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Long gone things in your area that you never knew existed?


F_in Ray Of Sunshine

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It’s only recently that I became aware of the existence of the Oneida Lake Canal (v 2.0). I have driven by it a bazillion times and never knew it was there. Worse, still, I was buddies with a guy in HS and was at his house (yellow arrow) numerous times...and the damned thing was in his backyard. There was a lock right next door, behind his neighbor’s house that’s still there, and you can see if from the road...if you know to look.:wacko:

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We had coal mines everywhere. They were shallow mines and as the miners exited the mines when they had removed all the coal they would brace up the mine with timbers and remove the columns of coal that were supporting the mine. My grandfather almost lost a team of horses when he was plowing a field and a mine collapsed under his team. The neighbors helped him get the horses back out.

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2 hours ago, Longjohn said:

We had coal mines everywhere. They were shallow mines and as the miners exited the mines when they had removed all the coal they would brace up the mine with timbers and remove the columns of coal that were supporting the mine. My grandfather almost lost a team of horses when he was plowing a field and a mine collapsed under his team. The neighbors helped him get the horses back out.

My dad grew up working in those family coal mines as a kid in the Emlenton area.  In his words, there wasn't a flat piece of ground anywhere and eery hill had some coal in it.  They dug theirs for personal use.  Milk the cow, feed the horse and pig and go up the hill to dig the day's coal needs.

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3 minutes ago, Parr8hed said:

Kinda surreal to walk around seeing the pool, the foundations, walkways, etc. 

I love stuff like that.

Chittenango Springs was a pretty big deal, back in the day when they thought it was healthy to sit in sulphur water. :rolleyes: There was a huge hotel there that has vanished without a trace, but you can still see where the spring was - there's a brick wall in the hillside with an opening for the water to come through.  Wondering what it looked like back in the day, I found some old photos - it didn't look much different!

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I grew up near a Nike anti bomber missile launch site.  Across town was a radar site.  These were all decommissioned back in the 60's but many of the buildings and underground storage facilities still exist.  Our town turned one of them into a recreation park.  The drawing is from Texas but is representative of most launch sites.

http://coldwar-ct.com/Nike_HA-25_Manchester.html

nike_magazine_tpro.gif

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I found out that the fairgrounds in the town I grew up in was a frequent meeting spot for the KKK up until sometime in the 60s.  I guess they used to get pretty intense there sometimes.  In NE Ohio... who would have thought?

@Airehead, that is the fairgrounds where you attended the dog show.

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I retired and downsized to my late parents' house in which I had grown up.  I had explored everything for miles around as a kid, from abandoned chalk quarries to a falling-down colonial mansion in the back of a graveyard to alleged haunted houses to large drainage tubes we stupidly explored with flashlights that ran from the streams near me to the Patapsco River.

Still, there are occasional surprises about the origin of some things.  For example, I always assumed Jumpers Hole Road, an old, about 10 miles long, mostly one-lane-each-way but heavily used road north of Annapolis, was named after some long-gone place.  I've run and bicycled along the road and my favorite park to walk Jake is alongside part of it.  My current apartment complex is located on the north end of Jumpers Hole Road.

Turns out that no one knows for sure how it was named.  The earliest mention is an 1803 newspaper mention of a State appropriation to extend a road north from "Jumper's Hole" (the apostrophe was dropped in 1928).

The best explanation, though often not mentioned by historical societies, is one I read and am sure it's right though it's not agreed to by all.  Jumpers Hole Road ends at the Severn River, several miles north and upstream from Annapolis on the same side of the river, at a point where the Severn River Ferry landing used to exist before bridges were constructed across the river.  People who caught the ferry were locally referred to in some old writings as "Jumpers" - apparently because they "jumped" across the river on the ferry.

Having coached and ran with a high school cross country team that ran along Jumpers Hole Road in many practices, I know what it feels like from a non-automobile, slower trip along it.  It does feel as if you're dropping down into a hole as you descend the last 1/2 of a mile toward the old ferry landing (see picture below).

Supporting all this is an 1803 Maryland Gazette (America's oldest still-publishing newspaper) article about what would be an 1804 bill in the Maryland the General Assembly granting Charles Waters, Zachariah Duvall Jr., Henry Duvall, Oliver Cromwell and Abner Linthicum the right to develop a road from “a landing on the north side of Severn river, called and known by the name of Jumper’s Hole…to a landing by the name of Ashpaw’s Landing, on the east side of a fork of Curtis’s creek, called Marley Creek. . .”

Of course, there wouldn't have been a ferry landing if no road led to it originally, so the bill to "develop" a road must have including a previous existing dirt road along par of the way. So while it's absolutely clear that the LANDING itself was called Jumper's Hole, it's not clear if it got the name from the road leading to it or the other way around.  To me, the only thing that makes sense is the the road was named after the landing.

The other theories put forth make much less sense.  According to the (old spelling) Ann Arrundell Historical Society: "One story says that the road was once used to transport casks of tobacco to the Severn River Ferry and that, since the dirt road was so full of potholes, the wagon drivers offloaded the casks at the top of the hill just above the river and let them roll to the bottom. As the casks hopped and jumped their way to the bottom, the road became known as Jumper’s Hole. Another story says that schoolchildren who used the road, delayed their arrival at class by jumping over the many holes. Others say the “jumpers” referred to were not children but rabbits, which does not explain the “Hole” in the name. Closer is the story that a favorite location to hunt for frogs was a large pit or hole near to the road. Children would spend their idle time trying to catch the “jumpers.” And the last, and least likely, explanation that we’ve heard is that the road was named after the favorite fishing hole of an old man named Jumper."

