Charitone memories, memorabilia, &tc.

A public meeting to share memories and memorabilia related to the Hotel Charitone will begin at 7 p.m. Thursday at the C B & Q Freight House in Chariton, part of an effort to gather information about how the old hotel functioned as planning for its rehabilitation continues. Obviously, all are welcome.

We're hoping people will be prepared to talk about the hotel and will bring along documents, photos and other memorabilia related to it. We'll record spoken memories, try to scan photos and documents on the spot and photograph memorabilia not suitable for scanning --- building an archive. Anyone who would prefer to write their memories and share that way is welcome to do so.

There also will be updates on planning for the big project, perhaps from representatives of the architectural or contracting firms involved --- we'll see what develops.

Since May is National Preservation Month, the event also will observe that. Co-sponsors are the Chariton Historic Preservation Commission, Lucas County Arts Council, Lucas County Historical Society and the Lucas County Preservation Alliance. So put it on your calendar if you're in the area.

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It's looking like a busy week. Wednesday is city-wide cleanup day when, among other things, accumulated junk can be hauled to the old armory, loaded into dumpsters ($10 a load) then hauled to the landfill. I had all sorts of garage-related plans. Didn't happen. Stuck with junk for another year (or until I start disposing of it in smaller chunks).

I'll spend the morning at the museum instead. We usually have a contingent of high school seniors who arrive to deal with leaves, limbs and other unsightly accumlation around the campus. But the big effort will be in the barn to, finally, clear access to the far west side --- still cluttered after evacuation some years ago of a Lewis Building gallery so that basement wall repairs could begin.

The problem with that clutter is that it blocks access to permanent displays --- so we need to resolve it by finding new homes for several bulky items, then cleaning areas we haven't had good access to for quite a while. Some will go to the loft --- not exacly the best solution but the best we can come up with right now (The loft was cleared out during clean-up day last year).

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And then I need a haircut again --- boy do I need a haircut. I should be grateful it still grows --- but there are days .... I think I'm still living in the past --- the days when you just went into a barber shop, waited your turn and the deed was done. Now appointments are required.

Doctor's offices used to be the same way, didn't they? I seem to remember that when I was a kid we climbed the stairs to Dr. Anderson's offices without previous notice, took seats and waited. Somehow that worked, although for the most part only emergency rooms function that way nowadays.

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Speaking of doctors, a friend ended up in the hospital over the weekend to be treated for, of all things, an infected cat bite --- reinforcing worst suspicious those critters. She'd done everything right --- a trip to the emergency room for treatment after the initial assault, but the deep puncture wound flared up anyhow, requiring intensive treatment and infusions of antibiotics every six hours. Ouch.

We tried to convince her an IV pole wouldn't interfere with duties as crucifer/acolyte --- but it didn't work, even though it's a short walk from hospital to church. Then the organist bailed at the last conceivable moment, so there I was stuck behind the keyboard again --- not a favorite place to be.

Finally home to fritter away the afternoon playing with Family Tree Maker 2012 rather than doing useful stuff. What a waste.

What we need around here is a little sunshine to get everyone fired up again --- the forecast into the forseeable future calls for clouds and rain. But, like Annie, I'm sure the sun will come out tomorrow --- one of these days.

Faith and fear

Some days a guy's got to wonder why academics invest time analyzing the obvious --- like the minor University of British Columbia study reported upon Friday in the journal Science that concluded analytic thinking, as opposed to intuitive thinking, can promote disbelief. Well, duh ...

I mean Baptists, and nearly all other religious types, have always known that. Take a look at the somewhat combative church sign posted above.

The difficulty comes, for the religious at least, when threatened by reason we set out to prove reasonably the unreasonable. Take the resurrection, for example, which operates outside reason.

Or, as new-earth creationists are prone to do, pseudo science that endeavors to establish that God finished creating the earth 5,234 years, five hours and 27 minutes ago, with fossils thrown in as a sort of decorative frieze.

The more sensible approach is to accept the idea that faith attempts to explain why stuff happens while reason attempts to explain how things happen --- and that the two are not mutually exclusive; one can, if the users are willing to relax a little, inform the other.

But I've actually I've been thinking more about fear-based faith --- and culture --- after Bible study last week: A small group that gets together Tuesday mornings and includes either an Episcopal priest or a Lutheran pastor --- often both. Faith and fear, like intuition and reason, are linked.

Since it is the Easter season --- until Pentecost --- we got to talking about how the hopeful intent of Christian faith --- and the culture that for better or worse is somewhat informed by it --- seems to get bogged down in fears that only seem rational to some because they are based on faith-based premises.

There's every indication that redemption rather than condemnation, actual and/or virtual,  is the centerpiece of Easter. Look at John 3:17, for example, "For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved."

That seems to be a call for redemptive work motivated by hope in a redeemable world. Heaven, after all, can take care of itself. But many Christians seem to have gone out of the redemption business and shifted their focus to fear.

In fact, when redemption is considered, some of the most hopeful people I know are atheists.

The family tree & me

At roughly 5 p.m. Friday, the "Family Tree Maker 2012" icon  popped up on my desktop after an hour-long download --- much longer than anticipated --- and I was linked to the genealogical mainstream again, sort of.

FTM 2012 is a family history bookkeeping program so complex it will, if provided with the right audio clip, whistle "Dixie" --- or sing "Battle Hymn of the Republic." That was why the download took so long. Frankly, it's given me a headache.

Family Tree Maker and I have a long history, going back to the Old Testament version. For some reason, the authors of that tome neglected to mention that when Moses descended from the mount with the Ten Commandments on his shoulder, he had a laptop under his arm upon which Family Tree Maker Version "0" had been installed. That's why we know about all those begats.

Until a computer collapse more than a year ago, I was operating Version 2009 --- but the tech who did a motherboard transplant removed all my programs and I couldn't find the disk needed to put it back. Although the data was still here, I couldn't access it. The disk for Version 2005 turned up, but it wouldn't open files created in Version 2009 so, faced by the urgent need yesterday to know in which Washington County, Pennsylvania, cemetery I'd determined that Uncle W.H.H. Greer was buried, I had to buy Version 2012 --- or do all that research again.

Actually, I could have used Version 2005 and gone online to download my RootsWeb GEDCOM, free-floating out there in cyberspace for anyone interested to use, into it --- but the GEDCOM hadn't been updated for months before the crash and I still wouldn't have known where Uncle Greer was buried. It's all very complicated.

