Tag Archives: History

Book Review
Tracing a T to Tampa
Denny Gibson

Posted on by
6

Just like all but one of my previous books, Tracing a T to Tampa is a travelogue. Unlike any of those books, it is not about following a specific road or reaching specific destinations. It is about following a single specific trip. That trip is one made by my great-grandparents in 1920 in a Model T Ford. Throughout the 1920 journey, my great-grandmother sent a series of letters to her daughter in which town names were often included in her reports of what they were seeing and doing. Those town names allowed me to roughly reproduce their route. There are multiple reasons why my reproduction is a rough one. One is that roads have changed in the intervening years and another is that I usually had to guess at the path they took between the towns my great-grandmother mentioned. Some of those guesses are almost certainly wrong but proving it, should you be so inclined, would not be easy. Parts of the 1920 trip were clearly on the Dixie Highway and National Old Trails Road although neither is identified by name in the letters.

Frank and Gertrude, my great-grandparents, headed south from their western Ohio home and entered Florida almost directly south of Valdosta, GA. They reached Jacksonville and Miami on the east coast then crossed the center of the state to check out Tampa. Despite the book’s title, Tampa was not their stated destination when they left home but it was more or less where their exploration of new Flordia territory came to an end. The rest of their time in Florida would be spent mostly revisiting places from just a few “base camps”. 

I began the trip chronicled in this book on the exact 100th anniversary of the original: November 4, 2020. The original was four months long; the recreation a little less than four weeks. My great-grandparents reached Tampa after a little more than a month on the road. They would leave Florida a little more than two months later and spend just over two weeks getting home. Although they left Florida on the same path that brought them there, they would move away from it in the middle of Georgia to visit the nation’s capital in Washington.

Tracing a T to Tampa is illustrated with more than 100 photographs; primarily from the 2020 trip. There are, however, several historical photos mixed in. A transcript of the original letters is included.

1920 and 2020 can both be considered “interesting times”. Both contained a presidential election and were in a period of considerable racial unrest. 2020 was in the middle of a major pandemic and one had just ended in 1920. 1920 was also made interesting by the recent ending of a worldwide war and the passage of the 18th and 19th amendments to the U.S. Constitution. All of these are noted, but not dwelled upon, in the book.

Tracing a T to Tampa, Denny Gibson, Trip Mouse Publishing, 2021, paperback, 9 x 6 inches, 217 pages, ISBN 979-8739822550.

Signed copies available through eBay. Unsigned copies available through Amazon.

Reader reviews at Amazon are appreciated and helpful and can be submitted even if you didn’t purchase the book there. Other Trip Mouse books described here.

The Wall That Heals

Posted on by
Reply

I have seen the real Vietnam Memorial Wall in Washington, DC, multiple times and a traveling version once. When I heard that a wall replica would be on display in Columbus over the Memorial Day weekend, I didn’t really feel an overwhelming need to see it. However, when I woke up Saturday morning, that’s exactly what I wanted to do.

The Columbus display is hosted by the National Veterans Memorial and Museum. I have long been annoyed by people confusing Veterans Day and Memorial Day, and arrangements such as this may inadvertently contribute to the blurring of the two. They are not, of course, completely separable. They are two sides of the same coin or two branches of the same path. Everyone who joins the military will someday be honored by one — but not both — of these holidays.

“The Moving Wall” is a half-sized replica that began touring in 1984. At some point, a second copy was created. It was one of these that I saw in 2008. The replica displayed in Columbus is a different one called “The Wall That Heals”. At 3/4 the size of the original, it provides a rather realistic experience. The openness of the museum grounds combined with the fact that I was there before much of a crowd appeared, allowed me to get the entire wall into a single photo. These pictures were taken a little before 9:00 AM. The museum opens at 10:00 and I’m sure the number of people on site picked up considerably then.

I visited the museum shortly after it first opened in 2018 and described the visit here. I did not enter the museum today. I did walk some of the paths and ramps that surround it. Although officially a place for and about veterans, even without the wall, the museum has several reminders that many who set out to become veterans never make it.

Any morning in Columbus is a good time for breakfast at Tommy’s Diner, but that seems especially true when the day’s destination is less than a mile away. 

