Downtown Jacksonville

Posted on January 26, 2026 by admin

The coolest building in downtown Jacksonville: the Old Morocco Building (a.k.a. the Morocco Temple).

That’s my opinion, formed pretty much instantaneously on December 18, during our wander around downtown. We only spent a few hours in that part of Jacksonville, meaning my exposure was necessarily limited, but I’m sticking with my opinion. After all, what could be cooler than an Egyptian revival-Prairie School structure with sphinx-like guards out front? (And how about them toes?)

“The main facade features Egyptian-style terra-cotta columns with lotus-leaf capitals, tinted art-glass, sphinx-like sculptures, and a terra-cotta sun disk ornament with cobra heads,” notes Prairie School Traveler.

The Shriners – who else? – tapped architect Henry John Klutho to design the building, which was completed in 1911. Klutho had been based in NYC, but after the Great Fire of 1901 in Jacksonville, he came south to participate in the redevelopment of the city. If he did nothing else, the Morocco Temple would be enough. I understand the interior is similarly exotic, though modified after the Shriners moved out in the 1980s, but we didn’t venture in.

The aftermath of the fire. Redevelopment opportunities galore.

We’d come to Jacksonville, two days after leaving Key West, for two reasons. One, to visit old friends. Last year, I managed to visit old friends in Austin, San Antonio, Tokyo, rural Tennessee, coastal North Carolina, central Georgia, Denver, New York, suburban Boston, and finally Jacksonville. An essential ingredient for the year, these visits.

Also, I wanted to visit the generally ignored Jacksonville. A place one doesn’t hear about much. Miami has its Vice and Orlando its Mouse and Key West its Jimmy Buffett. But Jacksonville?

We were advised that parking would not be an issue in downtown Jacksonville, even on a weekday. It wasn’t. We set out to see what we could see.

It was almost spooky how empty downtown was. Even the downtown Detroit of recent years is more active.

Downtown Jacksonville included some large but closed churches, such as the Basilica of the Immaculate Conception.

But at least Padre Pio is near the basilica to greet you.

If I’d known what to look for – because I had to look him up later – I’d have noticed the bandages covering both of his wrists. Among other things, St. Pio was known for his stigmata.

Down the street, also closed: First Presbyterian.

St. John’s Cathedral, Episcopal. At first I assumed it was closed.

This is the third church on the site. An 1840s structure burned down (and sank into the swamp?) in 1862, during one of the times the city changed hands between Union and Confederate. A grander church replaced it after the war but, oops, along came the aforementioned Great Fire of 1901. The current structure dates from 1906, the work of noted church architect Howard Nott Potter.

We found a way in, almost hidden around back. We were well rewarded.

Fine stained glass. St. John makes an appearance, as you’d think.

So does St. Longinus.

You might say he had a bit part in during the crucifixion, mentioned in one line exactly (John 19:34) and not even by name. But from such small acorns large bodies of belief grow.

The Overseas Highway

Posted on January 25, 2026 by admin

A few days ago, I sent the following email to the curator and historian at the Key West Art & Historical Society, Dr. Cori Convertito:

Dr. Convertito,

I recently visited Key West for another pleasant visit, and came away with a question I haven’t been able to answer, though perhaps I haven’t looked in the right places.

Who is credited with the creation of the Conch Republic flag? I understand that it appeared at the same time as the infamous roadblock and the “secession,” but detail on its creation is lacking. Do you happen to know that?

One reason to ask is that it’s a handsome design, though I’m not sure about the star pattern asterisms — is one or another supposed to be the Southern Cross?

Today she answered:

That’s a perceptive question, and a difficult one to answer definitively. The Conch Republic flag emerged alongside the 1982 ‘secession,’ but attribution is complicated by the fact that several individuals have, over the years, laid claim to the original iteration of the artwork, and reliable contemporary documentation is limited. As a result, it’s hard to credit a single creator with certainty.

What is clearer is the intent behind the design elements. In addition to the conch shell and sun, the star groupings are generally understood to represent two navigational asterisms: the Southern Cross and the Northern Cross (Cygnus). Their inclusion appears deliberate, reinforcing Key West’s maritime identity and its symbolic position between hemispheres.

I hope that helps clarify what is known, and what remains unresolved.

So the short answer is, like with a number of historical questions – even ones as recent as this – no one is sure. Good to know. Thanks, Dr. Convertito.

The Overseas Highway, from mainland Florida to Key West, or vice versa, is epic all around: an epic construction project once upon a time, and an epic drive in our time. Through the Upper Keys, the likes of Key Largo and Islamorada, the ocean isn’t usually visible, obscured behind thick development: commercial and residential buildings and omnipresent marinas. But it isn’t long before you’re skipping from key to key, some larger, some smaller, with water widely visible on both sides of the road.