I've been dabbling in family history since high school and much of the accumulated data still is recorded only on paper, but about 9,000 people roam around in the digital family history file. Armed with Version 2012, maybe I'll start transferring data again. But that's more complicated that it used to be.

Back in the good old days, Family Tree Maker was a paragon of elegant simplicity. Then it was acquired by my friends at Ancestry.com --- a part of the vast Mormon genealogical conspiracy to which I have been a long-time subscriber.

Ancestry.com is wonderful --- I'd have a hard time coping without my subscription --- access in an instant to all those census records, books and records useful for both genealogical and general research. But it is a business and there's money to be made when new and increasingly complex versions of Family Tree Maker are introduced every year.

There's also money to be made in integrating FTM so thoroughly into Ancestry that the two can't be pulled apart. I'm not necessarily complaining about that, just about the fact that integration further complicates processes that once were relatively simple.

I'm even thinking of up uploading my FTM files to Ancestry, thus creating linked databases that automatically update each other. Wow.

 I've resisted that urge previously because of old-fogyish disapproval of instant genealogy. It is entirely possible, for example, by using linked Family Tree Maker-Ancestry to trace your ancestry back to Adam in under an hour merely by hitting "merge" every time you run into someone else's family file that kind of matches yours. I resent being merged.

But maybe I need to rethink that. It is the brave new world, after all, genealogically and otherwise.

The last of Lee Veirs

A large portrait of Lee Veirs was slipped loose into his scrapbook. It may have been taken as a publicity shot during the years he was on the road or it may have been taken later, at Bates Studio perhaps, after he returned home to Chariton.

Lee Veirs left Chariton soon after high school graduation in 1920 to make his mark as a  musician. A talented pianist, he spent several years on the road with small orchestras --- Summy's Southern Syncopators, Paul Carey's Jailbirds and the Atlas Beer Special Orchestra among them  --- traveling the Midwest by train and beat up automobile.

Then he came home. Perhaps it had something to do with the death of his father, Edwin, during December of 1935. Lee was the only child of fairly affluent parents and his mother, Effa, may have prevailed upon him --- there was property to manage and her feelings to consider.

Lee really never left again, except during the 1940s when --- in his 40s himself --- he went to Des Moines to do his part for the war effort by working in an ordnance plant.

The end, when it came 20 years later, was hard --- in 1965, three years after Effa's death --- at the business end of a .38 caliber revolver, self-inflicted.

That might have been that. Cousins were the only survivors. There was no one left to tell his story.

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But then a battered old scrapbook surfaced several weeks ago as the basement of the Ensley-Crocker Block was being cleared to make way for new owners. The scrapbook had had a hard life and no one knows why it was there --- with water-stained, warped and moldy covers that had protected the photos and memorabilia inside.

After passing from hand to hand, the scrapbook ended up at the Lucas County Historical Society museum and I've been spending some time this week conserving it --- disposing of the hopelessly damaged cover and slipping pages into clear archival sleeves so that their contents can come into the light again.

It's been an evocative trip through young Lee's years on the road --- programs and posters, dozens of snapshots, newspaper clippings, publicity photos, match book covers, dance cards, hotel room receipts and blotters, even a dried boutonniere or two.

At first I thought this must have been Effa's project --- but now I think it was Lee's. The focus is on friends and fellow musicians, objects that had personal meaning. Who knows what memories they brought back as he turned pages in later years.

I think these are Summy's Southern Syncopators, but can't be sure of that. Lee is at far left, holding the baton.

I learned from the scrapbook that Lee was a part of Boyd Summy's Hotel Maytag Orchestra DeLuxe in 1926 when Newton's grandest hotel opened its doors for the first time; and that his longest gig may have been with Paul Carey's Jailbirds. He was playing for the Atlas Special Beer Orchestra when, according to an undated clipping, his mother made a trip from Chariton to Ottumwa to watch him perform. There are items picked up in hotels in Chicago, Peoria, Indiana and elsewhere.

This caricature of Lee at the piano was drawn by Woody Hull when Lee was playing with the Atlas Special Beer Orchestra. Four of Hull's caricatures are pasted into the scrapbook.

Finally, slipped loose into the scrapbook, are programs from Des Moines theatrical performances that Lee must have attended after he retired from the road --- Helen Hayes in "Mary of Scotland," Kathryn Hepburn in "The Philadelphia Story," the dramatization of Erskine Caldwell's "Tobacco Road," the Ziegfield Follies, and more.

The last item pasted into the scrapbook, like a period, is a copy of his funeral folder, neatly centered on a page of its own. I wonder who went to the trouble to do that.

Working with those pages, I felt like I was getting to know Lee a little. Those years on the road obviously were important to him, he was happy, heck --- he even may have been in love; there are signs of that --- and he told the story himself. Miraculously, it survived.

Considering the end, I hope many more happy days came along later. But that, I guess, we'll never know.

Lee William Veirs, only child of Edwin and Effa (Brown) Veirs, was born in Chariton on Oct. 13, 1901. A 1920 graduate of Chariton High School, he traveled with orchestras as a young man and worked at an ordnance plant in Des Moines during World War II. His parents had owned considerable real estate in Chariton, which he managed after their deaths. He never married.  Lee died at his home, the family apartment at 105 S. Main, of a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head on Jan. 28, 1965, age 63. A member of St. Andrew's Church, Fr. Colin Keys conducted last rites at Beardsley Funeral home on Feb. 1 and he was buried with his parents in the Chariton Cemetery.

Alone with my closets --- and liking it

I suppose I could get used to living with somebody else again, but the closets are full of my stuff and it's not clear where up to half of it would go if there were someone else around in need of space to hang his jeans. I get tired just thinking about it.

On the one hand, another someone might help clean house; on the other, not cleaning house for long periods of time works well, too. I've not  reached the extreme of my long-deceased buddy, Helen, who having given up cooking, and blessed with a microwave and a partiality toward fast food, stored her rinsed dishes in the oven to keep the kitchen neat between periodic washings. But I've thought about it.

This all came to mind when I got a self-contratulatory e-mail this morning from my friend Mary Ellen headed "I am one of the 50%," reinforcing something heard on NPR yesterday --- that according to the latest 2010 census data, the percentage of husband-wife couples heading U.S. households is at a record low --- 48 percent, down from 52 percent in 2000 and far below the 1950 record high of 78 percent.