Big To Do at Wigwam 2

Posted on by
Reply

The first night I stayed at a Wigwam Village of any vintage was April 22, 2004, when I pulled into Wigwam Village #2. There was no neon outlined tepee like the one at right to greet me. I had driven down after work which put me at the village a little after 10:00 PM. The office and gift shop were in use but weren’t open that late. I retrieved the key that had been left for me in the mailbox and let myself in.

There were lights in front of the office including a neon VACANCY, OFFICE, and arrow. I have no pictures from this visit that show the neon tepee lit and I believe it was completely non-functional but my memory isn’t good enough to swear to that. I got an external shot of the office tepee that included the sign and an internal photo with owner Ivan John.

John retired and sold the motel about a year later. Things had really deteriorated prior to his 1996 takeover and the deterioration commenced anew after his departure. It might not have been immediate. The picture at right of the lighted neon tepee was taken in 2007 and I don’t know if its resurrection came before or after John left. It is the image I used to represent the village in A Decade Driving the Dixie Highway. While John ran the place, a playground and picnic tables were added and the rooms refurbished while retaining most of the original wooden furniture. Since at least 2007, I don’t believe much effort or money has been invested in improving the village until new owners came along in November.

Even if I did not know what was planned for today, I might have seen the ladder at the sign as a clue. There really isn’t much on the outside of the tepees to indicate how much work Keith and Megan have done. The grounds look neater but that’s about it. Even inside there are no dramatic changes. Bathroom fixtures have been updated but the general deep cleaning and repainting may not be immediately obvious.  My habit of posting little collages of motel rooms had not yet been established when I stayed here in 2004 and 2007 so the oldest internal view I have to compare with today‘s is one from 2009.

Megan and Keith had begun accepting a few guests in March but today was a sort of grand-opening of Historic Wigwam Village No. 2 with nine wigwams revitalized and rented. A tepee-shaped cake and some very accurate cookies really added to the occasion.

Megan and Keith each spent a few minutes talking about their experiences during their fairly brief ownership and about their plans for the future. Then they threw the switch that illuminated the recently replaced neon on the sign. It looked good immediately and even better as the sky darkened. In his remarks, Keith noted that they thought bringing the sign to life was an important and highly visible indicator of their intentions to bring the whole village back to life. I think he’s right and it seems that a lot of others do too.

Trip Peek #104
Trip #102
South from the Wrong Turn

Posted on by
Reply

This picture is from my 2012 South from the Wrong Turn day trip. In 2017, the Robert E Lee – Dixie Highway marker in the picture was moved to private land a couple of miles to the north but in 2012 it stood where two Dixie Highway alignments separated just south of Franklin, Ohio. I was aware of both alignments and thought I had driven them both but I had not been aware of the marker and had not seen it. Learning of the marker led to me realizing that my idea of where the alignments split was incorrect. I had made a wrong turn when I’d driven the Dixie Highway in this area, and I made this trip to correct that.

Trip Peeks are short articles published when my world is too busy or too boring for a current events piece to be completed in time for the Sunday posting. In addition to a photo thumbnail from a completed road trip, each Peek includes a brief description of that photo plus links to the full-sized photo and the associated trip journal.

Trip Peek #103
Trip #41
Zane’s Trace

Posted on by
Reply

This picture is from my 2006 three day trip over Zane’s Trace in southeast Ohio. Now called the Olde Wayside Inn, the pictured building was named the Bradford Inn when it opened in 1804. It’s where I spent the first night of the trip. East of Zanesville, the National Road generally followed the 1797 Trace when it entered Ohio in 1825. Even so, there are many remnants of Zane’s Trace that are distinct from the National Road. I scheduled this outing to coincide with an open house at the National Road Museum east of Zanesville where a new guide to the road, written by Glenn Harper and Doug Smith was introduced.

Trip Peeks are short articles published when my world is too busy or too boring for a current events piece to be completed in time for the Sunday posting. In addition to a photo thumbnail from a completed road trip, each Peek includes a brief description of that photo plus links to the full-sized photo and the associated trip journal.

A Cosmic Reason for the Season — Redux

Posted on by
Reply

I was understandably alarmed when I first saw the news at right. However, reading beyond the headline reassured me that it was only the program planned for Fort Ancient that has been canceled and that the Sun and Earth and other heavenly bodies are to continue as is. The program was held last year and I attended. It was on a Saturday and the following article was published the next day as the regular weekly post. I am reusing it as a regular weekly post 364 days later, a day ahead of the 2020 Winter Solstice which will occur at 5:02 AM December 21.