The most epic section of the crossing, as far as I’m concerned: Seven-Mile Bridge.

On an ordinary highway, seven miles isn’t much of a stretch at highway speeds. Listen to one song or another on the radio and you’re practically done with it. Those same minutes have a different quality over the wide water, glinting in the sun and spotted with boats and occasional small keys in the distance. There’s a sense of the mildly impossible. Of course it’s entirely possible, via a feat of 20th-century civil engineering, as is the 100-plus miles of the whole highway. I don’t believe my civil engineer grandfather ever drove the Overseas Highway, but I’ll bet he read about it with considerable satisfaction.

“The original 7 Mile Bridge, also known as the Knights Key-Pigeon Key-Moser Channel-Pacet Channel Bridge, was constructed in the early 1900s as part of Henry Flagler’s ambitious Overseas Railroad project,” notes the Key West Blog. “This railroad connected mainland Florida to Key West, revolutionizing transportation and trade in the region. However, after a devastating hurricane in 1935, the railroad was destroyed, and the bridge was converted into a highway.”

The history is a little more complicated than that, with the current bridge a 1980s work, leaving part of the original as a pedestrian and (especially) a fishing bridge. I’m no sport fisherman, but I understand tarpon, snook, snapper, grouper, bonefish and barracuda swim these waters.

At Big Pine Key, we stopped for a visit to the National Key Deer Refuge, a place focused on giving key deer a place to live, as it says in the name. For human visitors, there is a trail.

It goes partly around a pond in the refuge. No deer were to be seen.

We did spot a gator, however. Or maybe a croc. Hard to tell at this angle. They both live in southern Florida.

A sign on the trail warns visitors not about reptiles, but a nearby poisonwood tree.

Poisonwood? A native to the Keys. It sounds bad, and it is.

“Metopium Toxiferum [poisonwood] is related to poison oak, poison ivy, and poison sumac,” says the Tree Care Guide. “The tree produces the same irritant, urushiol, which causes an itchy, blistering rash. The oils from Metopium toxiferum cause dermatitis ranging in severity from a light red rash to intense skin blistering. Tea made from Metopium toxiferum leaves and twigs combined with bleach has been used to induce abortions but has also tended to kill the patient.”

Yikes. We took the advice of the sign and didn’t go near it.

Across the road from the refuge parking lot, some undeveloped key landscape. There couldn’t be that much of that, at least on the keys connected by the highway.

In Islamorada, which is spread across five small keys much closer to the mainland than either Key West or Big Pine Key, we stopped to pay our respects at the memorial to those who died in the 1935 hurricane.

Also in Islamorada, we drove past Betsy the Lobster, but sorry to say, didn’t stop for a closer look. What was I thinking?

Key West Cemetery

Posted on January 15, 2026 by admin

Back on Tuesday. A holiday’s a holiday, even if it comes in the pit of winter, where we definitely find ourselves. The memory of Sunny Florida gets a little more distant each time I feel the wind in single-digit temps.

In diminutive Key West, you’ve gone a long way after a few blocks. So a long way from Duval Street in that town is Key West Cemetery, which is also at a distance from the ocean — one measured in a few thousand feet. At the cemetery you’ll find a mix of above-ground tombs and standard stones. Styles from Old Florida and later, in other words.

We drove into Old Town Key West our second day rather than take the hotel shuttle, which we had the first day. I was gambling that the local parking information I’d picked up first-hand more than a decade earlier wasn’t obsolete yet, which it could well have been. The town has notoriously tight parking, for obvious reasons.

Two prayers for such a situation.

O Lord, by your grace

Help me find a parking space

…

O Jesus, full of grace

Help me find a parking space

Just the thing, provided you’re sure one of the many attributes of the Almighty is a sense of humor. Parking is perhaps a function of Plastic Jesus? (And I like this version, among the many out there.)

Then again, asking for a parking intercession might only seem to be praying for something trivial. For all we know, parking a certain car in a certain place on a certain day might via the butterfly effect prevent a deadly typhoon somewhere.

Anyway, my strategy worked out and we parked for no charge a stone’s throw – and I mean that almost literally – from Key West Cemetery.

Once upon a time, mid-19th century Key West had a burial ground nearer to the water. A hurricane in 1846 applied a large amount of water and wind to that location in a short time, smashing tombs and markers and returning bodies to the open air. Gruesome to consider, but the incident did inspire Key West city fathers to open a new cemetery on high ground. High for Key West, that is, 16 feet above sea level.

That has worked out. As many as 100,000 permanent residents now rest across 19 acres, roughly three times the living population of the city: all races and stations of life; Protestants, Catholics and Jews; Cuban cigar workers and Bahamian mariners; soldiers, sailors and civilians.

