, you might enjoy visiting the links in the picture captions -- they contain additional photos and more information.

This dugout in Humboldt, Nevada, appears to have a rock front.
Source: http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/wy0223/
Photographed by Larry Kingsbury, October 1994

A thatched dugout in Minnesota, about 1900-1910.
Source:  http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/det1994020491/PP/
Photograph by the Detroit Publishing Company 

A homesteader's stone dugout in Campbell County, Wyoming.
Probably constructed between 1917 and 1936. "Unusually well crafted."
Source:  http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/wy0223/
The associated data pages at this link are full of info about dugouts. 

Idlewild, Historic Home Near Trenton, KY

The Colonel E. G. Sebree house

"Do you know anything about that big old house along Highway 41, east of Trenton?" a blog reader asked one day. I had to say "No," because honestly, I couldn't think what house she was talking about. Then one day, as I passed the home in the photo below, I realized that of course she was talking about this big old house.

The Colonel E. G. Sebree house near Trenton, Kentucky

This large antebellum brick mansion is near the highway, but in the summer, it's almost completely hidden by foliage and deep shade. In the fall and winter, a passing motorist can catch a glimpse of it, facing southwest behind the trees. Last week, I paused on the highway to take these photos, with one eye on the camera viewfinder and the other eye on the rear-view mirror.

This house was built about 1830, and its official name is Idlewild. One of its owners was Colonel Elijah Garth Sebree,  a prominent landowner, tobacco and cotton trader, coal mine owner, and railroad builder. Col. Sebree purchased Idlewild in the 1840s, around the time of his marriage. He and his wife lived at Idlewild for the rest of their lives, and when they died,  their daughter Georgia Sebree Banks inherited the home. It remained with the Banks family until 1983, when it was purchased by Dr. Robert Haley of Nashville and his wife Joy, a Todd County native. I don't know who owns the home currently.

Idlewild was nominated for the National Historic Register by Miss Dolly Banks in 1980. Some architectural features mentioned in the application can be seen in the photo at right -- Corinthian columns (added sometime around 1900), stone lintels above all openings in the house, stone sills at the windows, and flush chimneys at the ends of the house.

The original kitchen was a separate brick room connected to the house by a "dogtrot" (breezeway.) When the Haleys purchased the home, they enclosed a back porch and made it into a kitchen, installed some indoor bathrooms and modernized the electrical wiring.

Read more at these links:

• The Sebree family in Todd County, KY, Family History
• Nomination of Idlewild to the National Historical Register
• Kentucky New Era article about Idlewild, published in 1991 (second part of the article)
• Slave deaths on the Sebree farm

A Visit to Agenda, Kansas

Ghost town? I don't think so.

Agenda, Kansas, is an important place name in my family tree. During the 1880s, my great-great-grandfathers, Ashbel Mapes and Almus Hill had neighboring farms just a few miles from this prairie village. Their children married, and to make a long story short, here I am today!

I took these photos when we visited Agenda in July, 2012. The business district has only a couple of stores that are open. One of them is a little ice cream shop where you can get a cold soda and a plate lunch, as well as a scoop of ice cream. As I recall, it's in the building at right in the photo above.

The photo below looks down Agenda's main street from one end. The building with the Pabst Blue Ribbon beer sign appears at left in the photo above and at left in the photo below.

Agenda has a population of less than 100 people. Huge grain bins tower above everything else in town.  The streets are not paved, but there's a pretty good sidewalk along the front of the business district.

The ice cream shop is delightfully old-fashioned with a long wooden counter and a pressed metal ceiling. A friendly lady was tending the shop. After we ate our ice cream, she took us down to the small museum/library at the end of the street and let us inside. She also told us to be sure to walk outside through the back door of the ice cream shop.

Ozark Ghost Town

Somewhere between Mountain Grove and Lebanon

Over the last twenty years, I've made around forty trips through the Ozarks of southern Missouri, either going to or coming home from my sister's house. She lives about fifty miles north of Springfield, Missouri, and I live in Kentucky.

