My World: A Tobacco Filled Barn

Meets

Regular readers to my blog have seen previous posts of what we know in the Eastern United States as Mail Pouch Barns. A Mail Pouch Tobacco Barn, or simply Mail Pouch Barn, is a barn with one or more sides painted from 1890 to 1992, in advertisement for the West Virginia Mail Pouch chewing tobacco company (Bloch Brothers Tobacco Company), based in Wheeling, West Virginia. However, they can be found in many states and as far west as California. Many have been demolished or are falling down. Initially, barn owners were paid between $1 and $2 a year for the advertisement, equivalent in 1913 dollars to about $20-$40 today.
The Highway Beautification Act of 1965, which sought to restrict the vast number of local advertisements that were being placed near highways, exempted Mail Pouch barns since they had been deemed historic landmarks.

Look closely at the barn in the photo. Can you guess what you see hanging there? It is tobacco leaves hung to dry. On a recent trip to my Mom's house I took a back route and came upon this barn. Of course I wanted to photograph the graphics but on closer observation I saw the tobacco. This scene is not typical in my area so it was a surprise to find.
The barn in the above photo was in a curve in the road and no evident place to pull off and take a picture. I was looking for a place to turn around and go back and this red barn was beside the highway with a large turn around in front of it. As I pulled beside of it I noticed it too was storing tobacco leaves.

This is a closeup of the leaves. Since they are a brownish color they have probably been drying for several weeks.

Be sure to click the badge at the top of my post to see other participants in My World. It's like a trip around the world without leaving your chair. Or, check out the participants in Ruby Tuesday posting photos with a little bit of red or a lot of red.

Have a wonderful day in your world and find a little red in your day!

Worlds Oldest Suspension Bridge

This was My World this morning.

It's Here!!

Ok, on to the prepared My World post.

Today we are in the Northern Panhandle of West Virginia in the city of Wheeling. This city has the distinction of being home to the oldest suspension bridge still in operation in the world. Its original span being completed on October 20, 1849 and it was the first bridge to span the Ohio River. It was originally designed and built by Charles Ellet. You really must click this picture to see the detail. I really needed to be on a boat in the middle of the river to view its entire length.

This shows you one of the towers and the cables used for support. The green arch you see is a newer bridge that now takes most of the traffic. The bridge has the general appearance of the original bridge constructed in 1849. The massive towers and anchorage housings are all the original stone masonry. The main cables of the bridge are either original or additions which date from the 1860 reconstruction of the bridge after its collapse in a wind storm in 1854.

This is driving up to the first tower. Notice the stoplight. The light is timed in order to regulate the number to cars on the span at any one time. There is a sign asking you to keep 50 foot intervals between cars.

This is the middle section of the span. The sidewalk is close to the traffic; but you can walk across if you like.

Finally, the tower at the other end.

In 1975 the Wheeling Suspension Bridge received the highest honor that can be bestowed on a non-federal site or structure when it became the first bridge to be designated a Nation Historic Landmark. In 1980 the bridge was listed on the National Register of Historic Places of the United States. There is a sign near the bridge that says this is the most significant remaining pre-Civil War bridge in the United States.

Want to see more fascinating places? Click the badge at the top of my post and sit back and enjoy a virtual tour around the world.

My World : Grave Creek Indian Mound

Last week I showed you the gothic structure of the West Virginia Penitentiary in Moundsville, West Virginia. (Here) I thought we would continue our tour there with the Grave Creek Indian Mound which sits directly across from the middle section of the prison. It is one of the largest conical Indian mounds in the USA.

The first native settlers along the Ohio River in the area of present-day Marshall County were the Mound Builders, also known as the Adena people. The Grave Creek Indian Mound, located in the center of Moundsville, is one of West Virginia's most famous historic landmarks. More than 2,000 years old, it stands 69 feet high and 295 feet in diameter.

The mound contains approximately 57,000 tons of dirt and originally stood nearly 70 feet high. The digging of so much earth left a sizeable moat or ditch surrounding the mound but it is no longer in existence. By testing the soil, archaeologists estimate the mound was built between 250 and 150 BCE by the Adena culture, which occupied the area from about 1000 BCE to 200 CE. The mound and two forts were the essential features of an Adena village in the shape of a triangle.

The mound was discovered by James Tomlinson and was opened in 1838. He discovered a vault 111 feet from the northern side containing the skeletal remains of two Indians, one of them surrounded with 650 ivory beads and wearing an ivory ornament about six inches long. The mound also contained ashes and bits of bones that are believed to be the remnants of Indians burned prior to their internment in the mound. Another vault was discovered near the top of the mound, containing a skeleton wearing beads, seashells and copper bracelets. An inscribed stone was removed from the vault and is on display at the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, D.C.

The mound was listed on the Natural History of Historic Places in 1966.

