Behind the Fence

 As with any good trip, Frank and I left early, before the sun rose. There is always that hope that we would be blessed with a nice sunrise. That didn’t happen on this trip.

    We were driving to Cresson, not very far from the Horseshoe Curve in Altoona. Frank and I had been out there in February and did a cache near a historical marker. High on the mountains above Altoona was a sanitarium, the high altitude and cool air believed to be beneficial to those suffering tuberculosis.

    Opened in 1913 it was one of the first of many sanitariums built to attempt to stop the curse of TB. It operated until 1964 when the last patient left the facility. After a few re-brandings, the facility has been abandoned since 2013. This would be our destination.

    We arrived a little before 9 in the morning. Barbed wire surrounded the buildings, giving us a rather ominous feeling as we slipped inside. Hopefully we will be coming back outside later…

    We started our exploration with what looked like the oldest and the largest building. Inside we found basketball courts, offices, classrooms, a hair salon along with numerous other rooms and in the basement, the boiler room. 

    Everywhere we went, paint was peeling off the walls. While we were looking through the basement, we noticed a cool breeze (?) drifting past us. Following it, we passed a batch of rooms, their purposes unknown. The light got dimmer as we moved away from the windows. Our flashlights showed us a pair of doors leading into a dark tunnel!

    Only about 7-foot square, there were pipes hanging alongside the walls and from the ceiling, the paint was pealing, and water was dripping. And of course, we went in!

    Jacks held the ceiling up in a couple spots.  We passed an intersection that led to another building but since it was blocked off, we continued on after shining our lights into it. The tunnel continued on a slight upward angle curving towards the right as it went. Walking for what seemed like a hundred yards or more, we came to another set of doors leading into another basement. Going upstairs, we discovered that we were inside a building with bars on the windows and locks on the doors. Thankfully, the doors were open.

    We roamed around in this building for a while, exploring the different floors and rooms and then moved onto other buildings.

    Eventually we discovered some examination rooms along with an old x-ray machine. Going to another building we discovered cells. The doors had locks on them and bars were on the windows.

    The hospital was in operation until 1964 when the final TB patient left. The facility was then repurposed to be a hospital for patients with severe mental disorders. It continued on until the 80’s when it changed hands and became a medium security prison. The prison closed in 2013.

    It was sad looking at the places people had been sentenced to live in. Some of the cells were solitary, having only a concrete bed, with loops on it for securing the patients or prisoners. A thin canvas mattress lay on one of them. The furniture in it was made out of concrete! We saw cell doors with plastic covering the bars with trays for sliding food inside. (Similar to those scenes in Silence of the Lambs!) There were exercise areas that were only 10’ by 30’. I found these things very depressing!

    We visited a couple of the newer buildings, built to house prisoners. Guard stations still had the controls for the doors and switches to turn the lights on and off in each of the cells. A few of the cells held as many as 6 men. (This was an all-male prison) Others were only big enough to hold one.

    We stopped at the chapel before we left and sat for a couple minutes, perhaps resting, maybe saying a prayer that we’d be able to get back out!

    In all, we spent close to 3 hours in the facility. We probably only visited half of the buildings there. A few of the newer buildings looked  pre-fabricated and were falling apart from the weather. The property has more buildings on it outside the fence but they are being used, we stayed away from them.

    There are a lot of interesting things to see in here. It is surprising how little graffiti and damage there is. We saw lots of broken windows but most of the damage came from the ravages of time.

    We took tons of pictures, many of which were deleted due to poor lighting. Neither of us got hurt though both of us complained about our knees. It was worth the pain and I’d do it again in a heartbeat! 

    There was just one hitch, if you happen to go there, tell Frank I’m working on getting his bail money!

The Deafening Silence

 It’s another rainy day at the library. Sunny one day and the next; it’s too wet to venture outdoors. It is a perfect day to get lost in the written word.

    The only noises heard are faint. No crashing blasts of sound that might startle me, only bits of noise that need concentration to hear or to figure out what they are.

    There are some voices, far enough away to be undecipherable, the knowledge that they come from children is all that comes through. The only other sounds filtering into the space I’m in are a few pages being shuffled at a near-by desk and the gentle tapping from a computer keyboard.