Calendars come and calendars go and Earth just keeps on turning. And it keeps on orbiting, too. The turning bit creates what we call days. The alternating periods of light and dark impact almost all life on the planet and humans adopted the day as a basic unit of measure pretty early on. What we call years comes from Earth orbiting the Sun. There was plenty of time for early humans to stare at the sky and not a whole lot to keep them from doing it. They couldn’t help but notice that things in the sky moved around. In time, some of the more observant among them realized that not all that movement was random and eventually some patterns were noted. I can’t imagine how exciting it was when some smart guy figured out that the sun popped up at the same point about every 365 days. Of course, that “about” would be very important.

The opening photo shows the sun rising yesterday over a “gateway” in the earthen enclosure at Fort Ancient. The photo at left was taken a bit later and includes a small mound inside the enclosure in the foreground. When the mound, gateway, and sunrise align, sunset will follow sooner than on any other day of the year. This is the northern hemisphere’s Winter Solstice. It is the day when the sun is above the horizon for less time than any other day of the year, and yesterday that amounted to 9 hours, 25 minutes, and 9 seconds. Although we talk about Solstice being a day, it is technically just an instant. It is the moment when the Sun is farthest north or south of Earth’s equator. It happens twice each year and happened yesterday at 23:19 EST.

Serpent Mound, another ancient earthen structure containing solar alignments, is a little more than forty miles southeast of Fort Ancient. The serpent’s head is aligned with the Summer Solstice sunset. Body coils align with Summer and Winter Solstice sunrises. For several years, a modern event known as Lighting of the Serpent took place there at Winter Solstice. It was discontinued in 2017. The picture at right is from 2014 which is the only time I attended.

Long before they knew anything about orbits and equators, humans knew the day of Winter Solstice was special. It is the point where each successive day receives more rather than less daylight. It’s the big turnaround that will eventually lead to the warmth of spring and summer. It is clearly a day worth celebrating and it has indeed been celebrated in many different cultures in many different ways.

During their existence, humans have developed a slew of calendar systems. Several actually remain in use today, but the Gregorian calendar is the one most widely accepted. In the late sixteenth century, this started replacing the Julian calendar which had been around for all of those sixteen centuries and then some. The Julian calendar had been created by folks who calculated that a year was 365 and 1/4 days long which was a lot more accurate than an even 365. They came up with the rather clever idea of adding an extra day every four years to balance things out.

We now know that a year is 365.2422 days long. A year is the length of time it takes Earth to orbit the Sun, a day is the length of time it takes Earth to rotate, and neither is adjustable. When the Julian calendar was first adopted, the northern hemisphere’s Winter Solstice fell on December 25 but it slowly drifted away. Someone in authority thought to put an end to this nonsense by declaring December 25 the official solstice. But those non-adjustable orbits and rotations kept doing what they were doing and the official solstice and actual solstice just kept getting farther and farther apart.

The Gregorian calendar, which we have used for roughly 400 years now, put an end to that. Like the Julian calendar, it considers most years to be 365 days long but has a more involved system of “leap years” that add an extra day. The result is that over a long enough period our years will average 365.2422 days in length. Not only did the new calendar eliminate future drift, it tried to correct for some of the previous drift by throwing away ten days. The calendar’s namesake’s full-time job was as Pope of the Catholic Church. Ditching those ten days moved the solstice to December 22 which is where it had been in 325 when the church was founded. Of course, some holidays that had been tied to the official solstice (which hadn’t been anywhere near the actual solstice for some time) would continue to be celebrated on December 25.

Anyone wanting a more complete discussion of calendars, solstices, and holidays will find one here. Additional information on Fort Ancient is available here.

A Pair of Parks and a Pint

Posted on by
Reply

Parks are pretty good places to go when one of your goals is not getting close to people, and Friday’s extra fine weather made doing something outdoors all but mandatory. I had only recently heard of Chrisholm MetroPark and the fact that it was fairly close to another park I’d been thinking of revisiting made it the choice for my first stop of the day. The opening photo was taken from the east end of the full-width porch on the front of the Augspurger House.

In normal times, tours of the Augspurger House are given on certain days but that has been curtailed by COVID-19. There was no apparent activity at Rosemont Barn, either. In fact, the only non-visitor I saw was a fellow doing some mowing in a field on the far side of the barn.