Many sad stories, as usual. Even if we can’t know the details at this distance.

Other residents include one Abraham Sawyer (d. 1939), a dwarf who reportedly refused to be a part of carnivals, instead working for manufacturers to advertise their products. He requested to be buried in a full-sized grave, but since I didn’t read of him until later (today), I didn’t go looking for him.

There is also the story of Elena Hoyos (d. 1931). Read the Find a Grave story, which I promise will be one of the stranger things you’ve read in a while, true or not.

The U.S. Navy Plot is square in the middle of the cemetery.

The centerpiece is a memorial to the dead of the Maine. Note the mast behind the sailor statue. That’s from the Maine.

The monument’s granite base says:

IN MEMORY OF THE VICTIMS OF THE DISASTER OF THE U.S. BATTLESHIP ‘MAINE’ IN HAVANA HARBOR FEB. 15, 1898, ERECTED BY THE CITIZENS OF KEY WEST, FLA.

Some of the men who died on the Maine ended up in the Navy Plot: the closest U.S. cemetery when they needed to be interred, and fast. Twenty-four of them, only seven of whom were identified.

Other sailors repose there as well. Such as Sub-Lieutenant Donald Henry Smith, Royal Navy.

That’s a little odd, but foreign servicemen do sometimes end up in American soil (such as at Vicksburg). I looked around a little, then asked Google AI how Sub-Lieutenant Smith came to be there.

The hive bots said: Donald Henry Smith (1929-1952) is buried in the Key West Cemetery, specifically in the U.S. Navy Plot, likely because he was a young man who died at age 23, possibly serving in the Navy or connected to the naval community, with the plot itself dedicated to fallen sailors, a common burial spot for service members in Key West.

So, navy guys get buried with other navy guys, sometimes. Or maybe because a navy is a navy? Thanks for nothing, AI.

I spotted a Cuban flag and went to investigate.

A Los Martires de Cuba.

Not all of them are with Jose Marti in Cuba itself. Guess this counts as another of the Little Cubas to be found in warm climes close to the home island.

The cemetery is under the flight path for planes headed for Key West International (EYW).

Then again, most of the island must be.

The Harry S. Truman Little White House

Posted on January 14, 2026 by admin

Nightmarish human faces weren’t invented by demented AI, but have long been with us. Case in point.

There’s Harry Truman in there somewhere. This particular wax dummy watches patrons in the small gift shop at the Harry S. Truman Little White House, which we toured on our second day in Key West.

The property belongs to the state of Florida these days, but of course was once a federal facility. Specifically, used by the Navy as officers’ quarters for the base at Key West. Truman took a cotton to the island early in his presidency, and visited often, and this is where the Navy put him up. He came to relax and play cards and fish and drink, naturally, but also to be president somewhere besides Washington in winter, since by the 1940s communication tech could facilitate such a thing.

The museum has been restored to its appearance in the late 1940s, and damned if it isn’t like walking into my grandparents’ time, entering an ordinary sort of American house of the period. The president might have stayed there, but Harry and Bess weren’t the sorts who went in for the latest expensive styles, but rather the sort of things available at a department store or via mail order: couches with some color but not too much, wooden coffee and end tables, mid-century lamps, etc.

Except, that is, for the handsome custom-make card table. That wasn’t available from Montgomery Ward.

“The poker table was a gift to Truman in 1949 by three civilian contractors working in the U.S. Naval Station cabinet shop,” says Wood Shop News. “The table is a marvel of craftsmanship and one of the most popular pieces at the Key West facility. Measuring 58” in diameter and 28” high, according to Little White House executive director Bob Wolz, it is based on a poker table that was used on the U.S.S. Williamsburg presidential yacht. The piece is made of mahogany with built-in chip holders and ashtrays crafted from recycled brass shell casings. A solid tabletop can be used to cover the poker table to turn into a dining space.”

The limo parked on the grounds of the Little White House wasn’t standard mid-America either.

A nearby sign says that it is a 1950 Lincoln Cosmopolitan Presidential Limousine. One of nine that the Truman administration used, since in those days presidential vehicles weren’t transported by air, as they are now, so the government had them stationed in various parts of the country, ready to use.

The car is a museum piece, but no mere museum piece, since I understand that the current owner, the Key West Harry S. Truman Foundation, rents it under specific conditions. Namely, you pay some large fee, and are driven around Key West for a while. I learned this when we saw an elderly couple get in the back seat, followed by a uniformed driver, and off they went.

One more thing about the Little White House: the grounds are a small arboretum.

Flora includes well-known varieties, such as avocado, coconut, date palm, mahogany and mango, plus less-than-household names, such as Fiji fan palm, soapberry tree, and my own favorite name, gumbo limbo, whose “wood, though soft, was used in the past to carve carousel horses,” the museum tells us.