    The windows in front of me reveal what is outside and why I am on the inside. It looks cold, a wet cold April morning. I put a marker between the pages of my book and look out the window, my mind drifting. The sky was clear yesterday, unlike the grey clouds of today which seemed to have settled in. I daze a bit and think back…

    Last night I watched as the just past full moon rose over the horizon. A bit past nine in the evening, houses on the hillside had their outdoor lights on. Some houses were dark and in others, lights illuminated the windows, the owners still awake, perhaps with televisions on or cuddled up together. No cars moved in the neighborhood and if anyone was outside, they were too far away to see.

    Behind their houses the moon was rising. It started with just a faint lightning on the brush stroked clouds. Gradually they brightened and turned orange as the moon came closer to the edge of the world. Soon, a thin sliver of the moon appeared. Slowly it enlarged as it rose, getting bigger and bigger.

    The houses visible in the camera lens seemed small compared to the huge ball of light behind them. The moon appeared even brighter against the darkness of the distant hillside. Inside the houses, the occupants had no idea what was happening behind them. They had no idea the part that they were playing in my evening!

    My camera caught the lights of their houses along with the reflected light of the sun bouncing off the disc of the moon. It was the artwork of our world, the beauty which occurs daily, if we are lucky enough to see it!

    It was only me and the moon. Even without the camera, the moon looked huge against the distant hillside, and in turn, made me feel small standing there all alone.

    The world was nice and quiet as the beauty of the cosmos screamed out in front of me. Sometimes the loudest noises are nearly silent!

    Returning to the present and the silence of the library, I opened my book and returned to my reading.

A Couple Furnaces, a Few Geocaches and Some History

 The day was looking good, clear skies above and the temperature was warm enough to need only a sweatshirt. No rain, no sleet, no graupel. (A word I’ve only recently come across, a type of snow)

    Ann Marie and I were going “on the road” for awhile. We started our tour by heading north on Route 8, towards Butler. We had a list with us with a couple different sites we were going to attempt to find.

    These sites came from a book I was paging through called A Guide To Historic Western Pennsylvania, by Smith & Swetnam. (1991 edition) The book is formatted by counties. We were searching for sites in Butler County for the main part.

    One of the problems with using a book this old, 31 years, is that the information in it may no longer be accurate. The sprawl of mankind often destroys places of historic significance. Our thoughts deal more with the present and future rather than the past. We often forget that it is important to remember the past, our roots as a society!

(1958 Butler map)

    Dropping back in time about 100 years, our first quest was south of Butler. The North Star Inn was a brick tavern used as a stage coach stop. It was located .2 of a mile north of Airport Road, alongside Rt8. This would put it right about where the Dollar General is located. Without going down any driveways or going onto anyone’s property, we didn’t see it. It might still be there, perhaps we will find it some other day, or maybe it’s under the Dollar store.

    In downtown Butler we stopped and walked over to the Little Brick School House. Built in 1838, it was the first public school house built in Butler. Over time it has been used as a meeting house, an office, a center for the Red Cross during WWII and a public library! (Love those libraries!) Now it is a museum.

    There are a couple nice wall paintings in Butler, this one is just a block away from the schoolhouse. There is a nice 3 dimensional look to the one on the left, the shadows painted on the wall matched the shadows on the streets.

    Going further north on Rt8, we turned towards the east on Rt58 in Harrisville. This would take us over to our next item on our list, the Marion Iron Furnace.

    While we traveled we did a few geocaches. The first two were guardrail hides, quick and easy, but still fun to search for! During the day, we found all four of the hides we looked for.

    A little over a ¼ mile away from one of the caches, we got out and tromped through the woods for awhile, looking for the ruins of the iron furnace. We met Todd and his boys, Dylan and Carson fishing in the near-by stream. Explaining to them what we were looking for, they helped us locate the ruins.

    The ruins of the Marion Furnace is a rather large pile of rocks, covered with moss and leaves. Built in 1848, it was used for about 12 years. It produced about 18 tons of iron a week! One of the openings of the furnace is still visible, the stones in it are still sharp and in line after all these years, unlike the rest of the furnace. Not far upstream are the remains of a dam and the planes of several roads can be seen in the woods around the furnace. Rocks  on top of the pile show the curvature of the stack.