This turned out to be the most interesting building in the park today, and I think it would be quite interesting even with house tours and a critter filled barn as competition. The interesting part is that, as the sign explains, it is one of thousands built by the Works Progress Administration. Existing outhouses were often quite shabby with poor drainage. For the cost of materials, the WPA would construct a properly designed sanitary outhouse. The WPA was the brainchild of Franklin Roosevelt and his wife was the major proponent of this effort to improve sanitation in rural areas. The tidy tiny buildings became known as Eleanors.

That’s just one of the things I learned today. I also learned a new word. The park’s real restrooms are next to the restored (but unused) Eleanor. They are currently closed and I didn’t even get a picture of the building but I did get a picture of a sign describing them and teaching me a new word. Described as “Butler County’s First Green Restroom[s]”, the composting restrooms deal with “humanure”.

Half of the visitors I saw in the park were at this very cool Playscape. On the way out, I drove by a couple walking their dog, and here I encountered a mom and daughter having a great time on the rustic-styled playground equipment. They do appear as two dots in the background of the second picture, but I really tried avoiding them in my pictures which meant waiting to photograph the tractor while mom was in the wagon being pulled “very fast”.

Pyramid Hill Sculpture Park is a little more than eight crow miles from Chrisholm MetroPark. My most recent visit was last December for the Holiday Lights. Today was a reminder that I need to come in the daytime more often and I probably need to pack a lunch. I also need to schedule better so that I am here when the indoor Ancient Sculpture Museum is open.

I started off misreading the map so was sort of walking around randomly for a bit. That’s not a problem, of course, as there are sculptures and scenic backdrops everywhere. These photos were chosen about as randomly as my path. The first is of Greg Loring’s Life’s Twists and Turns. The second is Age of Stone by John Isherwood, and the third is George Sugarman’s Garden of Sculpture.

Harry T. Wilkes, the man responsible for creating the park, built and lived in this pyramid topped home that gives the park its name. His 2014 obituary describes him well, and John Leon’s lifesize sculpture gives him something of a continuing presence in the park.

With more than a hundred sculptures displayed on 300+ acres, there is no shortage of things to look at or photograph. I did not photograph everything I saw but I came away with enough photos to overflow this blog post and probably a couple more. In fact, I took enough photos of just this one piece to bore most people. I’m wrapping up my visit with just three views of Sam McKinney’s Wherefore Art Thou with Romeo and Juliet reaching desperately to touch each other through the black granite and family conflicts that separate them.

This was my first COVID era visit to Municipal Brew Works which sits between the two parks in downtown Hamilton. I ordered the 1791 Oktoberfest from mask-wearing servers inside then parked myself at an outside table far from the few other afternoon drinkers. I can’t think of a better way to finish up a temperature perfect day filled with history, art, and sunshine. 

It’s a Gas… Engine Show

Posted on by
Reply

Terry’s back. And so is Dale. And so am I. I’ve known Terry since about age twelve. Dale and I go back even further having met in first grade at age six or so. Terry collects and restores Wheel Horse tractors and is a regular exhibitor at an event sponsored by the Tri-State Gas Engine and Tractor Association at the Jay County Fairgrounds in Portland, Indiana. Dale has a passion for bicycles and regularly exhibits at an event the National Vintage Motor Bike Club puts on at the same place. I have attended both events multiple times as a spectator with a lot more curiosity than knowledge. The events have provided the three of us with an informal get-together opportunity and that is something that’s been extra scarce this year.

As a primarily outdoor event, I figured the show would be relatively safe and I believe it was. At odds with that belief was the fact that most attendees walked about without masks most of the time and often chatted without fully six-feet of separation. But people did don masks when standing in food lines and such, and staff at the entrance and elsewhere were masked. And, while faces weren’t always a fathom apart, they were rarely significantly closer than that and people at least seemed somewhat aware of their distance from others. There were frequent announcements about masks being required in the few indoor spaces being used this year, and it sounded like that was being enforced although I did not check it personally. Those announcements also told everyone that masks were required by the free shuttles. We noted that not one person was wearing a mask when the shuttle passed several times within sight of our home base at Terry’s display, but the one time I actually saw someone exiting the shuttle he pulled up his mask as he walked past the other passengers. It was a mixed bag, Safe? Relatively is the right word.

We made two forays into the exhibits. Our first destination was a threshing operation that some of Dale’s neighbors were involved in. Threshing is one of many farming tasks involving multiple generations, and that was the case at this demonstration. Power for the threshing machine was supplied by a kerosene-fueled 1920 Rumely Oil Pull. Mobility came via a somewhat newer 1954 International Harvester Farmall.