On my trip up there last summer, I took a route I'd never traveled before and probably won't travel again. I turned north on Highway 95 at Mountain Grove, Missouri, thinking I'd see Dove Mountain which is just east of 95, according to the road map. But the hills were so big that I couldn't see the mountain. Or maybe one of them was the mountain? I couldn't tell.

Then I learned that a bridge was out on my planned route, so I took a long detour down some county blacktops. These roads followed every curve of the old wagon trails they were built upon, all the way to the top of every ridge and all the way to the bottom of every valley. Some of the scenery was beautiful, but I couldn't take pictures. If I had stopped in the road, someone might have come around a curve and hit me.

This little Ozark ghost town dates back to a time before
blacktop roads. Farm folks came here to buy things
they couldn't make and to hear the news of the world.
Everything changed after the Depression and WWII.

At an intersection somewhere along the way, where the blacktop road made a right-angle turn, I saw this little ghost town and pulled over to get a photo.

The main road that runs by this village was blacktopped sometime, but the street in front of these stores never saw that improvement. Maybe the brick building in the center was the last business to close.

I didn't explore. I saw vehicles at a house (the metal roof at far left in the photo), and I didn't want anyone to think I was snooping around. I drove on through the hills and valleys, and finally I came to a somewhat wider and straighter state highway that led to Lebanon, and eventually, I arrived at my sister's house in Hickory County.

The scenic route and the detour made my trip a little longer and slower, but I always enjoy backroads and the curiosities along them.

Sunshine and Shadow

At the VA Medical Center in Nashville

I spent a day at the VA Medical Center in Nashville with Dennis, earlier this week. In the late 1960s, he injured his hand while working on a Navy aircraft carrier flight deck. Now the injury is affecting his ability to grip with that hand, so he had a morning appointment related to that. Then he had a 3-hour wait for an unrelated appointment in the afternoon.

While Dennis was at his first appointment, I waited for him in a lobby on the third floor that overlooks a courtyard. The last time I spent time looking through that window, workers were laying the walkway. It was interesting to see the finished project. One thing bothered me, though -- a red piece of garbage on the rocks.

The courtyard, seen through a third floor window

When we went back to the first floor, I walked outside, crunched my way across the rocks, picked up that piece of trash, and put it in a garbage can. It was a jagged piece of red plastic with a few small white words on one side. I decided it was part of a broken sign. Maybe it blew off one of the surrounding rooftops.

In the background, the window where I took the first picture.

Every plant in the courtyard makes a statement. The flower planters had not seen any attention this spring. A scraggly pansy was growing in the corner of one planter. In another, a single tulip was almost ready to bloom. Why not plant ivy in the flower boxes if they aren't going to be kept full of flowers?

Unexpected visual treat

The designer planned for people to experience the courtyard by seeing it from windows, as well as by visiting it. From all levels, the simple structure of the courtyard and the contrasts of light within it are interesting, but soothing.

I didn't spent my entire day analyzing this courtyard, even though it may sound like it. After I got that piece of red plastic trash picked up, I spent the rest of the afternoon in 19th century South Dakota with Norwegian settlers -- Giants in the Earth by O. E. Rölvaag. After we finally got home, I sat down and finished the book.

In Giants in the Earth, there are great dreams, mighty labors, well-earned victories, crippling fears, terrible loneliness, and heartbreaking losses. Several days later, I am still mulling over what I read.

The Whistle Stop

And the old freight depot

Whistle Stop Donuts in Hopkinsville (KY) now has two buildings, near each other and (of course) near the train tracks. (In this photo, you can't see the original little Whistle Stop that's right next to the tracks, but it's marked by the yellow sign.). I don't know if they're going to move everything to the building on the left which has a larger parking lot, or if they're going to keep both locations.

On the other side of the train that's whizzing through town, you can see some scaffolding on the old freight depot. The exterior of the building is being restored to its original appearance. Jim Coursey, a local architect and historian, recently wrote in  the Kentucky New Era that the depot is still structurally sound -- in fact, as solid as when it was first built. The metal roof on the building dates back to its construction in 1905, and it still doesn't leak. The Hopkinsville water department owns the property.