Only 90 Miles to Cuba

Posted on January 12, 2026 by admin

A curious thing on Google Maps.

Note that “Southernmost Point of the Continental USA” is marked “temporarily closed.” That wasn’t going to deter me from a look if possible, so we headed down Whitehead St. from the Hemingway House. About a block from the site – a painted concrete buoy-shaped structure; I’d seen pictures – the area was closed and torn up for construction, and sure enough, the Southernmost Point was inaccessible.

A little construction wasn’t going to prevent Key West from allowing the Southernmost Point to serve its only purpose, however. That is, attract tourists. So with a little lateral thinking, and in this case literally so, the city installed a duplicate buoy a block away on the coast, at the Gulf of Mexico end of Duval.

It draws a crowd.

Give the people what they want: an inaccurate but fun geographical marker. In fact, there was a line to take one’s picture with the buoy, as the many visitors to Key West have been doing since 1983.

This iteration of the buoy finds itself in a high-toned neighborhood.

I understand that a later paint job added “90 miles to Cuba” on the buoy. As the crow flies or the Mariel boatlift lifts. A nod to the island with long-standing ties to Key West, especially in the days of Cuban cigars, cigar factories in the town, and Cuban organizations, such as San Carlos, which happens to stand even now on Duval, a few blocks — short island blocks — from the Southernmost Point.

Former school for the Cuban population, along with a stint as a Cuban consulate, and longstanding meeting place for those keen on kicking Spain out of Cuba during the heady 1890s. These days, the island-handsome building is a museum, free to wander around, with (in our case) a spontaneous five-minute introduction on the spot by the volunteer, a woman roughly my vintage, who sat behind a temporary table near the entrance.

Jose Marti is remembered in various spots in the museum.

As well he should be. He spent some time in Key West, gave speeches, and brought the cigar workers around to the cause. San Carlos was the place to do so in town, which happened to be a hotbed of anti-Spanish feeling – San Carlos and the town itself. Nice museum, but almost no one from busy Duval was there. Maybe the nonprofit that owns the building can set up a bar and serve overpriced Cuba libres to cruise ship visitors.

Winter Park, Florida

Posted on December 31, 2025 by admin

Regards for the New Year. Back to posting four days into 2026, maybe with tales of Florida alligator tourism. The change of the year always brings me the same reaction: how did that number get so high? This time around, I wonder how is it that 1976, a good (mostly) year I remember fairly well for a number of reasons, was 50 years ago?

Orlando, Yuriko was surprised to learn, is an actual city. The day after Universal Epic Universe, we drove from our hotel near that park, past Orlando’s sizable downtown, and to the inner suburb of Winter Park. She marveled that the city had a presence besides the sprawl of the theme parks, which are at some distance from the Orlando CBD. Bet she isn’t the only person, upon leaving the theme park zone, with that reaction.

One could devise a pretty good multi-day visit to Orlando, to see its green spaces and historic sites and museums, and take in a few shops and restaurants and some live music, and never pay the Mouse or Comcast a dime. Maybe one day I will do such a visit, but the pull of the theme parks is pervasive. Even my businesses trips of yore (early 2000s) to central Florida tended to gravitate toward the parks. Why would you skip the theme parks? would be the reaction, even — and most importantly — among members of my family. For now, part of a day away from the Theme Park Industrial Complex will have to do.

I’d gotten wind of a tour boat ride on Winter Park’s small lakes that (1) wasn’t expensive and only about a hour long; (2) didn’t require reservations or a damned app or the like to access; and (3) most importantly, was something we could do sitting down, after a day of walking and more walking.

We made it for the noon tour. December 10 was as warm and clear a day in Winter Park as you could ask for, a reminder of why a couple of Victorian businessmen were able to found a town in central Florida and attract wealthy property buyers who aspired to escape the frozen North for a few months.

Our skipper for the tour.

Skipper Bob, let’s call him. He took us from the tour-boat dock on Lake Osceola through a couple of canals to Lake Mizell and Lake Virginia and then back, pointing out some of the posher estates and landmarks along the way, such as the posh boat houses that tend to come with such properties.

Bob also offered up some detail about the history of the area, most of it unfamiliar. I didn’t know, for example, that Fred Rogers was an alumnus of Rollins College, which occupies a sizable chunk of the Lake Virginia shore. I also learned that the college, even in our age of grossly inflated higher-ed tuition, outclasses most others in its high cost.

Out on the lakes, Bob revved up the engine from time to time, spurring the boat forward at a good clip. Wind famously blows long hair into a pleasantly billowing mass at such times, but under the warm sun and blue sky that day, even my shortish hair was picked up by the wind. Felt good.