    We spent a short time talking with the guys before headed on our way. It is always fun meeting new friends and sharing our similar interests. 

    We stopped in Mercer at the Public Library to search for another cache. While we were there, we met the owner of the cache who works at the library. Mathew came out and watched us as we searched. I have to say it was well hidden, it was right in front of me and I didn’t see it!

    We did another cache near Slippery Rock Creek and while we were there, we visited the Wilroy Iron Furnace.  This was built in1854 and lasted 23 years before being shut down. It is one of the better preserved furnaces in Western PA. 

    In the community of Harmony, we visited Rapp’s Seat. Father George Rapp was the head of the Harmony Society, founded in the early 1800’s. He would sit in a chair carved into a rock formation high above the town to meditate and also to keep an eye on his flock.

    There is a trail going to the chair, a mere137 steps up a steep hillside. The chair is underneath a cliff overlooking the Connoquenesssing Creek and Rt79 in the distance.

    There are a lot of names carved into the rock, some with dates from the early 1900’s. Sadly some newer names and comments have been added with spray paint. After seeing other places during the day unadulterated, it was sad to see this abuse of a historical site.

    Our final stop was at Minetta Spring. This was built by Harry Etheridge in honor of his mother-in-law, Minetta in 1931.

     The spring is located on busy Rt68 between Harmony and Evans City. We were hoping to find an arch near-by which is a remnant of a grist mill built by the Harmonists. Chances are the mill was built near the stream below the roadway. We couldn’t see anything from the road and eventually decided to head for home. I’ll have to do some more research, if it’s there, I’d like to see it!

    From there we returned to Glenshaw, completing our 130+ mile loop. Like all our trips, it was a good one. We met some nice people, made some good memories, visited some great spots and enjoyed a drive with the windows down. What more could we ask for?

Foolish for Astronomy

 There is a man in my astronomy club who has been using remote telescopes to image objects in the sky. Scopes mounted in Chile, Hawaii, Peru and Australia, in places with clear seeing and without the problems of light pollution. He has shown the club some truly spectacular images of nebulas and galaxies. Having been the president of the club along with belonging to numerous other clubs, he has the ability to accurately describe what we are seeing and his processes in getting these great shots.

    An e-mail from him arrived early in the morning on the clubs list-server. In it, he told how excited he was about a shot he had just taken.

    His post described using a telescope located in the Canary Islands named the Sloof Scope. He had managed to image a shot of the planet Saturn as it transited the sun. Clouds had hampered his short amount of time on the telescope, but he managed to get a shot just before the planet left the suns disc.

    I clicked on the picture included with the e-mail and it wouldn’t open. I tried a few times, all without any luck. I sent him an e-mail describing my problem and rather quickly got a response with another picture attached. This one opened and I was shocked at what I saw!

    It was spectacular! I could see the wisps of clouds which had hidden the sun from view and near its edge, a nice sharp silhouette of the ringed planet!

    This was the type of shot that astro-photographers dream of! This was contest winner material! This was worthy of a magazine article!

    I sent him a gushing congratulatory e-mail saying how lucky he was to have gotten it and how spectacular it was.

    After hitting send, I started wondering about it. I wondered when he had taken it. I thought he had said that morning but Saturn has been rising before the sun for a month or so. Maybe he had taken it earlier and had spent time “tweaking” the picture to make it as “perfect” as possible. Astro-photographers are known for take shots and then spending days or weeks working on correcting everything before presenting it to be seen.

    Going through a few reference books and some magazines, I found out that the sun and Saturn had been in conjunction last on February 2^nd, nearly two months ago. Running things around in my head I suddenly realized that Saturn could NEVER go in-between us and the sun! It’s orbit is too large, it is impossible! That shot could not have been taken from earth! Turning my head, I glanced at the calendar.

    It was then that I realized this man who I looked up to, a man who had taught me things about space and astronomy, a man who I consider a friend, had played me for a fool!

    It was April first…April Fool’s Day. Re-examining the e-mail I saw that he had used the “Lirpa Sloof” camera on the “Sloof” Telescope. That would be April Fools and Fools spelled backwards.