L&N Passenger Depot at Hopkinsville, KY

The depot's floor plan

I found the following description of the L&N passenger depot in Hopkinsville, KY, in Buildings and Structures of American Railroads by Warren Gilman Berg. It was published in 1893, just one year after the Hopkinsville depot was built. Many details mentioned by Berg can still be observed today, but the stucco on the building's exterior seems to have been added since then.

I believe the floor plan of the depot was accidentally reversed in the book, so I changed it (image appears below) to what I think the building is in real life. Readers from Hopkinsville, please correct me if I'm wrong. Also, I altered some of the original punctuation of this passage, and I divided some of the paragraphs to make them easier to read on a screen.  

Tower at the corner of
the ladies waiting room

The passenger depot of the Louisville & Nashville Railroad at Hopkinsville, Ky. is a single-story frame building, roofed with slate.

The main feature of the exterior is the tower at the corner of the ladies' waiting-room and the large circular bay-window projection of the agent's office at the centre of the building, which, combined with the cupola on the corner tower, the ridge-cresting and ornamental gable fronts, together with the general finish of the building, causes it to present a very handsome appearance.

The "circular bay-window projection"
of the agent's office next to tracks

The ground-floor is divided into:

• a ladies' waiting-room, 17 ft. X 20 ft., with an octagonal alcove inside the tower at the corner of the room;
• a ladies' toilet-room, 5 ft. X 8 ft. 6 in.;
• an agent's office, 14 ft. X 17 ft., with ticket-windows leading into the ladies' waiting-room, the general waiting-room, and the colored waiting-room;
• a colored waiting-room, 14 ft. X 14 ft.; 
• a general waiting-room, 20 ft. X 24 ft.; and 
• a baggage-room, 16 ft. X 18 ft. 

Note: The platform and train tracks were on the east side of the building.
"Colored" people had to walk around the bulding to reach the boarding area.

The exterior of the building is sheathed with horizontal and upright ornamental boarding, in panels, ornamental shingles and square panelling frieze-work and gable fronts. The doors leading into the ladies' waiting-room and the general waiting-room are double doors, 5 ft. X 7 ft. 6 in., with transom overhead. The lower sash of the windows have one large pane of glass, while the upper sash are surrounded with a border of small stained-glass lights.

Double doors with transom in the baggage room

Ticket office window seen from ladies' waiting room

These photographs have appeared on Prairie Bluestem previously. See related posts:
Seen at Hopkinsville's L&N Depot
Hopkinsville's Railroad

An Octagonal Schoolhouse in Berks County, PA

Education in the early 1800s

I wasn't looking for octagon-shaped buildings! I was trying to find some information about my Welsh grandfather who settled in Berks County, Pennsylvania, in the 1730s. My search brought me to a collection of papers submitted to the Berks County Historical Society in 1905-1909.

Inside that collection, "The Eight Cornered School House at Sinking Springs" caught my attention. This paper was written by Professor Eli M. Rapp, who was the superintendent of schools in Berks County.  Professor Rapp's paper included a history of the octagon-shaped, Sinking Springs schoolhouse of Berks County, and a description of the education that took place inside its walls.

I became so interested in the Sinking Springs school that I abandoned my ancestor, read the entire paper, and tried to find a photograph of the little schoolhouse. I couldn't locate one. Perhaps its three-foot-thick stone walls have finally crumbled -- or (more likely) they've been knocked down by progress.However, I did find images of other octagonal schools built in the same era and region.

Octagonal Schoolhouse, Newtown Square, PA (Wikipedia image.)

The eight-sided schoolhouse in this photo is located in Delaware County, PA. Its appearance (another view) is very similar to Professor Rapp's description of the Sinking Springs School of Berks County.  Another eight-sided schoolhouse is still standing in Bucks County, PA. All of these counties -- Berks, Bucks, and Delaware -- are neighbors in the southeast corner of Pennsylvania.

