Thursday, April 30, 2015
Wednesday, April 29, 2015
Tuesday, April 28, 2015
Monday, April 27, 2015
Friday, April 24, 2015
Strasburg Hotel
This sign on Strasburg's main street points the way to the Strasburg Hotel. The building was constructed in 1902 as a private hospital by a doctor who subsequently created a local scandal when he left his wife and ran off with a nurse. He was never heard from again. The hospital was converted into a hotel in 1915 and is still in operation.
Thanks for reading Photography In Place this week. Have a safe and enjoyable weekend, and I hope you will stop by again next week.
Thursday, April 23, 2015
Brills Grocery
This is the sort of sign that often graces rural country stores, but Brills Grocery is right on Strasburg's main street. The building is now empty and its fate uncertain. The Town of Strasburg is trying to decide what do with this property which is right next to the Taxi Stand (see yesterday's post) and there is talk of tearing it down.
Wednesday, April 22, 2015
Taxi stand
A small notice posted on the front of this building tells a bit about its history:
"Strasburg's Historic District is comprised of buildings from as far back as the 1700s. This building has been home to various businesses including a millinery store, taxi stand and a stained glass artist's studio. It will find life once again because it is owned by the Town of Strasburg.
The Taxi Stand Era artwork was created by Shenandoah Valley artists Dan Voss and Anthony Coviell"
Tuesday, April 21, 2015
The Ice Cream Depot
Ice cream stands like the one pictured above are popular in the northern part of the Shenandoah Valley. I came across three or four of them in my travels in the Strasburg area a couple of weeks ago.
Monday, April 20, 2015
Strasburg Museum
The building that now houses the Strasburg Museum began life as the Strasburg Steam Pottery Company. In 1913 the building became the Southern Railway depot which operated into the 1960s.
German settlers, mostly from Pennsylvania began to arrive in the 1730s and Strasburg was chartered in 1761. During the Civil War, the town was strategically important as a key railroad center strategically vital to the South's reliance on the agriculturally rich Shenandoah Valley.
Sunday, April 19, 2015
Third Sunday - April 2015
Christ Episcopal Church - 1910
The Arts and Crafts inspired architecture of this small church is said to be patterned after Christ Church in Bradford, New York. The church was partially destroyed by fire in 1926. The concrete foundation and walls faced with river cobblestone survived the fire and by 1933 the church was rebuilt to its original form.
Pearisburg is a small town nestled in the mountains of southwestern Virginia.
Saturday, April 18, 2015
Saturday morning
"April is the cruelest month" - T.S. Eliot
Spring is not always idyllic. Earlier this week I walked down the lake. In the woods ATVs had cut ugly swaths through the carpet of moss and running pine. No spring wild-flowers brightened the forest floor. The sky was overcast and the lake was muddy brown from the recent rains. I sat down on a log at the edge of the lake and looked out over the brown water at a forlorn bench perched precariously on a sagging dock.
Two geese suddenly rose from the water and circled overhead, their flight strong and true against the gray clouds. Then they were gone, and I walked back into the woods to see what I could see. Spring doesn't last very long.
Friday, April 17, 2015
Shenandoah evening
The change of season is in full swing here in central Virginia. Hope you are enjoying the weather where you are and have a chance to get out to look and listen.
Our Third Sunday post this month is a lovely Arts and Crafts inspired church in southwestern Virginia. Have a great weekend, and thanks for reading Photography In Place.
Thursday, April 16, 2015
Wednesday, April 15, 2015
Botanical #28
The Virginia Bluebell is native to moist woodland in the eastern United States. This specimen was growing along the banks of the Shenandoah River where the woods come right to the water's edge.
Tuesday, April 14, 2015
Early spring
Just before dark on an early spring evening along the Shenandoah River.
Monday, April 13, 2015
Shenandoah
One evening last week, I stood on the banks of the Shenandoah River in the last light of a cloudy spring evening. All was quiet but for the sound of the river as it flowed down the valley between the Blue Ridge and Massanutten. The delicate first color of leaf and bud painted the scene and a cool breeze promised more rain.
Friday, April 10, 2015
The end - 1865
These in the robings of glory,
Those in the gloom of defeat,
All with the battle-blood gory,
In the dusk of eternity meet:
Under the sod and the dew,
Waiting the judgement-day
Under the laurel, the Blue,
Under the willow, the Gray.No more shall the war cry sever,
Or the winding rivers be red;
They banish our anger forever
When they laurel the graves of our dead!
Under the sod and the dew,
Waiting the judgment-day,
Love and tears for the Blue,
Tears and love for the Gray.
The Blue and The Gray - Francis Miles Finch (1827-1907)
Thursday, April 9, 2015
Palm Sunday - 1865
April 9, 1865
"Out from the Rebel lines came a lone rider, a young officer in a gray uniform, galloping madly, a staff in his hand with a white flag fluttering from the end of it . . . the firing stopped, and the watching Federals saw the Southerners wheeling their guns back and stacking their muskets as if they expected to fight no more.
"All up and down the lines the men blinked at one another, unable to realize that the hour they had waited for so long was actually at hand. There was a truce, they could see that, and presently the word was passed that Grant and Lee were going to meet in the little village that lay now between the two lines, and no one could doubt that Lee was going to surrender. It was Palm Sunday, and they would all live to see Easter, and with the guns quieted it might be easier to comprehend the mystery and the promise of that day."
From A Stillness at Appomattox by Bruce Catton, 1953
Wednesday, April 8, 2015
April - 1865
After the fall of Petersburg, Lee's Army of Northern Virginia moved west along the Appomattox River toward Lynchburg. General Grant's Army of the Potomac chased the confederates and finally caught up with them near the small village of Appomattox Court House. In early April, 150 years ago, the American Civil War was about to come to an end. Ragged, hungry and exhausted soldiers prepared for the final confrontation between the North and the South as the two armies met at Appomattox.
Tuesday, April 7, 2015
A couple of geese
I walk down to the lake now and again to check on the geese. Not that they need me for anything; I just like to watch and listen to their talk which sounds intelligent and purposeful although I understand none of it.
These two geese were not perturbed by my presence on the edge of the water, and swam quite close, seemingly wrapped up in their own affairs. They are most likely a mating pair. The goose on the right is the male. You can tell because he is a little larger than the female (and he is drooling). Canada geese are monogamous.
Monday, April 6, 2015
Opening Day - 2015
Library of Congress
Play Ball!
The coming season does not bode well for a Phillies fan. The only hope I hold out for the team I have followed for the past thirty years is that all the baseball pundits predict that the Phillies will be the worst team in baseball in 2015 and baseball pundits are almost always wrong. It ain't much, but baseball fans always hope for the best, particularly in the light of that first spring afternoon.
Thursday, April 2, 2015
Wednesday, April 1, 2015
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