    I don’t know how many others in the club that he fooled but he had gotten me good! I fell for it without even considering that it was a joke. My enthusiasm got the best of me.

    It wasn’t the first time and I’m sure it won’t be the last. He proved what I already knew, I can be a real fool when it comes to astronomy!

(A few of the "facts" have been altered for a better story line)

Negative Space

 Going through some of the countless black and white negatives I have accumulated over the years, I have re-discovered some of the past.

    In the attic is a three-drawer filing cabinet. Inside are folders filled with photographs and negatives. The earliest I’ve dug up was from 1984, when I had taken a class at The Pittsburgh Film Makers. There are boxes full of slides and commercially developed pictures beside the cabinet.

    My notebook from the class was in one of the folders along with a brochure describing the course and what would be needed to take it. The class was Black and White Photography I. The notebook is filled with drawings and notes about composition, how film, colors and cameras work. Notes on developing film and printing it are in it also. Proof sheets and negatives from the assignments sit beside the notebook.

    My days of shooting pictures with black and white film was exciting. Many, many hours were spent in the darkroom developing the film and printing the pictures. Today’s modern digital cameras have made it so much easier for photographers.

    When you knew that you had only a certain amount of photographs on your roll of film, you tended to be a bit more careful in what you shot. It wouldn’t be until after the roll had been finished and then developed that you could see whether it was good or bad.

    In the early days, the majority of my shots were just plain bad. Blurry pictures due to low ISOs, slow shutter speeds and poor focus were problems I had to learn to overcome. It was a learning experience, but it was fun!

    Since my camera was usually with me I did a lot of early morning shots while on my way to work. Having the camera handy allowed me to try many new things. I still enjoy shooting pictures in dim light.

    In today’s world, if the light is low, I’m not confined to the type of film I am using. I only need to up the ISO a bit. The camera will also show me what I just took and I can instantly re-adjust my settings to get what I had envisioned. I don’t need to worry about how many shots I take, I can shoot until the battery wears out or the memory is filled. So being, I tend to take more shots than required. The camera also focuses itself, how can you beat that?

    The negatives I’ve been looking at are a small view of Pittsburgh’s history. Granted, it doesn’t go back very far, a mere 30 or so years but it does show a lot of the city that has changed.

    There are pictures of highways and buildings being built and the neighborhoods that were torn down to accommodate them. There are pictures of fires and floods, automobile and train accidents along with scenes of crowded streets and strangely quiet vistas in the early morning hours. There are shots of both the good and the bad of the city and surrounding areas.

    The best thing about it, they reinforce the fragile structures which support my memory. I find it humorous that I am able to recognize the places where photos were taken but I often have trouble remembering people’s names.

    These are just a few of the shots I took, a couple that I thought were interesting. They are from between 1984 and 1989. There are many more where these came from!

(Pictures will enlarge when clicked)

The Pittsburgh Arts Festival

Construction of the Pittsburgh Vista Hotel (now the Weston)

Beneath the streets during the subway construction

*Of Course, lots of trains*

The Hall Roundhouse near Monroeville

A Conrail train (gone) going past houses on rt. 28 (gone)

Another Conrail train along Alleghany River Blvd.

The Nickel Plate 765, during an excursion into the city

Cabooses waiting to be scrapped in Sharpsburg

Gone

A train accident

A car accident

I wonder if the officer is writing a ticket for the owner of the “70 Olds”?

    And to end this group of shots, one of my favorite things I documented was the building of the Veterans Bridge and the widening of rt.28. Between Etna and the Northside there were lots of houses and a church or two taken down to accommodate the project.

    One of the interesting things that was uncovered during the building was a canal lock from the Pennsylvania Main Line canal. Being a bit of history, it was carefully dug up and removed to save it for future research. I believe portions of it are in the Heinz History Center. Being interested in archeology, I went down numerous times to photograph the excavation. 

The canal lock

The Heinz plant and smokestacks can be seen behind the early construction of the Veterans Bridge. The railroad bridge, on the right, was built first to allow train traffic through the site during building. The location of the canal is now underneath the highways.

I’m going back up to the attic, can’t wait to see what other pictures I find! I've also put some black and white film in one of my old cameras, I'm not done shooting yet!