My World: A Gothic Castle It Isn't

One look and you might think this impressive architectural building is a castle of some sorts with its castellated Gothic stone structure complete with turrets and battlements. In reality it is the retired West Virginia State Penitentiary. For most of its years in operation at Moundsville, West Virginia it maintained a position on the Department of Justice's ten most violent correctional facilities. It operated from 1876 to 1995. It's seen riots, fires and the execution of nearly 100 prisoners through either hanging or electrocution. It is currently maintained as a tourist attraction and training facility.

I must say when I went by to take these photos that the first sight of the structure is incredible. It is an imposing structure and these photos do not convey how massive and Gothic it looks in real life.

The dimensions of the parallelogram-shaped prison yard are 682½ feet in length, by 352½ feet in width. The stone walls are 5 feet (1.5 m) thick at the base, tapering to 2½ feet at the top, with foundations 5 feet (1.5 m) deep. The center tower section is 682 feet (208 m) long. The walls here are 24 feet (7.3 m) high and 6 feet (1.8 m) wide at the base, tapering to 18 inches (460 mm) towards the top. At each of the corners of this wall would be large turrets, for the use of the guards, with inside staircases. The prison was built by some of the first prisoners themselves from hand cut stone.

After the prison closed its doors as a state institution, the Moundsville Economic Development Council obtained a twenty-five year lease on the complex. Tours are available for tourists wishing to see the prison. The facility is also used for training criminal justice professionals with regular mock-riot drills.
Although only 94 inmates were executed at the prison almost 1000 men died there as a result of suicide and murder. The facility is said to be haunted with the ghosts of these men. There are several areas in the prison known as "hot spots" where an unusual amount of paranormal activity reportedly occurs.

The historic structure is fast becoming world renown probably due to appearances in five TV shows including Sci-Fi's Ghost-Hunters (twice) and three movies, most conspicuously Scooby-Doo 2.

The prison was featured on Halloween 2008 on the Travel Channel's Ghost Adventures last week. When I was by here and took the photos there wasn't time to even consider a tour. I've since seen the Travel Channel show and if it is to be believed I'm not sure I would want to do the tour. Midnight tours are available as well as an overnight stay. Nearby residents mention seeing apparitions in the windows and unusual happenings on some tours.

I did check the windows frequently as I photographed and when I downloaded the photos to see if there was anything unusual!

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My World #2 : Fort Boreman Hill

A couple of weeks ago before My World began I had posted some photos from atop Fort Boreman here in Parkersburg, West Virginia. (here) Most of those dealt with the Ohio River. Today I'm going to revisit the site and tell something about the site itself. Fort Boreman is the site of a Civil War fort on a hilltop overlooking the scenic valley formed by the confluence of the Little Kanawha and Ohio rivers at Parkersburg. Built by Union troops to protect the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad terminal and the key commercial river facilities in the valley, Fort Boreman was named for West Virginia’s first governor, Parkersburg citizen Arthur I. Boreman. The Fort Boreman site was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2003.

Looking Down The River

This is looking upriver and over historic downtown Parkersburg. The Ohio River is to the left in the photo and the river under the highway is the Little Kanawha. Looking across this river to the hill on the other side you can see a cell tower. This hill is known locally as Quincy Hill and was thought to also be used as fortification of the rivers; but no evidence of that has ever been found. I will make mention again here for readers who didn't see my previous post that if you look closely you can see the floodwall that surrounds the city to protect it from the flooding river. There is a more closeup photo in my previous post if you have time to visit it.

In my earlier post I was able to catch a sternwheeler on the river and just as I was leaving the other day I waited to get this photo of a barge carrying coal down the river.

From high atop the hill I could look down and zoom in on the local television station and it's array of satellites.

As I hiked around the hill I found an opening to view the Little Kanawha River as it flows toward the mighty Ohio.

Hope you have enjoyed your visit to my little corner of the world today.

Wherever You Are Enjoy Your Day!

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Welcome to West Virginia

MY WORLD MEETS RUBY TUESDAY

Today is the launch of a new meme hosted by the same wonderful folks who bring you Sky Watch Friday. This new meme is for everyone who has a photoblog! With it you become a virtual tourist guide, showing all of us your part of the world: your celebrations, your landmarks, your home and neighborhood - your world! Since it also falls on Tuesday I will be combining a Ruby Tuesday post today where participants post a little bit of red or a lot of red.

So - here goes!

What better way to welcome you to my part of the world than by beginning at a West Virginia Welcome Center. This one is on the state line between my home state of West Virginia and the adjoining state of Ohio. When I took this photos one minute the sky was bright and the next it was cloudy.
This weathervane atop the center is the outline of the state of West Virginia. Not many straight lines here folks. We definitely have distinctive boundary lines! Wild and Wonderful West Virginia will be the focus of my My World posts in the weeks to come.
Today I'll start in my own neighborhood. This is a photo of a neighbor's beautiful red wagon decorated for the Halloween season. Regular readers might recognize it from a July post when it was decorated in red, white, and blue.

I hope you've enjoyed my little part of the world today. My virtual vacation of sights and scenes from around the world is waiting. Some of them will be of things red! If you'd like to tag along be sure to click the badges at the top of my post.