I liked the passages through the canals. I don’t think I was alone in this.

and offering up some detail about the history of the area, most of it unfamiliar. I didn’t know, for example, that Fred Rogers was an alumnus of Rollins College, which occupies a sizable chunk of the Lake Virginia shore. I also learned that the college, even in our age of grossly inflated higher-ed tuition, outclasses most others in its high cost.

In most of the rest of the country, winter had arrived. In Winter Park, named for the season it is most unlike, you can pass through the tightly packed greenery luxuriating in warm air.

You’re up close to the yards of more modest, but still high-value real estate. Everyone’s got a dock.

The vantage means views of the canopy above.

After the boat tour, we walked a few pleasant blocks along Morse Blvd., away from the lake. This handsome church, First United Methodist, didn’t look open. Too bad.

The city is fond of its peafowl, I understand.

The downtown shopping street in Winter Park is Park Ave. On one side of the street are the likes of Bosphorous Turkish Cuisine, Williams-Sonoma, Ocean Blue Galleries, D’Anne Mica, Fannie Hillman + Associates real estate, Current by John Craig men’s clothing, The Imperial on Park wine bar and Be On Park Fine Jewelry. Life Is Good (registered trademark) products are available on the street.

the shopping side of the street are the likes of Bosphorous Turkish Cuisine, Williams-Sonoma, Ocean Blue Galleries, D'Anne Mica, Fannie Hillman + Associates real estate, Current by John Craig men's clothing, The Imperial on Park wine bar and Be On Park Fine Jewelry. Life Is Good (registered trademark) products are available on the street.

Across the street from the shops is Central Park. The developers were out, I think, to remind New Yorkers of home, but without the likelihood of snow or ice or blizzards like in ’88.

The Winter Park station on the SunRail commuter line is at the park, and a SunRail came while I was idling in the park. Amtrak stops there too.

The park was decorated for the holidays, of course. Including a phone booth.

A local tradition. You can call from the booth and leave a message for Santa Claus.

Scottsville, Kentucky & Red Boiling Springs, Tennessee

Posted on December 29, 2025 by admin

I have to admit it, we bought gas at Buc-ee’s more than once on our trip to Florida. Turns out that the chain’s gas prices are comparable with Costco. That is, 20 to 30 cents cheaper per gallon than most standard gas stations. Costco tends to be on main thoroughfares in densely populated places, which is sometimes convenient, sometimes not. Buc-ee’s is the flip of that, tending to be on major highways at some distance from densely populated places. Sometimes convenient, sometimes not.

We gassed up at the Smiths Grove, Kentucky Buc-ee’s just off I-65 on December 5, early in our trip. We had to make a decision on how to proceed from there. One choice: continue on I-65 to Nashville, take I-40 east from there roughly to Cookeville, Tennessee, and take smaller roads into Jackson County, to reach our friends’ home in the holler. Or: take smaller roads across southern Kentucky and into Tennessee, bypassing metro Nashville and going through towns and hamlets and farmland and woods we’d never seen before, ultimately connecting to the appropriate small roads in Jackson County. It isn’t too hard to guess what we did.

Kentucky 101

It so happened that exiting from Buc-ee’s in Smiths Grove takes you to Kentucky 101, a two-lane highway that can either take you back to I-65 or south through Warren and Allen counties. Coming from the crowds of Buc-ee’s, people and cars, the contrast of heading south on Kentucky 101 is clear.

As of now, at least, Bro. Tim Meador is the Allen County Jailer, so I assume he won the most recent election.

I know that’s a county job that probably involves a fair amount of paperwork. Still, I picture the Jailer as an official who, like in a movie, puts offenders in the jug himself, turning a skeleton key (one of a few jangling on a big ring) to lock the cell.

Scottsville, Kentucky

The main traffic hub of Scottsville (pop. 4,300), the seat of Allen County, is the junction of Kentucky 101 and 98, known as Main and Court streets locally. Instead of a county courthouse, the hub is in the form of a square with businesses around it and a lot of traffic passing through. More than I would have guessed.

It was lunchtime. I can report that Thai Orchid is as good as you might find in a larger town. In our time, Thai has pretty much joined the tapestry of American cuisine as thoroughly as Chinese or Mexican food did in previous generations.

The main public library is near the square, sporting a local Wall of Fame.

The names include Lattie Moore, who sang, “I’m Not Broke but I’m Badly Bent,” a song with pretty much the same theme as Al Dexter’s “Wine, Women and Song.”

I won’t look all the names up, but the Scottsville Wall of Fame also includes Johnny Green, pioneer aviator, who did the first commercial flights between Florida and Cuba, apparently.

Red Boiling Springs, Tennessee

We drove on Kentucky 98 east to the near-border town of Gamaliel, pop. 391, still on the Kentucky side of the line. A lesser-known Biblical name, but I also can’t help thinking of the G. in Warren G. Harding.