I’m told that large scale vintage construction gear has long been part of the show but I either failed to notice or failed to remember. There was even a big pile of dirt available where “kids” could play without being yelled at for messing up the yard.

Here are a few of the things to be seen near home base where we returned to eat lunch purchased from a nearby vendor.

This is the home base I’ve mentioned, with Terry under the canopy and Dale beside it. Those are, of course, just some of Terry’s herd of Horses. The newest addition is that black nose that can barely be seen at the far end of the row. It’s a real one-of-a-kind hotrod that, while I failed to get a good picture of today, I did get pictures of at its place of birth. They’re here and here.

Following lunch, we headed out to cruise the other half of the show. I rode behind Dale in the trailer as I had on the earlier outing. I quite enjoyed being chauffeured around and being able to take (only slightly crooked) pictures at will. Dale once had a summer job as a test driver for Lambert Manufacturing and scored a factory ride for a lawn tractor rally at the annual company picnic. A trailer was included and I was invited so I covered the rally with a view somewhat like the first picture behind a Lambert tractor somewhat like the red one in the second picture.

Not only do the dirt piles you play in grow bigger as you age, so too do the scale models you build. This one is street legal and capable of hauling… stuff.

The guy with the miniature semi-tractor told us about this miniature inline-six a few aisles over. It isn’t a copy of any particular bigger engine, but, with the exception of the carburetor, is built completely from scratch. Even the tiny sparkplugs were machined from some sort of countertop material. It’s mighty impressive from the outside but thinking about the cam and crank shafts inside makes it even more phenomenal.

With a straight line distance of approximately ninety miles, this becomes the farthest I’ve been from home since February. Greenville, which I’ve been to multiple times, is about sixty straight line miles away. The other Gibson I saw there was a lot farther from home than I. This fellow is from a Seattle, WA, company that closed down in 1952. If my original plans for this year had held up, that’s where I would have been sometime earlier this month. Hold on, Seattle, I’m coming.

Dam Dents Revisited

Posted on by
Reply

I know I can’t do this forever, but I let the Facebook crowd steer me to another blog post this week. This one is somewhat different in that it doesn’t involve something new to me but some things I’d seen multiple times in the past that I was due for a refresher on. Back in 2006, I did Oddment pages on two dams that altered the path of the National Road north of Dayton, Ohio. Those pages are here, for the Taylorsville Dam, and here, for the Englewood Dam. The next year, I wrote an article for American Road Magazine (Vol V Num 3) that talked about both dams. The name of this post comes from the name of that article.

The first photo at left shows the easternmost edge of the easternmost dent. The road runs south for about a mile and a half before turning west to cross the mile-long dam then turning north to rejoin the original route. The dam is shown in the opening photo, which some will recognize as my attempt to reproduce George R. Stewart’s Photo #27 from 1953’s US 40: Cross-Section of the United States of America. Stewart’s photo and my “update” concentrate on the spillway and the bridge that crosses it. More of the massive earthen dam can be seen in the picture at left. The dams were completed in 1922 in response to the horrific 1913 flood. At that time, this was still known as the National Road. It would become US-40 in 1926. The 1953 and 2020 photos show some differences in the bridge itself due to a 1979 rehabilitation. The National Old Trails Road, a continent crossing named auto trail that existed from 1912 to 1926 never crossed these dams since the NOTR followed the “Dayton Cutoff” south through Dayton and Eaton.

There is a small paved area at the east end of the Taylorsville Dam where I parked to photograph it. On the west end, there is an actual park area with considerably more parking space and several informative signs including one from the Ohio National Road Association on Tadmor and Taylorsville. A section of the extensive Miami Vally Trails system passes through here and makes it easy to get to the former location of the town of Tadmor about 1.3 miles away.

The first of these pictures was taken looking back to the south after I’d strolled beyond Tadmor. I have been to the site since the dual purpose plaque (readable here and here) was placed but there are more labeled posts than I remember. Another difference is the rather impenetrable growth between the path and the river. There is a narrow path next to the previously pictured Tadmor sign that leads directly to the abutments of a short bridge that crossed the canal. Because of the growth and my aging sense of adventure, I did not go beyond this today as I did in 2006. The third picture shows a wall of the canal sluice gate with the canal bridge abutments in the foreground.