Professor Rapp wrote (in 1907) that the Sinking Springs schoolhouse was built over a century earlier (possibly in 1790-1800) and was taken out of service over 50 years earlier (possibly around 1850.) Most of the eight-sided meeting houses and schools built in eastern Pennsylvania were stone. according to Rapp.  These solid buildings, constructed after the American Revolution, were a big improvement over the rough log structures that they replaced. The webpage about the Bucks County octagonal school, says that there were once around 100 octagonal schoolhouses in the Delaware Valley of Pennsylvania.

Inside the schoolhouse, a cast-iron woodstove stood in the center of the room, and its stovepipe ran straight up to the cupola. Overhead, exposed rafters radiated from the center like spokes on a wheel. The teacher's desk was opposite the door, and the younger children sat around the stove. A shelf was attached to the stone walls about three feet above the floor, all the way around the room. It was used as a table by the older pupils who sat on a ring of benches, with their backs to the teacher.

In the middle of winter, 70 or even 80 children were sometimes enrolled in the school  It's hard to imagine packing that many bodies into such a small space. Only one teacher was employed each term, regardless of the enrollment.

The schoolmasters described by Professor Rapp were a rougher sort than I might have imagined. They were often itinerant, rather than permanent, community members. Most of them used tobacco, and many of them used alcohol. They maintained order through the liberal use of corporal punishment. It was not uncommon for them to get into fistfights with the older boys.*

One of the first English sentences learned by many immigrant students, according to Professor Rapp, was "Master, please mend my pen." The pens of that day were goose quills, and the schoolmasters were experts in shaping the point of a quill with a pen knife. Besides writing, the students learned reading and arithmetic. Schools like the one at Sinking Springs were the origin of the saying, "Reading, writing, and arithmetic, all to the tune of a hickory stick." Parents paid a tuition of three cents per day. I presume that fee was assessed for each child.

In his paper, Professor Rapp included a few personal observations about the state of education in 1907 . He bemoaned the decline of corporal punishment as a disciplinary tool, and he talked about schoolmarms replacing the old schoolmasters.  Read his paper in its entirety at this link: "The Eight Cornered School House at Sinking Springs."

*I told Isaac about the schoolmasters fighting with the big boys, and Isaac reminded me of Laura Ingalls Wilder's book, Farmer Boy, about Almanzo's boyhood in New York. A previous schoolmaster of Almanzo's school was beaten so badly by six big boys that he died later. Almanzo feared that his new teacher, a small man, would be beaten up by the big boys, too, but the teacher was ready for the challenge. He brought out a bullwhip (that he had borrowed from Almanzo's father) and taught the bullies a lesson with it.

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Related on the Web:
List of octagonal buildings and structures in the United States 
Octagonal houses in Canada
Hyde Octagon House
Remembrances of the Yaphank School (in New York)
Gentle School Marm or Ambitious Young Men? 

 Related Prairie Bluestem posts
One Room School
Sand Tables in the 1916 Classroom
Lunch Hour at a One Room School
District 44 at Johnstown, Nebraska
Riding Horseback to School

No Stone Unused

Recycled tile flooring

Part of an old foundation, seen in Hopkinsville, KY

Hopkinsville's Old IOOF Building

IOOF Building and Cumberland Telephone & Telegraph

Corner of East Ninth and Virginia in Hopkinsville, KY

I had a chance to lean out of my car window and get this photo as I waited for a stoplight a few days ago. Actually, I took several photos, and this is the only one that doesn't have a car in the intersection. As you can see, the light had turned red.  I don't think it's possible to get a full side-and-front photo of this building without getting wires and street lights in it.

The large brick structure on the corner is the old IOOF building. It's one of my favorites around historic downtown Hopkinsville for several reasons.

1. It has been restored and repurposed.
2. It has a sturdy, solid, "pillar-of-the-community" look that befits its history.
3. I know three of the four young professionals who rent apartments on the second floor.
4. I've had opportunity to visit one of the apartments several times, and in fact, that apartment was where we fixed Keely's hair on the morning of her wedding.