Although the circumstances are different --- she's dabbled in marriage and found it wanting while I didn't have the option at times I might have been interested --- we were among the 27 percent of single-person households in 2010, a number that is growing, but more slowly than the husband-wife rate is falling.

As you might expect, Utah had the highest percentage (61 percent) of households headed by husband-wife teams. You may disagree with the Saints about politics, theology and/or their treatment of LGBTQ people, but by gum those Mormons do take family values seriously.

The number of households headed by partnered but unmarried opposite-sex couples was up 40 percent between 2000 and 2010 to roughly seven percent.

But the real growth was in same-sex partnerships, married where allowed and otherwise --- up 80 percent to roughly 650,000 households, still less than one percent but increasing. Gay folks seem to be the only market where marriage or its counterparts form a growth industry.

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There also have been a variety of other household trends in places like Chariton during the 70-plus years since that 1950 benchmark, and I've been thinking about some of those while spending more time on the town square during the last year.

If you look around, it's fairly clear that there's a huge volume of underutilized space on the upper floors of commercial buildings, and that wasn't the case back then.

When the Kubitshek block burned in 1965, eight households headed by single people --- a majority of them women --- occupied upstairs apartments there and were left homeless. Visiting with veteran building owners, it's become clear that those upstairs rooms and apartments around the square were the principal places of refuge at mid-century for single people, most of them older, who either could not afford or did not want to maintain free-standing houses.

Building of the Autumn Park and Southgate apartment complexes shifted that market and made modern, affordable housing available to most older and handicapped residents. That's a good thing --- many of those upstairs apartments offered minimal plumbing and shared bathrooms plus long flights of stairs.

In addition, there are at lest three good-sized apartment complexes in town now that offer modern affordable housing to low-income people who are neither elderly nor handicapped.

Since there are relatively few rental options for people in the middle income range of all ages, it seems possible that redevelopment into housing to meet that need is an option. It'll be interesting to see what happens as the focus turns to revitalizing the square and the trend toward "unconventional" households accelerates.

Let the gigabytes roll ...

This photo of the U.S.Bank drive-up (southwest) corner of the square has no significance other than the fact its posting on the "Chariton's Square Deal" blog, linked at right, helped knock me over the one-gigabyte free digital storage limit allocated to my Google account --- and into the rental realm.

That means I've posted enough photos, all at modest resolution, in the seven years this blog and its later less intensively used brethren have been around to clutter cyberspace with a full gigabyte of imagery. So I signed up for an additional 20 GB of storage at minimal cost.

Then I got confused about whether I was renting gigabytes or gigabits --- and there is a difference. But it's not clear to me what the difference is. And it really wouldn't be worth worrying about were in not for the fact that were one fully informed it would be possible to say, patronizingly, "no, you mean gigabit" should gigabytes and gigabits come up in casual conversation and someone misused the word than ended "yte."

I've stuck with Google's Blogger all these years primarily because it was the only game in town when I started, it's easy to use and I'm familiar with it --- even though WordPress is now considered trendier and there are several other platforms available.

But Google does get on nerves now and then. Like yesterday, when I did a Google search for "Kubitshek" while writing about the Kubitshek Block because I'd forgotten what became of Henry Kubutshek's brother, Michael (I think he moved to Ottumwa during the 1870s).

Google, however, would not let me search for "Kubitshek" because it believes Henry and Michael and all their descendants should have spelled the name "Kutibschek," with a "c," although they didn't, until I enclosed the Charitonians' preferred spelling in quote marks. Even then, Google kept asking me, "Did you mean Kubitschek?" No I didn't, so shut up and leave me alone.

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Over the course of maybe a year, I've photographed every building on the square. It's odd what starts to stand out and become visually irritating during an exercise like that.

Take our street lights, for example. These have been around since the 1950s and if you look at them they're actually rather nice, tall and streamlined, very 1950ish, with a graceful swan-like light fixture at the top. The difficulty you notice, if you pay attention, is that the poles seem not to have been painted since the 1950s and by now they're rust buckets. Plus, at least one of them is leaning --- kind of dramatically. I wonder why they've not been maintained.

And then there are all those wires, electrical and otherwise, stretching from pole to pole and building to building, dangling here and there. The explanation --- there's never been a priority here on moving wiring underground.

Somewhere in the Main Street process, I'm sure, "streetscaping" the square will become a priority. That probably will involve plans for new sidewalks, new planting schemes --- and new lighting. That's a ways down the road, however. Maybe we should think about having those old poles straightened and painted while waiting.

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The inevitable Mitt Romney is now, well, inevitable --- and the best spectator sport in town for a while will involve watching the old shape-shifter move to the middle: "Aw shucks, I didn't mean that." Next thing you know, he'll be hiring openly gay staffers. Oh wait ....

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There's all sorts of other interesting stuff out there to talk about, but it looks like rain is moving in on us again as April turns to March. So I'd better focus on (finally) getting the grass cut before it starts.

 

Rise & Fall of the Kubitshek Block

I still miss the Kubitshek Block --- just a little. Not that the U.S.Bank drive-up isn't appreciated, but when you compare its scale to that of the mighty building it replaced, the anchor of the Chariton square's southwest corner, it comes up short.

The west end of the south side of Chariton's square, officially Lot 4, Block 14, original city of Chariton, is among its most historic spaces. The intersection of Sections 19, 20, 29 and 30, Lincoln Township, where those assigned during the fall of 1849 to locate a county seat gathered around a surveyor stake to do so, is very near. And the hotel, known most often as Hatcher House, was built on its western three quarters during the fall of 1853.

Lot 4 was purchased from Lucas County on March 19, 1852, by Ann Arnold, who sold to Joshua P. Chapman, a land agent and surveyor, the following May. It's not clear who built the hotel. Elijah Lewis, in his memoir of early Chariton, credits the rambling two-story frame building to a Mr. Culbertson. But the Hatchers operated it later, and their name stuck. Benjamin F. Bates managed the Hatcher House before building his own Bates House, off the northwest corner of the square, during the 1870s, effectively putting the old wooden hotel out of business some years later.

By the time the 1890s arrived, the entire first floor had been divided into business rooms and the second floor was a hodgepodge of living quarters and offices. It had become unsightly, was not that sound structurally (Chariton's earliest buildings were built with minimal foundations because neither stone that could be quarried nor brick was available). Besides, it was a fire hazard --- many disastrous fires had spread from frame building to frame building over the years around the square and the goal was to replace everything with brick.

