Such was the state slogan on license plates, off-and-on for many years! Did you know where the state of Kansas got its name? Read on…

Mandy spent time working in OK back in the early 1970’s, and as you saw previously, took time to do some sightseeing. One of the many interesting places was the abandoned town of Kaw City. In 1967, a flood control dam (and starting in 1981 a hydroelectric plant) was being erected nearby. As a result, the town was about to be submerged under the water behind the dam. Before that happened, guess who showed up to grab a picture?

This was the former post office building, not yet demolished. But there were plenty of piles of rubble from previously-demolished buildings nearby.

From various sources: Kaw City is a city in Kay County, Oklahoma, United States, situated in the Ox Bow Bend of the Arkansas River twelve miles east of U.S. Highway 77 on State Highway 11. The population was 372 at the 2000 census. Kaw City was named for the Kanza Indians, called the Kaw by locals. In 1902, the original Kaw City was founded, prior to Oklahoma statehood, as a farming community in the fertile oxbow bend of the Arkansas River. 

The Kaw Nation is/are a federally recognized Native American tribe in Oklahoma and parts of Kansas. They come from the central Midwestern United States. The tribe known as Kaw have also been known as the “People of the South wind”, “People of water”, Kansa, Kaza, Konza, Conza, Quans, Kosa, and Kasa. Their tribal language is Kansa, classified as a Siouan language. The toponym “Kansas” was derived from the name of this tribe.

The town was established by the Kaw City Townsite Company, which included William M. Jenkins (fifth governor of Oklahoma Territory), N. F. Frazier, C. W. Carey, and W. E. Brown. The sale of town lots began on July 4, 1902.It was connected with outside markets when the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway built their line through the town. Completed in 1903, the train depot served as a shipping point for thousands of bushels of corn and other farm produce. Hundreds of carloads of Texas cattle moved through Kaw City into the grazing lands of the Osage Reservation for fattening prior to being transported to market.  A post office was established on September 12, 1902, and a one-room school opened with fifty-six children in November 1902. At 1907 statehood, population stood at 486.

In 1919 a building boom started when oil was struck east of Kaw City. Roads were widened, gas was piped into town, Main Street was paved, old buildings were replaced with new ones, and bonds were passed for a city water and sewer system. The population almost doubled from 627 in 1920 to 1,001 in 1930.

Kaw City suffered several set backs. In 1923 a flood damaged the business district and destroyed two bridges, of which only one was reconstructed. During the Great Depression numerous businesses closed. At the beginning of World War II many citizens left to join the armed forces and to gain higher-paying, defense industry jobs. The town never regained the status it had once enjoyed. The population dropped from1,001 in 1930 to 561 in 1950.

The next blow came with the construction of the Kaw Dam. A new town site was selected two miles to the west. Surrounded on three sides by water, Kaw City continued to be located in the Ox Bow Bend of the Arkansas River. In 1966 the “old” and “new” pioneers began to build their new city in the new location. They moved the Santa Fe depot, which became the Kaw City Museum. But many of the rest were destroyed in place, in advance of “old town” being inundated by the rising waters behind the dam.

The Kaw Nation built a facility for business and to house their historical artifacts. The school, city offices, library, post office, three churches, and several businesses served as the new community’s core. At the turn of the twenty-first century Kaw City had 372 residents and an aldermanic form of town government.

In 2010, 375 people still called it home. Maybe I’ll get back someday!

Mandy

…. to dispose of an un-wanted railroad coach?

All it takes is the proper machinery to scoop the steel carbody out and heave it into a scrap dumpster. When done, often all that’s left is the floor and under-frame, with wheel assemblies, which scrap dealers cut up and haul away.

Nowadays, roadworthy but obsolete cars are sometimes shipped to scrap dealers intact, on their own wheels, for disposal (or as sometimes happens, for re-sale into private ownership, which nets the scrapper more $$.)

The above took place a number of years ago, on a Canadian tourist line, to dispose of some dis-used coaches. So very sad…

And have you ever wondered about the aftermath of a collision between an Amtrak train and an automobile which had saddlebagged on the dirt road grade crossing? Here you go…we were on that train, about 10 years ago.

When you hear that loud “wooooossssshhhhh” from the air brakes being put into emergency, and then feel the rapid – well, sort of more rapid than normal – deceleration, you find out “how hard it is to stop a train” (sorry about that, TRANE)! More importantly, you know instinctively that something bad is happening. And it certainly was. Fortunately we were only doing about 30 mph.