South from there, Kentucky 63 turns into Tennessee 56 after a few miles. There’s no sign marking the border, just one announcing the Tennessee highway number. Pretty casual for a line that might have been an international border, had the secessionists had their way (unless, of course, Kentucky left the old US).

Besides a cool name, Red Boiling Springs (pop. 1,205), Tennessee, has a history. As the name suggests, people took the waters there.

“As recently as 1920, Red Boiling Springs had about a dozen places in which visitors could stay,” The Tennessee Magazine reported a few years ago. “The largest was the Palace Hotel, which had 180 rooms. Over the next several generations, business declined… and… a 1969 flood destroyed large parts of the town. However, three of the Red Boiling Springs resort hotels are still open. They were in (nearly) continuous operation throughout the 20th century and still reflect more of the lifestyle of the late 19th century than they do the 21st.”

Make that two hotels. One of those mentioned in the article, the Donoho, burned down in November.

The gray, chilly day somehow fit the scene of a wrecked historic hotel.

Damned shame. I can’t leave it at that. Soon after passing through Red Boiling Springs, we arrived at our destination in eastern Middle Tennessee. The next day, we enjoyed a Tennessee hootenanny.

Our hosts, Dave and Margaret, on guitar and drums.

Three Missouri Museums Along the Way

Posted on December 4, 2025 by admin

At least a foot of snow covers the ground outside, so it’s good to be inside. Winter has fully returned, but at least the early part, when the holidays are yet to come, and not the post-New Year grind of January or the interminable days of February, the alleged shortest month.

Thanksgiving was low key. I expect that’s actually true for most people, however many anecdotes there are about fractious Thanksgivings. Low key doesn’t get into sitcoms or in real or made-up tales on a Thanksgivingishell subreddit.

Back to posting after Christmas, maybe the first Sunday after. Got a lot to do before then.

One more note about Kansas City in September. Besides the World War I Museum and Memorial, there was one more place I wanted to be during my visit: Arthur Byrant’s, for the barbecue I remembered so fondly from the late 1990s. Good ‘cue has sustained AB long after the pitmaster of that name died in 1982.

I’d go again.

After I left KC, I headed not too far northeast to the Jesse James Birthplace Museum.

The birthplace museum, like the house, isn’t a large place, but it does convey some of the life and times of the famed outlaw, with some good artifacts and reading. Posters, too. I hadn’t realized that Jesse James was a character in the very last Three Stooges theatrical release, The Outlaws is Coming (1965), but there was the poster, along with ones advertising better-known biopics or Jesse James-adjacent movies. Somehow I missed that Stooges picture on TV as an impressionable kid, though I saw the likes of The Three Stooges Meet Hercules.

Jesse used to be buried at the homestead.

But at some point he was moved to Mount Olivet Cemetery in nearby Kearney, Missouri. Jesse receives rocks and flowers and coins from visitors 140+ years after his assassination by the Coward Robert Ford (“coward” capitalized, because the word is welded to his name in popular memory). As for Jesse, not a bad posthumous haul for a train robber.

Just as an example, do the Newton Boys get that kind of attention? No, they do not.

“The Newton boys were a criminal gang composed of brothers Willis, Joe, Jess and Wylie (Doc), who operated mostly in Texas during the 1920s,” says Texas State Historical Association. “Willis ‘Skinny’ Newton robbed over eighty banks and six trains from Texas to Canada with his brothers and other outlaws, including the single biggest train robbery in United States history. By the time they were captured, they may have stolen more money than all other outlaws at that time combined.”

I liked Mount Olivet. Got some stones of yore.

Aunt Duck had to have been a character.

Further east, along U.S. 36 in Hamilton, Missouri, is the two-roomed JC Penney Library and Museum. The town library is in one room, the museum in the other. Most of the Penney artifacts are under glass. A wax JC Penney stands in front of a portrait of the department store mogul.

In Laclede, Missouri, is the Gen. John J. Pershing Boyhood Home State Historic Site. A fine museum about the General of the Armies, including an exhibit on something unknown to me, the Twenty-Fifth Infantry Bicycle Corps — the Iron Riders. The Army tested long-distance bicycling in 1897 as a strategy for troop movement, with the corps riding from Missoula, Montana to St. Louis. Pershing wasn’t involved in that effort, but it did happen during his time in the military. Quite a story. Deserves to be better known.

One the last day of my driving, I didn’t want to stop for much, but I did spend a while in Nauvoo, Illinois.

There’s a LDS temple there now. It wasn’t the last time I came this way, in 1997. I couldn’t go in, of course. For that you’d have to join the club.