The Hatcher House still was going strong, however, when Henry Kubitshek and his family, including brother Michael, arrived in town very soon after 1870. Michael purchased the wood frame building just east of the hotel and went into business there with Henry, who purchased the building from him during September of 1872 and continued to operate a grocery store there for several years. You can read more about Henry Kubitshek and his family here.

During March of 1894, Henry purchased the adjoining Hatcher House property and, after demolishing both it and his own building, constructed the four-storefront Kubitshek Block during 1896, utilizing the entire lot. Other than the Mallory Opera Block, this was the largest commerical structure on the square when it was built.

Early in the building's history, Henry sold the east quarter of the building to the Yengel Brothers for use as a meat market, but the Kubitshek family retained ownership of the rest of the building until 1921, years after the family, including wife Deborah and daughters Susie and Henrietta, had moved elsewhere. Henry himself died in Denver during 1914.

At the time this photo was taken --- perhaps about 1910 --- the Kubitshek block was occupied by (from left) the Yengel meat market, a pharmacy, a restaurant and the U.S. Post Office. Henry had remodeled the west storefront for the post office after it had been burned out of a northside location and it remained here until the current post office was built during 1917.

Besides its presence, I remember the Kubitshek Block for two reasons. My mother lived here during the week while attending high school during the 1930s in a big upstairs apartment rented by a widow (whose name, sadly, I've forgotten) who supplemented her income by housing and feeding girls from the country at a time when what now is a 10-minute drive could take an hour or more. Mother helped pay her way by clerking at the east-side Crozier Store when not in class, returning home for Sunday with her family.

By the time I came along, the men who operated the Chariton Barber Shop had moved out of the basement of the Hotel Charitone and into a Kubitshek Block storefront --- so this is where most of my haircuts during elementary and high school were given.

The Kubitshek Block fell during the early morning of March 31, 1965, when fire broke out in Pat and Bill's Tavern, operated by Mr. and Mrs. Bill DeBord, which occupied one of the storefronts, and spread throughout the building. Although only the bar was gutted, smoke, water and flames heavily damaged the entire structure. Firefighters from Russell, Williamson, Lucas and Corydon helped bring the blaze under control.

Businesses left homeless by that fire, in addition to the barber shop,  were the Iowa Liquor Store, the Charles Beauty Shop, Norge Launderama and a basement photo studio operated by Dwight Oliver. An upstairs real estate office operated by Jess Umbenhower also was destroyed.

Those forced from apartments on the second floor were Phaene Hibbs, who owned the part of the building where the laundry was located, Mrs. Leona Anderson and her son, Mrs. Mae Gibbs, Floyd Bingaman, Mrs. Catherine Rivers, Mrs. Eva Rahn, Mrs. Blanche Adams and Marilyn Sanders. Edmond Stone & Sons owned the remainder of the block.

At the time of the fire, the estimated cost of restoring or replacing the building entirely was estimated at $200,000 --- and this was not a time when buldings of the Kubitshek Block's scale were being constructed on Iowa town squares. Drive-up banks were, however, just beginning to be popular.

In June of 1965, after the debris had been carted away, the lot was sold by its owners to the northside First State Bank as the site for its first drive-up. The drive-up bank on the site remains, currently operated by First State's successor, U.S. Bank.

Preach it, brothers and sisters

Sioux City's Journal, the newspaper northwest Iowa depends upon, did an interesting and hopeful thing on Sunday --- devoting its front page to a full-page editorial calling for action to combat bullying, in-school and otherwise.

The editorial board was motivated primarily by the suicide last Sunday of 14-year-old Kenneth Weishuhn at Primghar. The freshman student was bullied relentlessly by some at his high school and via the electronic media after coming out as gay.

Although the reason Weishuhn was bullied has been evident, The Journal actually underplayed the gay aspect of the tragidy, using the "g" word only once on that full page and stating delicately that "sexual orientation appears to have played a role."

That may have been as far as a newspaper that serves the most conservative part of Iowa felt it could safely go.

But still, poking around this morning, I ran into a post on one of Iowa's more popular conservative and religiously-oriented blogs dismissing the nationwide publicity that the boy's death has generated as "homosexual propaganda" and implying that The Journal's editorial, as well as The Des Moines Register's minimal coverage, were somehow promoting a "gay agenda."

Which, of course, illustrates part of the bullying problem. There is general agreement that gay kids, or those perceived to be gay, are bullied at higher rates than their "normal" brothers and sisters; and that the rates of attempted and actual suicide are higher among gay kids.

But religious types, especially the conservative ones, as well as Republican types, have a terrible time sorting this out, bless their hearts. Few actually want gay kids, or anyone else, to kill themselves. But battling the gay menace has become a cornerstone of orthodox faith in both church and party. They're addicted and don't  know how to, or are afraid to, break the habit.

I don't really expect the state GOP to come out against bullying gay kids.

Nor does it seem likely that the preachers at, let's say, First Baptist, Grace Baptist, Cornerstone Community, Truth Assembly and First Church of the Nazarene (and smaller counterparts), would resort their priorities and jump aboard an inclusive bandwagon.

And it's almost as unlikely that the preachers of more moderate denominations --- First United Methodist, First Christian, St. Andrew's Episcopal, First Presbyterian, First Lutheran and the like --- will overcome their fears of offending some parishioners and openly affirm LGBTQ people.

But in the long run, that sort of thing probably is necessary for anyone truly serious about ending bullying of all sorts. Otherwise, all this will just fade away --- until the next suicide.

That guy Jesus is reported to have said, "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me." That seems clear, but apparently it isn't --- although this is where the sorting out has to begin.

On the trail at Prairie Trails

Four of us were in Corydon yesterday for a day-long museums association meeting at Wayne County's Pioneer Trails, one of my favorite places in the whole wide world --- especially now, edging into second childhood. Lunch at Ludlow's, that restaurant on the southeast corner of the square named after Pioneer Trails board member Bill Gode's dog, was a bonus.

Although I neglected to take a photo of them, I like to begin a visit by ringing some of the dozens of old school and church bells that line the museum's entrance walk (you're allowed to do that; it's done officially every 4th of July when "Let Freedom Ring" at the museum kicks off a community celebration). Some find this annoying, but I do it anyway. The photos here are of some of my favorite places inside.