I also like the building with the white front just to the east, the old Cumberland Telephone and Telegraph office. It fully deserves a photograph of its own. One of these days, forces will converge, and the moment will be right to capture an image of its interesting details-- giant seashell, fancy fish, cherub heads, and more.

Log Cabins at Wheatland, MO

Old-time log houses

On the public square at the center of Wheatland, Missouri, a miniature village of genuine log houses awaits tourists. I call them "genuine log houses" because local residents of earlier times built and used them. The cabins were collected from Hickory County, Missouri, and the surrounding area.

My sister Charlotte has lived in the Wheatland area for over 35 years. I took these photos when we visited there a couple of years ago. Charlotte said that the original plan was to rent the log houses as shops for artists and craftspeople. That hasn't worked out as well as the town's leaders hoped, but the log cabins are interesting, nonetheless.

Charlotte said the fellow sitting on the porch at right is a retired fellow who volunteers at the log village on most summer Saturdays. He told us how the cabins were torn down and reassembled, Each log was numbered so the cabins were put back together as originally constructed. In the interest of weather-tightness, concrete chinking was used, and metal roofs and new windows were installed.


The photo at right above shows a "double pen" log house. The two log rooms were individual structures, connected only by the roof that covered them both.

The log structure in the photo above was the Butterfield Overland Relay Station along the Butterfield Trail in Hickory County. The Butterfield Trail ran from Missouri to San Francisco, and was named for John Butterfield who founded the Butterfield Overland Mail Company. Behind the station is a barn with round, unchinked logs.


The logs of most of the structures were shaped with axes and other hand-tools. The building of log houses -- or any log structures! -- required a tremendous investment of hard labor.

This house had a sign that said "1850s Museum". We went inside to take a look.

Feather tick and an old image

I don't know if either of the stoves above are of 1850s vintage, but they are oldies for sure. Apparently the legs of the big cookstove were bad, so it is sitting on some blocks of wood.

The Royal Princess stove at right would have had a stovepipe connected at the raised hole at the back of the top. In front of the stove pipe, you could set a tea-kettle on the flat area. The stove could be loaded through either the front door or the side door. I think maybe the shelf at right was where you set the bucket or pan when you were shoveling out the ashes. That would have made dangerous spills of hot coals onto the wood floor less likely.

Wheatland is a very small town in southwest Missouri, about 50 miles north of Springfield. Its largest industry is the Lucas Oil Speedway which brings quite a few people to town during race season and makes a lot of noise on race nights. If the logs in these old houses could talk, they'd probably say that they're amazed, simply amazed, at the modern-day happenings in Wheatland.

Hopper Court in Hopkinsville, KY

Homes with style

The home on the left in this photo is a bungalow. Sometimes its architecture is also called "Craftsman". I know that because James Coursey, a local architect with an interest in Hopkinsville's architectural heritage, wrote an article about bungalow houses in Hopkinsville a few years ago ("Local homes epitomize bungalow style of architecture", in the Kentucky New Era, April 14, 2007.) This home is one of several Hopkinsville bungalows that he cited.

According to Coursey, bungalows originated in California and were popular from about 1905-1925. The style was a reaction to the excesses of the Victorian period. For example, in a bungalow, the front entrance hall of Victorian architecture was eliminated. The front door opened into the living room. Also, stairs were no longer an architectural element. They were hidden away, often in the back of the house.

I don't know the proper term for the architecture of the house on the right, but I like it because it reminds me of Germany. A big, square, stucco home like this would fit right into many German towns, especially if it had one more story and lace curtains at every window.

These two houses are part of Hopper Court, a neighborhood in Hopkinsville that was developed around 1910. If you look closely at the photo, you'll see that the street has a strip of green down the center of it, where some small trees are planted. This mini-boulevard was once the private driveway of a large, red-brick house that still sits at the far end of Hopper Court. Waymarking.com has several photos of Hopper Court, then and now.