The National World War I Memorial and Museum

Posted on December 3, 2025 by admin

As a kid, that is as a kid in the late ’60s and early ’70s, I took an unusual interest in WWI. My grandfather, my mother’s father, had been with U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in France, but it was more than that, since he was gone by the time I could remember, and I only heard bits and pieces about his service from family members who knew him. Some of his gear was still around, such as a bent-up canteen and some binoculars, and a panoramic photo of his regiment, but that was about it.

My interest was more likely sparked by The American Heritage History of World War I, a book we had around the house, along with the Civil War and WWII titles by the same publisher. The WWI volume, a weighty tome lavishly illustrated, had such chapter headings as When the Lights Went Out, Appointment at the Marne, Deadlock, Ordeal of Nations, Crisis in the Allied Camp, Enter the Yanks and Eleventh Hour. I spent quality time with that book.

Just as important, there was a companion record to go with the book: World War I, Historic Music and Voices. I listened to it many times, fascinated by the music and voices from an age that seemed to have nothing to do with the time and place I found myself. That was an illusion of youth. Growing up in the 20th century meant you were in the shadow of that war, know it or not. I’d argue that’s still true. Anyway, I ended up knowing such songs as “Over There,” “It’s a Long Way to Tipperary,” “Keep the Home Fires Burning,” and even “K-K-K-Katy.” all of which were mostly unknown to my contemporaries.

I’m glad to report that the record is available on line. The narrator, Charles Collingwood, had just the right earnest, commanding voice for the record. It was years before I knew anything else about him – his time covering WWII for radio, especially, but also as a TV journalist for CBS.

Like many boyhood interests, WWI carried over into adulthood, faded but never quite gone. I knew, for instance, of the shameful neglect when it came to memorializing the war in the U.S., especially in Washington, DC. The first time I ever visited the National Mall, in 1982, I noticed a (relatively) small memorial, the District of Columbia War Memorial, off to the side at some distance, forlorn and badly aged, though I understand it was finally renovated in the 2010s. The memorial honors the “residents and citizens” of DC who performed military service in the Great War.

There was nothing else in the nation’s capital to honor anyone else in that war, not until National World War I Memorial was completed last year, and even it isn’t on the National Mall.

I haven’t seen the new DC memorial, though I’m sure it’s a worthwhile effort. Still, for a memorial really worthy of the event, go to Kansas City, Missouri.

The National World War I Museum and Memorial started as a local memorial soon after the war ended. Long enough ago that Vice President Coolidge was at the groundbreaking, as was Gen. Pershing and a number of other Allied military luminaries. Local, perhaps, but with the heft of a national memorial, designed by Harold Van Buren Magonigle, who was known for his memorial work.

Magonigle’s limestone tower soars.

Sphinxes crouch near the shaft, supposedly covering their eyes from the horrors of war.

Naturally the memorial went through a period of neglect, and the museum came later, as the site evolved from a local to a national memorial, finally acknowledged as such by Congress in 2004. I’m glad to report that now the memorial stands renewed, and the museum, built under the memorial, is first rate. Beginning at the entrance: One enters the museum over a glass bridge that crosses a field of 9,000 red poppies, each representing 1,000 combatant deaths during the war.

As usual with any good museum, there is more than you can absorb in one go, organized in two wings: the war before U.S. entry, and after. All together, it holds more than 350,000 items, a collection comparable with the likes of the Imperial War Museum or the Musée de la Grande Guerre du pays de Meaux.

The museum’s scope is wide ranging as well, including not just the U.S. part, but perspectives and memories from people from all of the major participating nations, and some smaller ones. There was even a small display, including a map that explained things well, about the Japanese participation in the war. Japan joined the Allied side early in the game, taking the opportunity to kick the Germans out of China and seize Germany’s scattered possessions in the Pacific. A low cost, high-gain exercise for Japan, unlike the next war in the Pacific.

Artifacts were large and small.

There are only a few life-sized dioramas – there are more to be found at the National WWII Museum in New Orleans – but the WWI museum did a good job of it.

I was particularly taken with the posters. I’d never seen most of them.

The 10 Whiz Bangs, even though there are only nine names listed. Then I realized that, at least symbolically and maybe literally, the 10th man hadn’t made it home, like so many.

Remarkably, you can listen to an article about the Whiz Bangs (in the Whiz Bangs Articles).

After visiting the museum, the thing to do is take the elevator to the top of the memorial, for a modest extra fee. Elevator, then iron circular stairs, actually, for an excellent view of downtown Kansas City.

Hey Hey Hey Hey!

I Like Ike, And Abilene Wasn’t Too Bad Either

Posted on December 2, 2025 by admin

In Abilene, Kansas, not long ago, I found myself wondering, whatever happened to Manus Hand? That’s because I stood at that moment near the graves of President and Mrs. Eisenhower, Ike and Mamie.