So, the theory I like best, by far, is that the ferry landing, or it and the road close to it, was the "Jumpers' Hole."  The road. into the 20th Century, was originally used to go the river to transport farm products: there were almost exclusively tobacco and other farms along the road. So it was the Road to the Jumpers' Hole.  Around 1928, with the apostrophe dropped, it simply became Jumpers Hole Road.

This Google Maps street view, looking South from about 1/4 mile north of the Severn River in today's Severna Park, MD, shows Jumpers Hole Road dropping down toward the "hole" where it ends at the old landing, where the "jumpers" caught the ferry across the river:

image.thumb.png.5301962009f24686c2aff3dc2c9acfa9.png

Here's an aerial map of where the ferry used to be.  Jumpers Hole Road extends to Severn Rd in this map, which is two blocks south from the picture above in the direction the picture is looking:

1792732266_JumpersFerryLandingJumpersSevernRd2blockSofDouglas.thumb.JPG.48f366cf6ad2595399c3a4f4fba5b02c.JPG

 

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Well my area literally grew from orange & bean fields during my lifetime I pretty much know what was what.

An interesting tidbit is a local nearby nature park has clam shells littered about.  I figured it was due to the area once being a marsh but the park is up on a bluff and the shells aren’t fossils, just old looking shells. Come to find the area was known for Indian camps and they would gather clams along the shore and bring them “home”.  The shells are clues of where their camps where.

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6 hours ago, maddmaxx said:

I grew up near a Nike anti bomber missile launch site.  Across town was a radar site.  These were all decommissioned back in the 60's but many of the buildings and underground storage facilities still exist.  Our town turned one of them into a recreation park.  The drawing is from Texas but is representative of most launch sites.

http://coldwar-ct.com/Nike_HA-25_Manchester.html

 

....black helicopters over your house in 3.....2.....1....

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6 hours ago, maddmaxx said:

I grew up near a Nike anti bomber missile launch site.  Across town was a radar site.  These were all decommissioned back in the 60's but many of the buildings and underground storage facilities still exist.  Our town turned one of them into a recreation park.  The drawing is from Texas but is representative of most launch sites.

http://coldwar-ct.com/Nike_HA-25_Manchester.html

nike_magazine_tpro.gif

In Texas the missiles have saddles on them.

Dr Strangelove Movie GIF

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36 minutes ago, MickinMD said:

Turns out that no one knows for sure how it was named.  The earliest mention is an 1803 newspaper mention of a State appropriation to extend a road north from "Jumper's Hole"

There’s a “Jug Point Road” here that no one’s really sure where the name came from, but the explanation I heard is that it was  a place where they’d pay local kids to go to the saloon and get them a jug - which they passed to the canal boats on a pole.

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That my county has a flag. 
http://news.monroelocal.org/walton-countys-new-flag-in-honor-of-the-bicentennial-makes-its-first-stop-in-loganville/
 

Vexillology it is about as ugly as they come.  I’m going to say it has all the luster of a disposable paper placemat at the diner with local ads printed on it. 
At least it is not racist. Sorry about my state flag btw. 

C8BF93F2-477F-4933-A957-5F4D6C1C1494.jpeg

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12 hours ago, Longjohn said:

We had coal mines everywhere. They were shallow mines and as the miners exited the mines when they had removed all the coal they would brace up the mine with timbers and remove the columns of coal that were supporting the mine.

They did that under the town of Streator too.  I found an old map of the mines.  The next day I added mine subsidence insurance to my home owner's insurance policy.   The mines were EVERYWHERE underground.

I should have figured that out... the deed for the home, excluded underground mineral rights.  (or something like that)  

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An area I had been by a couple hundred times.  It wasn’t until the middle of my senior year in high school that I found out that a clump of trees was John Brown’s tannery.  Another clump of trees was reportedly the foundation of his mother’s house.

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28 minutes ago, Bikeguy said:

Did John Boy live in your county?

I lived in Streator from 1980 to 2017.  I never knew, until a few years ago the guy who discovered Pluto was born in Streator.    (I still think Pluto should be considered a planet.)

https://www.space.com/19824-clyde-tombaugh.html

No. But we did have seven governors come from here. They should have asked me before they designed the flag. 

And absolutely yes, Pluto should be a planet. Hydrostatic equilibrium should be the definition of planet. Pluto should actually be considered a double planet with its moon Charon, which is also a sphere. I think Ceres should be upgraded too. 

 

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4 hours ago, ChrisL said:

Well my area literally grew from orange & bean fields during my lifetime I pretty much know what was what.

An interesting tidbit is a local nearby nature park has clam shells littered about.  I figured it was due to the area once being a marsh but the park is up on a bluff and the shells aren’t fossils, just old looking shells. Come to find the area was known for Indian camps and they would gather clams along the shore and bring them “home”.  The shells are clues of where their camps where.

We walked today at that nature preserve and here are some of the shells I referenced earlier. These are up on a bluff about 1/2 mile from the beach.

71855961-05AD-4358-9FBE-FB057833DB50.thumb.jpeg.763ba115e173a4e11e6c203997b73cb2.jpeg

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On 8/11/2020 at 11:38 AM, Rick5234 said:

I found out that the fairgrounds in the town I grew up in was a frequent meeting spot for the KKK up until sometime in the 60s.  I guess they used to get pretty intense there sometimes.  In NE Ohio... who would have thought?

@Airehead, that is the fairgrounds where you attended the dog show.

I miss that dog show. Hopefully back next year. Had no idea of the grounds shady past. 

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