Amy's House, for example (at the top of this post). Amy, or Miss Robertson if you prefer, was a Promise Cityan, school teacher, entrepreneur, indefatigable worker as Pioneer Trails developed and major benefactor of everything Wayne County --- plus Simpson College in Indianola. As the end of her career approached, she decided to build Amy's House in the museum's vast west gallary to house her stuff --- unable to take it with her to the Promise City Cemetery. So you walk inside through the front door and find arranged in study, dining room, living room and bedroom settings her family furniture, memorabilia, pictures and other stuff. None of it's priceless --- just interesting.

I usually head early during a visit to this display at the north end of the east gallery, commemorating the place of the Mormon Pioneer Trail in both Wayne County and LDS history in the context of "Come, Come Ye Saints," that great LDS anthem whose words were written by William Clayton while that first party of westward-bound Saints were camped in the southeast part of the county on April 15, 1846. There are buttons to push here, something that always amuses me. Push the first one, and "Come,Come Ye Saints" plays faintly in the background as you walk through. Push the red one in front of the pioneer wagon, and the "Music and the Spoken Word" voice I'm most familiar with, broadcasting during my childhood from Temple Square, booms out the story before the Mormon Tabernacle Choir delivers a louder and more rousing rendition. It's wonderful!

One of my favorite more recent installations, in the west gallery, is this combination of fire truck and photo reproduced mural. The mural was painted during 1941 and remains in the Corydon Post Office. It depicts an imaginary fire in Corydon and features some of the city's finest old homes --- condensed. The fire truck in the mural is now in the museum collection and if this display is viewed from the right angle (this isn't it) almost appears to be driving straight out of it at you.

The Main Street Gallery has been a part of the museum since its beginnings in the 1960s and, in fact, has spilled over into a West Gallery subdivision --- but I still get a kick out of poking around behind the reproduced storefronts and looking at the artifacts inside.

The military gallery is one of the most recently developed areas of the museum, created within space previously used for other displays. This is the east wall of of a really extraordinary display.

There are a sufficient number of displays at Prairie Trails to keep a dedicated looker involved for a full day, at least. Here's a small exampe of the volume in a portion of the West Gallery. The case at left is filled with memorabilia related to George Saling, 1932 Gold Medal Olympian who was killed in a car accident only six months after the Olympics and is buried in the Corydon Cemetery.

Finally, with Matthew Barker looking on, here's a small part of the entrance gallery which contains a beautifully executed overview of Wayne County history, of the sort I wish the Lucas County Historical Society Museum had the space to install.

If you're in Corydon, be sure to stop at the museum for a visit. It's open, as of April 15, from  1-5 p.m. daily and those hours will expand to 10 a.m.-5 p.m. daily during June, July and August. Adult admission is $5, or you can join the Wayne County Historical Society for $10 and visit as often as you like.

Lon Hougland's churches

Here's how the Methdist Episcopal Church of Promise City, designed by Chariton architect O.A. Hougland, looked not long after it was completed and dedicated during 1910.

Small things make obsessive-compulsive people happy --- and if I could have proved that Oran Alonzo Hougland was the architect of Chariton's First Presbyterian Church I'd have been a happy camper, at least for a minute or two.

Unfortunately, Charles C. Cross of Des Moines designed Chariton's wonderful old church, although Hougland went on to design a number of other southern Iowa churches that was similar in many ways to it.

Although William L. Perkins, who practiced in Chariton from 1917 until his death in 1957, overshadows Hougland, he was our first architect --- at least so far as anyone knows. Lon, as he was known, arrived in Chariton from Moulton about 1875 and lived and worked here until his untimely death at age 52 during 1912.

He began as a carpenter, builder and contractor, but at about the turn of the century his career as an architect took off. We know that he was the architect of the Lucas County Home, built during 1903, but it is extremely difficult to link other Chariton buildings to him.

Part of the problem is that he died relatively young and all four of his children predeceased him. Although his widow, Ida,  remarried and lived until 1947, there  is no general accounting of his work. It's easier, using online resources, to track down his work involving public buildings elsewhere.

First Presbyterian Church was burilt during 1908 and dedicated during February of 1909. The design  dates from 1907, however.

The Presbyterians had the misfortune of tearing their old church down during early October of 1907 in anticipation of the new building ---- then seeing funding for the new building vanish with the failure of First National Bank as the month ended. It took months to recover and re-launch construction.

 This postcard view shows how it originally looked, complete with dome. The dome has been removed, although the interior stained glass dome liner remains with necessary supporting structure protected by a shed-like roof invisible from ground level. Newspaper accounts identify Cross as the architect.

Hougland, however, can definately be linked to First Methodist Church of Corning, designed during 1908, the same year. The Engineering Record of Sept. 26, 1908, reported that "The trustees of the (Corning) M.E. Church ... have accepted the plans of A. Hougland of Chariton for a new edifice to cost about $20,000." Here's how that church looks today in a small photo lifted from the Web. To me, at least, the similarities to Chariton First Presbyterian are striking.

The year 1910 was a banner one for Hougland so far as churches were concerned --- six in various stages of planning and construction at the same time in Promise City, Humeston, Carlisle, Milo, Clearfield and Grand River.

During August of 1910, Hougland bragged a little as follows in The Chariton Leader:

"Let the good work go on. I certainly am busy in the missionary field erecting temples of worship and extending the kingdom of the Lord. I was awarded the contract for furnishing plans, the other day, for a new church at Grand River. That makes (six) of which I am now supervising architect, Carlisle, Clearfield, Promise City, Humeston and Milo (plus Grand River). D.A. Enslow has the contract for the construction work of some of them. You will notice among the list there are temples to be erected at Clearfield and Primose City. This is certainly assuring. --- O. A. Hougland, Architect."

The Milo church burned during 1921 and the Clearfield church has been torn down and replaced. I could find images of neither. Nor could I track down the Carlisle church.

But a good deal of information is available about the twin Promise City and Grand River churches, as well as the Humeston church.

Here's how Ortha Green described the Promise City church (at the top of this blog post) in her undated book, "Churches of Wayne County."

"In 1908, Mrs. Julia Conner passed away and left $100 to be used in building a new church. In 1909, they decided the build. The contract was let for the new building on April 10, 1910, and the cornerstone was laid in May 1910.

"Mr. O.A. Houghland (sic) of Chariton was the architect and drew the plans of the unique building, patterned after ancient Greek or synagogue architectural design, adding here and there a touch of the modern.