The rules called for the National Road to follow a straight line to the capital city Columbus with no grade greater than 10%. At Tadmor, following both of these rules in the early 19th century was impossible and it was the straight-line rule that lost. The road turned to the south on the west bank of the Great Miami and curved around a large hill. The grade, though not as bad as climbing the hill, still gave westbound travelers and their animals quite a workout. A spring near the top was certainly a welcome sight. The spring can be reached by heading east a bit where US 40 picks up the original path of the National Road. Although it’s not easy getting a clear view of the spring-fed waterfall, it is pretty easy imagining how refreshing it was to a team of horses dragging a Conestoga wagon up from the riverbank. A less blown-out version of the plaque is here.

An intersection between the dents has a legitimate claim on the Crossroads of America. In the days before US Numbered Highways, the National Road and the Dixie Highway crossed here. With the coming of numbers, the crossing routes became US-40 and US-25. A fair amount of traffic still passes through the intersection today though not nearly as much as through the nearby intersections of the successors to these routes, I-75 and I-70. The memorial bench and explanatory sign are just west of the intersection. A detail lifted from the sign explains a detail lifted from the photo of the intersection.

Continuing west, I came to the beginning of the second dent. Behind those trees on the right is a bypassed earlier curve which I slipped onto for a photograph. The entrance to the eastern portion of Engelwood Metropark is right at the eastern end of the dam. There is parking space for several cars and that is where I paused to photograph the dam and explanatory sign.

The road through the park is one-way which requires the former National Road, now called Patty Road, to be driven from west to east. Since all my other driving in this post has been east to west, that’s the sequence in which I’ve arranged these photos. The little bridge doesn’t look particularly historic when driving over it but the underside is a different story. The second picture shows the bridge from the north side and there’s a view from the south here. A sign that once stood near the bridge has gone missing so I’ve included a photo of it from 2006. The third photo shows where the National Road once continued westward. I walked down it in 2006 but did not today. There really isn’t much to see as a water-filled borrow pit prevents reaching the river.

This is on the west side of the Stillwater River in the smaller portion of Engelwood Metropark. I’ve been in the park before but did not do much exploring. Today I walked an abandoned section of the National Road down to the river. I’ve heard, and have even told others, that there are pieces of bridge abutments along the river. That might be true, but I didn’t see any today. I also didn’t see an explanatory sign mentioned in a Facebook post by William Flood, author of the upcoming Driving the National Road & Route 40 in Ohio: Then and Now. Further online discussion indicated that it might have gone missing from this wooden post. Not finding the sign certainly wasn’t an issue since looking for it is what led me to the riverside and that’s a good thing.

Yes, I had breakfast. The Mell-O-Dee Restaurant isn’t exactly on the National Road, but about two miles to the south where it’s been since 1965. COVID-19 precautions include a closed counter, plexiglass dividers between booths, and masked staff. They bake their own bread and pies and their French toast is made with that bread. It’s what I ordered and devoured with another COVID-19 precaution, disposable utensils.

Beside the Dixie Highway

Posted on by
2

A recent Facebook post reminded me of some roadside markers I’ve been meaning to check out since 2012, and another post made me newly aware of some totally unrelated markers in the same general area. That area also happens to contain a restaurant that’s been on my to-do list for over a year. In these days of dissolved and dissolving travel plans, this trio of minor roadside attractions was sufficient justification for a correspondingly minor road trip. Although not one of the three has any real connection to the Dixie Highway, it once ran by all of them.

The restaurant came first. I first learned of the Fantasy Diner and Ice Cream Parlor from a January 2019 Ronny Salerno blog post. The name comes from its home in what was once the gift shop for the Fantasy Farm Amusement Park. Ronny’s post not only does a much better job than this one in documenting the restaurant but also provides some park history. There are a couple of reasons that I wish I had refreshed my self on Ronny’s post before I left home. One is that I’d have been shocked to find that the great looking wooden counter he photographed has been largely sacrificed for an ice cream cooler and would have at least asked about it. The second is that I might have changed the timing of my arrival in order to try the fried chicken he called “fantastic”. But I was there for breakfast and quite enjoyed my French toast with a view.