What you see above: the remains, after a young driver (resident of the Navajo Indian reservation this area was part of) got Daddy’s car hung up on the rural grade crossing. Fortunately the driver got out and wasn’t hurt. And the train suffered little damage – after the authorities finished their inquisition, it was able to proceed. The auto didn’t fare quite as well, though. We heard later that they had to call a tow truck…and from the crumpled hood, that’s not surprising.

Can’t you just hear it now? “Gee Dad, guess we’ll have to get that new car sooner than you planned…” Stuff happens…when you least expect it.

Stay Healthy (and off the tracks),

Mandy

Out and about with the antique car back in 2011, we were cruising down US Route 6 in Milford, eastern Pennsylvania. We were hungry,, and came upon another antique, which simply beckoned us to drop in. (The only thing which might have been more fun would have been stumbling upon the “Dew Drop Inn…”)

We pulled over, parked and went in…wow, your typical art-deco stainless steel diner – right out of the mid-1950’s!

After we finished a fine meal, I put the car in position to get a picture…to preserve the moment for posterity.

As near as I can tell from the internet, the diner company went out of business in 1957, so this 1956 model likely was one of the last they made. But it is still in business today – per the internet, presumably cranking out those meals “to-go” for today’s hungry travelers.

What a historic interior! We’re glad we stopped in!

Mandy

I had a chance to stop by one of my favorite little inlets not far from the bay the other day.  When I got there, I noticed a pretty heron standing at attention in the water.  The bird looked hungry, and as I watched (from a close vantage point – closer than I figured it would let me get), a fish appeared and the heron had Sunday brunch.  (I got a couple of other pics, with the bird playing with its meal before swallowing the fish whole, but won’t post them.)

Looking for brunch:

Gotcha!

This is another picture of the new top I picked up for a song last year at the thrift shop. Since I was enroute to visit Mom (before this virus issue), I couldn’t wear a skirt.  But these white shorts with the 3″ inseam often have the desired effect.  I stopped at the grocery store, and didn’t arouse any suspicion, being addressed as “Ma’am” by the checkout clerk and the manager.

It’s always a new adventure…

Mandy

You may remember a film by that name, back in the late 1980’s… Its title was inspired by a pizza shop which caught the eye of screenwriter Amy Holden Jones.   Mystic Pizza restaurant, located in Mystic, Connecticut has been popular among both locals and tourists since 1973. My wife and I spotted it during our visit there back in December of 2005.

Filming began October 12, 1987 and was due to last six weeks. The film’s plot is set in Mystic, but most of the filming locations were in neighboring towns. The building used for the pizza restaurant was a converted home in Stonington  Borough at 70 Water St.  After the film’s release, the real-life Mystic Pizza building in downtown Mystic was renovated to resemble the movie set.

The Windsor family home, the wedding reception restaurant, the Peg Leg Pub pool hall, and the fishing docks were also filmed in Stonington Borough. The hitchhiking incident takes place on North Main Street in Stonington Town. The Araújo home is in Pawcatuck, Connecticut, the lobster business and the wedding church are in Noank, Connecticut. Tim Travers’ home and the Windsors’ country club are in Watch Hill, Rhode Island.  The most notable scenes that take place in Mystic were filmed at the Mystic Seaport planetarium and at the Mystic River Bascule Bridge.

You never know what you’ll discover when on an excursion!

Stay safe and healthy,

Mandy

One which a anyone from the area who’s still alive probably would prefer to forget. But first, a little bit of history:

Johnstown was formally platted as Conemaugh Old Town in 1800 by the Swiss German immigrant Joseph Johns (born Josef Schantz). The settlement was initially known as “Schantzstadt”, but was soon anglicized to Johnstown. The community incorporated as Conemaugh Borough January 12, 1831, but renamed Johnstown on April 14, 1834.

Floods were almost a yearly event in the valley during the 1880s. On the afternoon of May 30, 1889, following a quiet Memorial Day ceremony and parade, it began raining in the valley. The next day water filled the streets, and rumors began that a dam holding an artificial lake in the mountains to the northeast might give way. It did, and an estimated 20 million tons of water began spilling into the winding gorge that led to Johnstown some 14 miles (23 km) away, destroying everything in its path.  Johnstown was trashed in about 10 minutes.