"The exterior walls are of dark red pressed flint brick surmounted in the center of the roof by an oval dome directly over the center of the main room. The interior walls are frescoed in beautiful colors. Leaded glass memorial windows costing $300 each were purchased from Bowman Glass Co. of Des Moines, adding a beautiful and sacred addition. A very unusual building costing $7,300."

Although the Promise City church building still stands, it was closed some years ago by the Iowa United Methodist Conference and much of its interior detail removed.

In September of 1910, The American Contractor reported that Hougland had designed this nearly identical building for the Methodist Episcopal Church of Grand River (immediately above). This building has been torn down, however.

And here's a photo of the Humeston Christian Church, demolished after the Christian and United Methodist churches of that Wayne County city merged and built an entirely new building.

The cornerstone of this building was put into place on November 5, 1910. Ortha Green descrited the building as being of  "Grecian type architecture of porcelain finished brick, (built) at a cost of $9000."

So these are some of Lon Haugland's church. I wish I could have claimed Chariton's First Presbyterian for him, too --- but that was not to be.

Youth that sets us free

Kenneth Weishuhn

Looking for needles in a haystack called 1908 behind the microfilm reader Thursday, this item headed "Protest Against Pupils Dancing" caught my eye on the front page of The Chariton Patriot of January 16:

"Rev. Munn of the U.P. (United Presbyterian) church, and Rev. Evans of the M.E. (Methodist Episcopal) church, representing the ministerial association of Chariton, called upon Superintendent Johnson of the city schools Tuesday and entered a protest against the practice, by the high school pupils, of dancing at their class parties. The question was put to the class with the result that 24 voted in favor of dancing and only two against it. Prof. Johnson says that the question of dancing by the pupils is one that neither he, the other teachers nor the school board has any right to attempt to regulate. It is a matter for adjustment between the pupils on their parents."

Lordy, lordy, the things some preachers do worry about.

Demon rum also was a pastoral concern during 1908 and the drive for an amendment to the Iowa Constitution mandating prohibition, another popular topic in protestant pulpits.

The Rev. W.C. Barber, superintendent of the Iowa Anti Saloon League, was in town during the week of April 9, conducting "enthusiastic temperance meetings" at the United Presbyterian United Brethren and Christian churches.

"The addresses were urgent pleas for prohibition, and for support for the movement to again submit to the voters of Iowa the question of a prohibitory amendment to the state constiution," The Patriot reported.

It's been a hundred years, most Christians are allowed to dance now and prohibition didn't work out. We're still trying to impose piety via the constitution, however.

But these items remain as modest reminders of how infrequently the church gets things right and what a moral and spiritual morass it can be. The idea of the church as the "body of Christ" would be laughable, were it not for the fact individual Christians somehow, some of the time, drag it along kicking and screaming into the light.

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I've been thinking a little about this in the context of that kid from Primghar, 14-year-old Kenneth Weishuhn, who hanged himself over the weekend, bullied to death they say. His funeral was Thursday morning.

Kyle Munson, who has led The Register's tardy and banal catch-up coverage of the death and its aftermath, declared Wednesday that family, friends and activists have "embraced" Weishuhn as the "latest tragic martyr in our national debate over school bullying."

Well ... Bullying certainly was a factor --- but it was a specific type of bullying, of the sort that's proved most deadly lately, directed at gay kids.

Although schools should, can and probably will do more about bullying, stuck again with mandates to deal with issues parents can't or won't, that kid's blood is on the hands of the church, and individual Christians, not generally those of school teachers and administrators. And of course that includes me.

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It's been sad --- and sometimes entertaining --- in my lifetime to watch watch what's called the evangelical church move away from a traditional focus on personal piety and "saving" souls into the present when, it seems, uniting the faithful against the perceived "homosexual threat" is all that's keeping the leaky old ship afloat.

The effect of that spreads when politicians see how well the strategy apparently works and hitch up with the mother ship of faith to further their own agendas.

The result has been, for the most part, pure poison, of the sort that works its way into schools and the into the minds of some youngsters, actively planted or unintentionally, as well.

"Moderate," even "liberal," Christians fuel the fire with silence. I could name preachers scared voiceless by the fear that if they speak out they'll lose their jobs at worst or, at best, send some of the faithful scurrying with checkbooks in hand elsewhere. Church councils and congregations? The same.

We're all complicit, even old gay guys like me. My hide's pretty tough, but I work for a number of organizations that need broad support. And I attend church. Fearful that any ire directed at me also will be directed toward  what I work for and value, I bite my tongue --- too often. And become part of the problem.

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I sometimes look at the reader comments appended to stories and noticed one yesterday from a guy who identified himself as "retired." Retired suggested that Weishuhn was responsible for his own death. "If this boy had stayed in the closet he'd still be alive," Retired wrote. "Maybe in 100 years ...."

A substantially younger commentator replied, "I don't think it will take 100 years. You and most of those like you are old and will be dead and gone within 25." Indeed.

It's a shame it has to come down to that --- not truth, but youth, that will set us free.

Way to go, Darlene ...

I'm kind of basking in the honorable glow this morning of my buddy Darlene Arnold, recognized for decades of service yesterday when she was awarded the Presidential Volunteer Service Award during a reception for volunteers sponsored by the Lucas County Health Center Volunteer Services program at Chariton Public Library. Darlene, center here, is flanked by Veronica Fuhs, hospital CEO (left), and Linda Baynes, director of Volunteer Services.

LCHS Volunteer Services is among thousands of certifiying agencies nationwide for the awards program --- in place since 2003 and intended to "thank and honor Americans who, by their demonstrated commitment and example, inspire others to engage in volunteer services." LCHS Volunteer Services operates within the hospital's administrative structure, but coordinates volunteer services for the entire community.

Darlene's award recognizes the thousands and thousands of hours that she has dedicated over the years to serving genealogists and historians not only locally, but nationwide. Her most evident work is the massive "Chariton Newspaper Index 1867-2005," assembled single-handedly over the course of many years and available without charge here via the Chariton Public Library's Web site.

The index allows researches to determine quickly and efficiently if published material that might be of use to them is available. Copies then may be obtained for a minimal fee, if researchers live at a distance, by contacing the Lucas County Genealogical Society.

Researchers also may work in person, if they care to, in the Lucas County Genealogical Society Library, among the most popular attractions at the public library and recently moved to more spacious quarters. The genealogical library is staffed by volunteers and equipped at society expense. Darlene, along with many other volunteers over the years, has been instrumental in creating the library and on many days, staffs it herself. She also creates many of the handicrafts that the society has sold over the years to help finance its operations. I seriously doubt that any other Lucas County volunteer has touched quite so many lives.