Following breakfast, I continued north on the former Dixie Highway to Middletown and made a stop at a marker I’d first noticed eight years ago. The marker is from 1920 when it was erected as part of a Road of Remembrance project. The Road of Remembrance was a proposal to plant a tree for every American soldier who had served in the Great War. A matching marker can be seen almost directly across the road in the second picture and up close in the third. The plaques on both markers look like this. These currently stand near Truth Tabernacle on OH-4, but originally marked the south end of Middletown’s Road of Remembrance a short distance away.

Another pair of markers once stood at the north end of the long rows of trees. Both are shown in the opening photo standing in front of the local American Legion Post. Identical plaques, bearing the names of twenty-four local boys killed in the war, are mounted on the front of both markers. The names of more than a thousand who served in the war are on six plaques mounted on the other sides of the pillars.

References to the Middletown Road of Remembrance often mention a thousand trees lining a mile of roadway. Both seem to have been considerably exceeded. The markers that now stand at the Legion, originally stood at 14th and Main. The southern markers originally stood about a mile and a half away at Oxford and Main. Plans to construct arches over the road where the markers stood were mentioned, but I’ve seen nothing to indicate that ever happened. Middletown’s Road of Remembrance was dedicated on Labor Day, September 6, 1920, and there are possibly legitimate claims that this was the nation’s first Road of Remembrance to be completed. The ad image is from American Forestry, Volume 26.

The day’s third set of targets was on a later Dixie Highway alignment which I turned south on when I reached the split near Franklin. This photo is not of an active target, but when you are looking for things on the DH and not in the least related to it, this marker certainly qualifies. I’ve previously stopped and photographed this salute to the Poland China hog, and I did it again.

The real goal of my drive on the later DH alignment was a couple of Great Miami Turnpike mile markers. The turnpike was constructed in 1840 so the markers have been waiting quite a while. I learned of them only recently through a Dixie Highway Facebook group post by road fan Karl Howat. I’d already located and taken a drive-by photo of the southernmost of the two and thought I knew enough to find the other one as I drove south. I was wrong. I visually scoured the roadside as I drove but came up empty. I eventually reached the marker I had already located and parked nearby to take some less blurry photos. According to the markings, C(incinnati) is 17 miles away and D(ayton) is 33 miles away. The current name of this path that has had many is Cincinnati-Dayton Road.

I headed back north in search of the other marker and found it with a fortuitous and pretty much accidental glance to the right. Karl had posted photos of both markers and I could see that both were made to be placed on the west side of the road. Northbound travelers would see the distance to Dayton and those headed south would see the distance to Cincinnati. It appears that this marker switched sides at some point in its past. But that’s not the most interesting thing about it. Perhaps understandably, when I first saw the marker, my mind registered D 26 and C 24. But I quickly realized that the 4 my mind saw was reversed and that it must really be the number 1 with some accidental scratches beside it. That, however, would mean this stone claimed that Dayton and Cincinnati were 47 miles apart rather than the 50 indicated on the other marker. I next tried to mentally convert that 6 to an 8 to make the distance a closer match at 49 miles. That didn’t work and I became pretty certain that the numeral was a 6. A one mile difference between the two stones seems possible if not likely. A three mile difference seems very unlikely and I’ve become convinced that the carver goofed and carved the 4 in backward. Form your own opinion from this composite or go check out the original at N39° 25.809′ W84° 21.947′. The other marker is at N39° 20.126′ W84° 24.144′.

For the second consecutive week, here’s a diner tacked on to the tail of the primary subject. K’s Hamburger Shop isn’t exactly on the Dixie Highway but it’s less than two blocks away and that’s close enough for Mike Curtis to include it as a POI on his Dixie Highway Map. Plus there are some unverified rumors that a temporary DH alignment ran right past the location (even though it wasn’t K’s yet). DH or not, they celebrated their 85th anniversary Friday and I was there. They were totally closed for eleven days due to the COVID-19 pandemic, then open for carryout only. Three weeks ago, with the addition of some fancy plexiglass dividers, dining in became an option. Says Marcia, the owner, “My parents kept this place going through the depression and we’ll keep it going through this pandemic.”

Booths are separated by fixed panels and the panel separating counter customers and staff is fixed, but the panels between individual counter positions are hinged so that couples can chat and sneak fries from each other. Panels and everything else are sanitized frequently, of course. The only not-yet-cleaned spot in the counter picture is where I just finished this. Among the many articles written about K’s over 85 years is an American Road Diner Days installment from an unknown (both then and now) writer. Winter 2007 if you’re a curious collector of old magazines.