The 34th President of the United States and the First Lady repose in a chapel-like structure on the grounds of the Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library, Museum and Boyhood Home in Abilene, pop. 6,400 or so, the town where the president came of age.

I’ve been told I visited before, with my family during a trip to Kansas when I was a wee lad, but I don’t remember that at all. So I count this as a new visit to a presidential sight, including a grave site, which makes 21 presidential graves all together. But for the federal shutdown in October, there would be four more at least: Adams père et fils, FDR and TR.

I thought of Manus Hand because, back in the Neolithic age of the Internet, he had a web site featuring photos of him at presidential grave sites. In my own dead presidents days, I found Hand’s site at some point. He had visited almost all of them by then, 36 by his count. His site is still in existence, without much change, except an update to note that George H.W. Bush had died (2018), but not Jimmy Carter.

The Eisenhower Boyhood Home, moved to the site. No tours available when I came by.

The Eisenhower Museum.

Midcentury, and what could be more fitting for Eisenhower? It’s chronologically organized: early Ike in Abilene; his Army career before WWII, including his cross-country epic; during that war and right after the war; his presidency and post-presidency, and a gallery about Mamie. Well organized, interesting artifacts, but (for me) none more interesting than a titanium sphere.

The sphere is a replica of the pennant sphere that traveled to the Moon in 1959 aboard the Soviet spacecraft Luna 2, which was the first manmade object to reach the lunar surface, or any celestial body. The sphere was a detail that I remembered from long-ago reading about space exploration. I didn’t realize one existed any more, even in replica form. Khrushchev presented it to Eisenhower during his famed visit to the U.S. that year (Khrushchev’s due at Idlewild!).

Luna 2 carried two spheres filled with liquid and an explosive charge, designed to burst apart on impact and scatter pentagonal pennants, the Moon Registry says. The pennants were imprinted with: 1) Sentiabr 1959 (September 1959); CCCP… ; and the state seal of the USSR, a wreath of grain around the hammer and sickle. It is theorized that the medallions vaporized on impact.

Russia is still shooting Luna missions to the Moon. The most recent, Luna 25, crashed near the lunar south pole in 2023 but, unlike Luna 2, not on purpose. Oops. More about the many pennants the Soviets sent into space is here. On display next to the sphere is a lunar rock, which must have been a posthumous gift, since Ike didn’t live quite long enough to benefit from astronauts rock-gathering on the surface, though he was still alive during Apollo 7, 8 and 9.

A close second excellent artifact was a dagger Marshal Zhukov presented to General Eisenhower on the occasion of the defeat of Germany, a good-looking blade with an ivory hilt and gold decorations. I picture an exuberant Zhukov, as in The Death of Stalin, handing the knife to Ike and saying something earthy. Apparently the two, Ike and Zuke, got along well in the early months of the joint occupation of Germany. Differences aside, they had job experience in common. I don’t remember seeing anything about that in the museum, but there was a lot of material, so that could have been easily missed. That and any reference to Kay Summersby.

It was hot that day, September 24, but after visiting the museum, I took a look around Abilene anyway. The town hasn’t forgotten its most famous native son. Also, Donut Palace was closed.

A lot of the detail would be different, but I’ll bet Ike would still feel at home with the scale of Abilene. Small town, small buildings, but some solid touches.

Including at least one building Ike would have known.

Chicago had cows, Abilene has cowboy boots.

The Hotel Sunflower. Former hotel, that is, now apartments.

The Sunflower State. The flower looks a little ominous, peering down at the settlers.

Structures that aren’t grand, but stately even so. Petite stately, you might call them.

The third one is a Carnegie library. Though the Carnegie grant was large, other fundraising for the library’s erection had been done in the early 1900s, including a benefit lecture by William Jennings Bryan.

Out near the highway: truth in naming. But note also, the bowling alley is closed. I could go either way on the reopening of an alley in that location, but I really want the sign to stay.

One more thing Abilene is known for, at least since 2022.

The World’s Largest Belt Buckle. Says so right there on it. How large would that belt have to be?

“Designed by local artist Jason Lahr, Fluter’s Creek Metal Works, the buckle features Dwight D. Eisenhower, Wild Bill Hickok, Abilene & Smoky Valley Railroad, Historic Seelye Mansion, C.W. Parker carousel horse, C.L. Brown telephone, a racing Greyhound and Chisholm Trail longhorn inlaid with blue quartz,” says the city of Abilene, Kansas.

“The buckle is a project of the Abilene Convention and Visitors Bureau which hopes the new roadside attraction will entice travelers to stop and visit the Best Historic Small Town.”

Been There, Seen That

By Dees Stribling

Category Archives: US History