Darlene also is a valued board member of the Lucas County Historical Society.

So it was a great afternoon. I won a cheesecake door prize, too. Actually, it was a sympathy gesture on the part of Linda. I never win anything. Every name in the room was called. I sat empty-handed. She gave me a cheesecake. I'm enjoying it. And then there was the great notepad caper, which could be subtitled "genealogists behaving badly." But if I wrote more about that I'd implicate others, so my lips are sealed and my typing fingers, frozen.

Kenneth Weishuhn and the bullies

Kenneth Weishuhn

I'ts reassuring to see, in the wake of 14-year-old Kenneth Weishuhn's suicide, that Chariton Community Schools appear to be taking Iowa's stiff anti-bullying policies seriously. Not so heartening, however, to see that our district may be virtually alone in doing so in the region --- if Iowa Department of Education mandatory reporting statistics regarding bullying reflect district practices.

Weishuhn, of Primghar and a freshman at northwest Iowa's South O'Brien High School, Paullina, took his own life Sunday, family members say, after in-school bullying because he was gay escalated via Facebook and cell phone calls and voicemails.

According to Kenneth's sister, Kayla, 16, he was targeted after he told people at school two weeks ago that he was gay, The Sioux City Journal reports. "As soon as he came out, kids started calling him names at school," Kayla said. "It was pretty bad."

The death remains under investigation. The young man's parents as well as school district officials acknowledge that they were aware of the situation, but according to his mother, Kenneth himself downplayed its seriousness, perhaps shamed by it as bullying victims often are.

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Iowa's school anti-bullying statute dates from 2007, when it was instituted by a Legislature controlled by Democrats. It is unlikely such legislation would clear today's Republican-controlled House for reasons ranging from sheer politics to beliefs that bullying builds character and might, indeed, scare gay kids straight.

At the time, the legislation was considered a model. It clearly defined bullying, included sexual orientation and gender identity among protected categories and mandated monitoring and reporting procedures.

As mandatory reports began to flow into the Iowa Department of Education, however, it became increasingly clear that the great majority of school districts were either under-reporting or not collecting data at all. The implication could be that Iowa's school districts really aren't taking anti-bullying efforts seriously depsite being directed by the Legislature to do so.

Chariton seems to be a district that does take anti-bullying policies seriously, however. During the four years for which statistics are available, Chariton reported 321 cases. Our enrollment is listed at 1,474. Chariton is the only school district in the region reporting instances of bullying that even approach the general conservative estimate that an averge of 31 percent of students endure some degree of bullying in our nation's public schools.

Indianola, the largest school district in immediate vicinity with 3,452 students, reported only 12 cases of bullying during the same time period; Knoxville, with 1,947 students, 14 cases over the four-year period; Wayne Community (Corydon), 597 students and 15 cases; Centerville, 1,466 students and 97 cases; Clarke County (Osceola), 1,456 students and 71 cases; and Albia, 1,225 students and 42 cases.

The South O'Brien district, with 631 students, reported 102 reportable instances of bullying during the four-year period, an indication that it at least was working toward complience.

Four-year statistics for all of Iowa school districts may be viewed here, at the Iowa Safe Schools Web site.

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I certainly don't envy school districts that do take seriously anti-bullying mandates, especially as they apply to LGBTQ youngsters, but admire those that try. It's a diffcult situation.

It's often said that kids are naturally mean, but I doubt that. As in many other areas, kids bring their baggage from home and educators and administrators are expected, when the baggage is explosive, to defuse it. That's unfair, but necessary.

In some ways, Iowa has turned toxic in the years after the Iowa Supreme Court decision legalizing gay marriage. Malignant characters like U.S. Rep. Steve King, who represents O'Brien County in Congress, don't help the situation. Nor did all those Republican political types running around saying insane things during our caucus season aided and abetted by morally bankrupt folks like Bob Vander Plaats and his followers.

Many allegedly Christian church continue to preach hate from their pulpits and spead it thorugh "Christian" education programs. Others churches are nominally supportive, denominationally at least, but scared that speaking out might anger the haters among them and dry up collection-plate revenue.

It's a difficult situation, with LGBTQ kids caught in the middle --- inclined to identify themselves earlier than old guys like me would even have dreamed of but so heart-breakingly vulnerable.

Reminiscing and the value of pie

Well, we certainly enjoyed having Neil and Darlene Harl with us last night for the Lucas County Historical Society's annual meeting in the Lodge at Pin Oak Marsh. The house was full, and that's an accomplishment. Everyone, including the speaker, had fun and no one hurried away when it was over, sticking around for conversation with the Harls and each other, homemade pie and coffee.

Harl is an acclaimed expert on ag economics and law, an author and a veteran professor, now retired, at Iowa State University --- but Monday night was all about growing up in southern Iowa and about the Great Depression, which shaped not only his life (born in 1933 I believe) but also the lives of many in attendance.

Those of us who didn't experience the 1930s personally, certainly did so indirectly through the lives of our parents and grandparents, so everything resonated --- from stories of attempting to halt the advance of chinch bugs into a hayfield with creosote-dosed furrows, the Harl family's survival from fall through spring planting on $100 and loss of farmland to foreclosure to fathers and grandfathers who resisted mechanization until they could resist no longer --- always preferring horses to tractors.

Neil is a native of the Livingston neighborhood in southwest Appanoose County, a ghost town of sorts that has been showing signs of resurrection lately, due in part to the Harls. Darlene is a native of rural Seymour (across the county line in Wayne), where the high school both attended is located. They met there and have been married for going on 60 years.

Their ties to southern Iowa remain intact and they're actively involved in a farming operation that now includes more than a thousand acres, including the land Harl grew up on as the son of tenant farmers.

In fact, the Harls were on their way home to Ames Monday evening from a board meeting in Seymour of the Historic Livingston Foundation, which has restored the old Baptist church at Livingston and now is planning a township museum at the site. My blog posts about Franklin Baptist Church and the Livingston Cemetery, where a young man named Albert Crouch is buried, are linked if you're interested in more about that. Four generations of the Harl family also rest at Livingston.