What had been a thriving steel-making town, with homes, churches, saloons, a library, a railroad station, electric streetlights, a roller rink, and two opera houses, was buried under mud and debris. Out of a population of approximately 30,000 at the time, at least 2,209 people are known to have perished in the disaster.

By the early 20th century, population had reached 67,000 people. The city’s first commercial radio station, WJAC, began broadcasts to the entire area in 1925. Downtown boasted at least five major department stores.   But once again, in 1936, another major flood hit the Johnstown area. During this time heavy snow run-off and three days of continuous rainfall caused the infamous St. Patrick’s Day flood.

That, combined with the effects of the Great Depression, left the area struggling again, but only temporarily.  Johnstown’s citizens mobilized to achieve a permanent solution to the flooding problem and wrote to President Franklin Roosevelt pleading for federal aid.  On April 27, 1937, Congress passed sweeping flood control legislation and in 1938 work began.  The U. S. Army Corps of Engineers gouged, widened, deepened, and realigned 9.2 miles (14.8 km) of river channel in the city, and encased the river banks in concrete and reinforced steel.. On November 27, 1943, the Johnstown Channel Improvement Project was completed, with 9.1 miles (14.6 km) of improvements that included the Conemaugh River, Stony Creek, and the Little Conemaugh River^.  That work, and Mother Nature, protected the area…for a while.  But they neglected the small tributary dams…

Then came the memorable night of July 19, 1977.  I was in the area for work at the time, and heard the heavy deluge of overnight rain which swamped the entire area. (No, I was not in Johnstown itself, nor was I directly affected – other than hearing the repeated “training” of thunderstorms and blinding lightning/deafening thunder throughout the whole area, complete with power flashes as transformers blew up.)

Dams in the area over-topped and failed. The largest one was the Laurel Run Dam, releasing over 101 million gallons of water that poured through the village of Tanneryville, killing 41 people. The combination of the other five dams released another 27 million gallons, not counting the water from rains. Well over 128 million gallons of water poured down the valley from the dams alone and by dawn Johnstown was flooded by six feet of water. The channel improvements were designed to carry 81,500 cubic feet per second but the flood discharge was measured as 115,000 feet per second

Damage from the 1977 flood was heavy (reportedly in excess of $200 million), with 84 deaths, and there was talk of the steel company (Bethlehem) in Johnstown pulling out. The city won a reprieve from the company’s top management, which had always regarded the Johnstown works with special affection because of its history and reputation.

As the increasing amount of federal environmental regulations became more difficult to comply with and the issues with the aging manufacturing facilities grew more significant, and as steel companies began closing down plants all over the country, by 1982 it looked as if Johnstown had exhausted its appeals. By the early 1990s, Johnstown abandoned most of its steel production, although some limited fabrication work continued.

Following are some of my recollections from driving around that fateful morning. This was taken in a nearby town, about 24 miles from downtown Johnstown. You can see the bridge over the creek which flooded, burying the Ford Mustang such that when I arrived on the scene, only the top of the roof was visible. (Why I didn’t get a picture, I’ll never know.) Obviously, the stores were all trashed.

Peoples’ home lives were also clearly disrupted by the flooding. The water was receding rapidly when this picture was taken.

The following picture was taken in downtown Johnstown. I was able to visit for a short time, after detours were posted around the washed-out roads. You can see evidence of the high-water marks by the department store’s sign:

Incidentally, the above department store was NOT directly adjacent to the creek which flooded.

And yes, here’s one of those washed-out roads. The offending creek is on the left. I read that it took quite a while to get things back to normal!

And here is a picture of one of the branch rail lines in the area. Notice the bridge which washed out! I don’t remember what was the status of the Pennsylvania Railroad 4-track main line through Johnstown and the surrounding countryside…but I’d bet there were some massive delays!

All in all, it was an interesting (but very melancholy) stay in the area…and I’ve only been back through a couple times (enroute to somewhere else.)

Stay healthy – and above water – this hurricane season!

Mandy

So this morning started out with me dressed similarly to yesterday, except for color: Blue capris, black polo, and black ballet flats. Purse, hair, nails, etc.

