Great things have been accomplished in pursuit of drink. The Pilgrims made an early exit from the Mayflower because their beer was running low. New England may be the most prominent example of landmarks that exist because of the need … Continue reading →
Three remain. Not three villages, but three people. That’s of thousands who once counted themselves among the believers, scattered in two dozen communities from the Deep South to New England to the Midwest. Now just two women and a man–the … Continue reading →
I’m often asked for tips by folks who want to find and explore abandoned history, and the discussion always circles around to trespassing. “Do you ever ignore ‘No Trespassing’ signs?” they ask. My answer? No. There’s no reason to, especially … Continue reading →
New York City has its share of abandoned history, but none quite like the Renwick Ruin on Roosevelt Island. With its Gothic facade, the Smallpox Hospital, as it was once known, looks like some forsaken castle lost in time, better … Continue reading →
The white clapboard house hides in plain sight on a short city street lined with recycle bins and compact sedans. Nothing on the exterior betrays what happened within those walls long ago, that officers engaged in the nation’s greatest crisis … Continue reading →
Teddy Roosevelt slept here. Or might have were he not the home-schooled, mountain-climbing, really-big-game-hunting, rough-riding-war-hero and boxer of a man he turned out to be. “Sleep when you die,” you can almost hear him bellowing. “I’m pressing on.” Despite that … Continue reading →
Eight out of every ten New York City skyscrapers originated here, not to mention every bridge and tunnel linking New Jersey and Manhattan. Wartime product was even grander: 1,127 World War II-era ships, as well as every 16-inch gun and … Continue reading →
Virginia’s iron industry was neither the first nor the largest in early America–those distinctions belong to Massachusetts and Pennsylvania. But the demand for day-to-day items such as nails and barrel staves and, later, armaments for the Confederacy, meant that some … Continue reading →
How many high-speed commuters drive by the towering shell of Chapman’s Mill—or any old mill, for that matter—and connect the crumbling ruins to the energy that allows them to zoom past? Not many, I’d wager. But as calls mount to … Continue reading →
There’s a good chance that if you’re better than 40 years old, you have a vivid recollection or two from a drive-in movie theater. After all, more than 4,000 of them once peppered the American landscape. For Bob Mondello, National … Continue reading →
A word to the wise: if you’re going to erect a monument to one of world history’s watershed moments, don’t do it like “Old John” Shaw did. Otherwise critics might similarly pan your work. “A monument crude and unsightly,” one … Continue reading →
Go big or go home, right? That’s no doubt what Henry Lee III was thinking when he signed a 900-year lease on land near the Potomac River’s Great Falls. In the 1790s, old Light-Horse Harry had high hopes for the … Continue reading →
When New England’s tallest elm tree, “Herbie,” succumbed to Dutch Elm disease, craftsmen made the wood into everything from a guitar to a casket. When the dust settled after 9/11, shipbuilders recycled the Twin Towers’ steel into the USS New … Continue reading →
Could you find tuckahoe if you had to? Know when to hook up with a herring? If you’re like most of us, the answer is probably “no.” All our modern conveniences and gadgets insulate us from a world our ancestors … Continue reading →
Thousands of people drive within feet of this forgotten trace of history every day with no knowledge that it’s there. Not that most would give a flying fig. Nevertheless, this site’s very existence is a study in contrasts, an example … Continue reading →
It’s a stretch to imagine that this country village was once animated with knights, maidens, minstrels and jesters. The music of penny whistles and steinfulls of ale made day and night merry. Now, fifteen years later, a ghost town is … Continue reading →
I’m departing this week from Abandoned Country‘s theme of disappearing history to comment on a significant event: the United States government has given preliminary approval for recognition of the Pamunkey Indian Tribe of Virginia. They’re the first indigenous nation in Virginia … Continue reading →