LCHS board member Frank Mitchell was largely responsible for bringing the Harls to our meeting. He and Neil have been friends since they met as freshmen at Iowa State University in the early 1950s. In fact, Harl credits Frank with giving him one of his early steps up the economic ladder. Frank, who was working his way through ISU with a job at the first Hy-Vee in Ames, helped Neil land a job there, too, which paid the then generous wage of $1 an hour for a 30-hour week. So Hy-Vee in this instance helped launch two academic careers, Harl's in Iowa and Mitchell's in California.

Anyhow, we all had a really good time Monday night and I have recovered my composure regarding pies, about which Marilyn and I have had a substantial difference of opinion. It has been customary for LCHS officers and board members to feed the annual meeting crowd by each producing two pies. I was cursing those pies Monday afternoon while trying to finish two reports and bake two pies (with a major assist from Sarah Lee) at the same time. But now I'm having a change of heart since everyone seemed to enjoy the pies so much, including the Harls --- Neil cornered a piece of gooseberry, but by the time I got there at the end of the line both the gooseberry and rhubarb were gone, darn it.

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Computer issues apparently have been resolved thanks to power unit transplant performed at the PC emergency room up on the square. That may have had something to do with the storms here late Saturday. Whatever the case, I'm glad it wasn't more serious.

Computer crisis and blogging "lite"

I'm having my annual home computer crisis this morning, so blogging will be light until that's resolved. Will deliver the pooer thing to the digital emergency room later today. It needed a motherboard transplant last time and is behaving in a smiliar way. Perhaps the end of its useful life has come --- we'll see. Meanwhile, I'll be using office computers.

We're getting ready for the Lucas County Historical Society's annual meeting, which begins at 6:30 p.m. today in the Lodge at Pin Oak Marsh. Anyone in the neighborhood is welcome. Dr. Neil Harl will be our guest speaker at 7 p.m., discussing memories of the Great Depression in southern Iowa. Pie and coffee will be served after.

It's chilly and windy here this morning after that odd weekend --- hail, wind and rain Saturday night and high winds yesterday. The hail fairly well shredded anything that was blooming, but I'm sure we'll recover. It certainly could have been worse and actually was worse west of here.

Going down with the ship

Today is, among other things, the 100th anniversary of the Titanic's sinking on April 15, 1912 --- an anniversary that, because of all the coverage, would be hard to miss.

I liked The Register's story this morning, tracking down details about some of the approximately 40 passengers with Iowa ties who were aboard. And the following video featuring Eva Hart, one of the last of the 710 survivors.

The details of the disaster are widely known: The "unsinkable" liner, on her maiden voyage, hit an iceberg in the Atlantic and roughly two and a half hours later broke up and sank. Somewhere in the neighborhood of 2,200 passengers and crew were aboard; 710 survived; the rest died.

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Since it's Sunday and someone pointed me toward an example, I'm wondering how many preachers will have Titanic themes this morning --- the "saved" in lifeboats, for example, watching those of us in steerage go down with the ship.

It's an analogy that would work well for a Calvinist, I suppose, who relishes the idea that only a limited number of the elect has been predestined to sail away to Jesus whilst the rest of us sink to eternal damnation and, rather than ice, hellfire.

But it could be problematic for others. Non-Calvinists would be troubled by the fact the Titanic's owners provided only enough lifeboats to save half aboard (a provision that actually exceeded requirements of the day), that first-class passengers were served first and that the third class was, for the most part, left to fend for itself and therefore died in disproportionate numbers.

On the other hand, it's entirely possible whilst analogizing to envision the Titanic as the institutional church, proud and arrogant, experiencing itself as unsinkable, breaking up and going down as --- lets say --- heretics and non-believers row away to avoid being sucked down with it.

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I don't think it was significant that we had major hail --- small, but still enough to cover the ground, make streets slick and shred leaves and other vegetation --- last evening at roughly the same time (considering time zones) the Titanic struck its nemesis a century ago. There also was heavy rain and high winds.

Tornadoes touched down at Creston, damaging the hospital, and elsewhere in southern Iowa, including the tiny Fremont County town of Thurman, reportedly a 75 percent loss.  But apparently no one was killed. Five reportedly died in a tornado in northwest Oklahoma, part of the same storm system, and damage was substantial in Kansas, too.

So --- sailing the seas or the prairies then or now, one just never knows. "Carpe diem," as they used to say.

A 1931 bird's eye view of Chariton

I've been looking this week at an aerial photograph of Chariton, which probably dates from the spring of 1931, noting what's changed --- and hasn't --- during the last 80 or so years. You can look, too, but will need to right-click and open in a new window. And even then, the detail won't be as precise as it is in the big scan file living on my computer.

The original 8x10-inch photograph is included in a hand-made promotional booklet that can be dated because of a cover letter to somewhere in the neighborhood of April, 1931. The purpose of the bookllet was to promote the grounds of the Ilion (Mallory's Castle) as the site for a state veterans hospital. Obviously, that didn't happen, but the booklet has value because of the information --- and photographs, most of them snapshots or postcard views, that it contains. The original is in the Lucas County Genealogical Society's collection. I found the 1931 photo of the Ritz Theatre, used yesterday, in this booklet, too.

A fairly obvious change involves the route of Highway 14 as it enters Chariton. When this photo was taken the B.N.&S.F. (then C.B.&Q.) underpass was about half a block northwest of its current location, which made South Main Street the most likely route to the square from the south. Now, Highway 14 curves gently to the right before passing under the tracks and leads up to South Grand.

The square itself looks much the same. Both the Ritz Theatre building and its neighbor to the west had been rebuilt after the destructive fire of February, 1930, but the former Temple Building site still was a gaping south-side hole --- as it remained for many years. But the Kubitsheck Block, which burned during late March, 1965, still is standing on the southwest corner of the square --- where the U.S. Bank drive-up is located now.

The Masonic Temple had not been built yet, so a big old house still is standing on its current site at the intersection of Armory and South Grand. And the Armory, a block west at the intersection of Armory Avenue and South Main, is still there, too. It burned a few years later.

Construction of the new City Hall and Fire Station hadn't begun either, although there is a reproduction of an architect's watercolor showing what it would look like in the booklet. (I wonder where the original of this went to? It's very distinctive and it seems to me I've seen it somewhere. But where?)

Anyhow, I've spent way too much time playing with this map --- when I should have been doing other things. Now you can, too.

This photo of the Hotel Charitone also was included in the booklet. The hotel really didn't change much between 1931 and a later photo, dating from about 10 years later, that's more familiar. But the vehicles parked near it certainly did.