First stop on my day’s errands was the cleaners. The same man from yesterday was there. I spoke in a softer voice than on the phone. He apparently remembered who I was, went to the rack, found the finished order, and brought it to me – “your pants, Ma’am.” And I paid by cash as usual…didn’t want to have him handling my credit card with the virus situation. When I left, he apologized for missing the delivery last night and thanked me for coming by, but did not use any further female (or male, either) forms of address. Was I clocked? Perhaps, but since he told me that his father is seriously ill with a major medical issue (no, not the virus, fortunately), I’ll cut him a break.

Next stop was the hair salon. She knows my gender, and finally I was able to get the gray hair covered up. She’s used to my attire, so what I wore didn’t faze her at all. Everyone wore a mask, and there was plenty of distance between customers. Nobody coughed, sneezed or needed a tissue. So hopefully everything will be all right. We will all know in about 2 weeks…

The drive home was uneventful, as was the rest of the day. B-O-R-I-N-G!!! Quite anticlimactic…

Till next time,

Mandy

Last week, I took a pair of my stirrup pants to the cleaners. They had a split leg seam, and my wife thought it would look best if they were professionally repaired. So I dropped them off at the cleaners. The lady at the counter addressed me as a woman. But she forgot to mention that when they say it will be ready Wednesday, that means after 5 PM.

In this case, that minor detail mattered….

So, Wednesday I stopped by about 11. The male clerk got a phone call just as I was walking in, which he took. Fortunately, it was business related – I could hear his half of the conversation. When he was able to get off the phone, he apologized. “I’m so sorry, Ma’am. They aren’t back yet. May I deliver your pants to you this evening around 6? I can do that on the way home.” I was fine with that solution to the issue. So I gave him directions and made sure he had the phone number.

Next came the interesting part. A little before 6, the phone rang. I answered in my normal voice. He said “your wife was in to pick up some pants today, but they weren’t ready. I told her I’d deliver them tonight, but I forgot to bring them with me. I’m so sorry, sir.” I told him that one of us would pick them up “sometime tomorrow.” And he apologized again….

Sooo, I guess “my wife” will make that pickup sometime tomorrow…wonder if he will be there?

Mandy

No, not a new type of “hamberger.”

Back in June of 2011, my wife and I were in Ohio, exploring the sights while driving a different antique car than the blue one you’ve seen before. And in our travels, we came upon this fascinating edifice;

So, I delved back into Wikipedia and other sources for information. According to them, the Longaberger Company was/is an American manufacturer and distributor of handcrafted maple wood baskets and other home and lifestyle products. Its old corporate headquarters on Ohio’s State Route 16  is a local landmark and a well-known example of novelty architecture, since it takes the shape of the company’s biggest seller, the “Medium Market Basket.”

A family-owned and operated business, the Longaberger Company was started by Dave Longaberger in 1973. Longaberger used multi-level marketing to sell products. The company had about 45,000 independent distributors (called Home Consultants) in the United States who sold Longaberger products directly to customers. The iconic 7-story building is a 160-scale of the company’s medium market basket, was designed by Longaberger Co., and opened in 1977.

It was one of the primary employers in the area near Dresden, Ohio; at its peak in 2000, it employed more than 8,200 people and had $1 billion in sales. Founded in Dresden, the company moved to Newark, Ohio. A combination of a recession and changing tastes in home decor combined to send sales, which peaked in 2000 at $1 billion, to about $100 million in 2012.

In 2013, the company was reportedly taken over by CVSL, Inc.   In May 2015, Tami Longaberger, who had led the company since her father died in 1999, resigned as chief executive officer and director of the company.

In February 2016, the company said it would sell the Basket Building and move its employees to Longaberger’s factory in Frazeysburg, Ohio.   As of April 2016, there were fewer than 75 full-time and part-time employees; about 30 of those still made baskets, and that year, remaining workers vacated the building.  On May 4, 2018, a note was sent out from a sales force supervisor that the company had ceased operations.

Longaberger had stopped paying property taxes on the building at the end of 2014 and In December 2017, the building was purchased by Steve Coon, a Canton, Ohio based developer who owns Coon Restoration, and his partner, Bobby George, of Cleveland. By November 2018, the pair had put it up for sale. In 2019, the building had still not sold and Coon announced plans to turn the building into a luxury hotel and has been working toward having the building added to the National Register of Historic Places.

The Longaberger brand was revived in 2019, with so far “unknown” success.