Hopper Court is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The book, Hopkinsville & Christian County Historic Sites by Gibbs & Torma for the Kentucky Heritage Commission (Copyright 1982 by Gateway Trust) says the following about this site:

The E. H. Hopper house was built about 1885 in a mansard or Second Empire style. About 1907, the land leading to the house was developed as an ideal suburban street, complete with tree-planted median, sidewalks, and stone obelisks marking the entrance. The houses built along the street are mostly frame bungalows. Hopper was a stationer, bookseller, and major property owner in Hopkinsville in the late 19th century.

A Pleasant Porch

Seen at the Adsmore House in Princeton, KY

I've always wanted to live in a house with a big porch -- not a big deck or a big patio, but a big, old-fashioned porch. I want pillars and steps and gingerbread trim.

When we came to Christian County (KY) in the early 1990s and searched for a house to buy, we bid on a little white house near Lafayette. I really liked its big front porch. We were a bit too late, though; someone else put in a bid a few hours ahead of us and bought that little house.

So, we bought another house instead. It has been our home for 20 years. It is the shelter that keeps rain and snow off our heads and the haven that welcomes us at the end of each day. It doesn't have a porch, though, and it's not even a style of house that would wear my porch well.

Thus, I enjoy a good porch when I see one. One of the best porches that I've discovered recently is at the Adsmore House, a museum at Princeton, KY. It's a back porch -- a pleasant, comfortable space that overlooks the garden, lawns, and carriage house.

I took this photo last fall on my second visit to the Adsmore. The tour guide saw me stop with my camera as we left the house. She asked if I would like her to take my picture on the porch. "No, I just want a picture of the porch!" I told her.

It was a gray, rainy afternoon, and my porch photo turned out dark and a bit unfocused. I was disappointed in it. I downloaded it to my computer and forgot about it.

A few days ago, I happened to look at the photo again, and I decided to work with it. After I straightened it, lightened a few areas, and added some "glow",  I installed it as my desktop background. It may not be a perfect photo, but it's my private window onto a very nice porch, and I've been enjoying it.

Odds and Ends (2)

More photos from the "To be posted" folder

I can say with certainty that I have not been in Elkton (KY) on a Thursday evening in summer for several years. How can I be so sure? Thursday night is Bike Night in Elkton from May through October. If I had passed through the downtown area of Elkton on Bike Night, I would have noticed the motorcycles.

Elkton's Facebook page reports 265 bikes in town on the evening of July 2, 2010, just two days before I photographed the flag and metal biker art on the corner of the town square. The poster was on display in an Elkton convenience store.

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I saw this business card on the bulletin board at the Pennysaver Market in Fairview (KY). Apparently these guys have a market for the materials they salvage. Large beams, weathered siding, wide-plank flooring, doors, vintage light fixtures, old mantels, etc. from old buildings are sometimes used in new construction to add a rustic look.

I would like to visit a building salvage yard, sometime. On the home-decorating TV shows, the designers visit salvage stores and always find a vintage piece with lots of character. Hailey Salvage & Building Material in Nashville sounds like that sort of salvage store.

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I was really shocked when I drove down Jeff Adams Road (in Christian County, KY) and saw this heap of broken boards instead of the little frame house that it used to be. Bro In Law Barn Salvaging could have recycled some weathered silvery-gray wood siding from it. Instead, the little house is bulldozed and ready to burn.

This little house was built like a barn with the boards running up and down. It always looked to me like there was nothing between the inside and outside except a single layer of board. People who grew up in houses like this one tell stories about waking up on winter mornings with snow on their quilts.

The little house is gone, but the day-lilies that grew around it are still there, I promise. They filled the yard long ago, and they've spilled out into the road ditches where they grow for a hundred yards in both directions.

One summer, I dug up a few day-lilies from the ditch and brought them home. They have multiplied and they would like to expand out of their allotted area here, too, but the lawn mower keeps them corralled.

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As the shortest day of the year approaches, these forsythia buds remind me that the cold, dark days of winter will soon pass. This photo was taken in early March; it's now late December. In less than three months, the forsythia will be ready to bloom again!

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