But there’s another rare item in the picture. It’s the car – a 1991 Buick Reatta, which we owned for a relatively short period of time. (“Reatta” reportedly translated to “lariat” in Spanish.) A great touring car – peppy, roomy, reasonable trunk size for a small car, economical and comfortable, it was fun to drive. However, because we were the 5th owner during its lifetime, and like the racehorse which had been “rode hard and put away wet” far too many times in its 150,000 miles, it had a number of issues, some of which had to be fixed more than once. Not a good omen for dependability. As a result, we traded it in after just a few years, for a modern daily driver.

For those who aren’t aware of its existence (and many folks aren’t), the Buick Reatta was a low-volume (but high priced when new) transverse front-engine, front-wheel drive, two-door, two-seater grand touring/sports car manufactured and marketed by Buick as a coupe (1988–1991) and convertible (1990-1991) — both featuring a 3.8 liter V6 engine and shortened version of the GM E platform, the same one that underpinned the Buick Riviera.

As Buick’s first two-seater, and its first convertible since the 1985 Riviera, the Reatta was manufactured in a highly specialized assembly program at the Reatta Craft Center (later known as the Lansing Craft Center) in Lansing, Michigan—achieving production of over 21,000 units in four years. It remains quite a collectible car today, but we don’t look back with any regret whatsoever about disposing of it, fortunately before we depleted our bank account!

Stay healthy and safe…

Mandy

How about a trip down memory lane? This dates back to October of 2006, when I took a “voyage” (if you can call 8 hours a voyage) on the rescued and restored WWII Liberty Ship, the SS John W. Brown.

From Wikipedia (a good source of background info); her keel was laid down at the Bethlehem-Fairfield Shipyard in Baltimore, Maryland, on July 28, 1942. Sponsored by Annie Green, the wife of the president of the Industrial Union of Marine and Shipbuilding Workers, she was launched on September 7, 1942, one of 3 ships completed that day. Fitting out was finalized on September 19, 1942, making her total construction time only 54 days. She required about 500,000 man-hours and cost $1,750,000 to build and was the 62nd of the 384 Liberty ships constructed at the Bethlehem-Fairfield yard.

The Worthington Pump & Machine Corporation of Harrison, New Jersey, built John W. Brown‘s vertical triple expansion steam engine. Note: this is the same ship featured in a prior post, from a sightseeing visit to it in during its short stop in Cambridge, MD in 2018, and it still uses that same engine to this day.

It is one of two still operational and one of three preserved as museum ships. As a Liberty ship, she operated as a merchant ship of the United States Merchant Marine during World War II and later was a vocational high school training ship in New York City for many years. Now preserved, she is a museum ship and cruise ship berthed at Clinton Street Pier 1 in Baltimore Harbor in Maryland.

For those who may wonder about the name, the John W. Brown was named after the Canadian-born American labor union leader John W. Brown (1867–1941). And in the above picture, you can see the anti-aircraft armament which was provided on all Liberty Ships, to give them a fighting chance of surviving air raids by marauding enemy fighters.

The other surviving operational Liberty ship is SS Jeremiah O’Brien in San Francisco, California, US. A third Liberty ship, SS Hellas Liberty (ex-SS Arthur M. Huddell) is preserved as a static museum ship in Piraeus, Greece.

Bon Voyage!

After boarding, everyone was treated to breakfast, and then it was all hands on deck for departure from the marine terminal. Following is the view of Baltimore’s historic Fort McHenry, from the ship as it heads for Chesapeake Bay.

The voyage is relatively short distance-wise: under the Francis Scott Key bridge (I-695), under the twin spans of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge (the one which so often in the summer has humongous traffic jams due to beach traffic), then a little way down the bay to the turn around point, and return.

At some point during the trip, lunch is served. Weather permitting, antique period aircraft from nearby airports buzz the ship, and the crew fires blank ammunition from the anti-aircraft guns (one is shown below), to add to the realistic effect.

And usually they have some form of entertainment, such as Abbott and Costello or FDR impersonators to add some historic interest to the voyage.

When Scout troops stay overnight on board, or when the crew is on board for longer trips, here is where they sleep. Can you imagine sleeping here on a voyage across the Atlantic? Hmmm, efficient use of space, but certainly not luxurious. On-board crew obviously stayed here the night before departure!

And about 8 hours after departure, it’s back to the dock for deboarding, after another fun trip.

Perhaps at some point in the future, I’ll do it again! Meanwhile, everyone stay healthy!

Mandy