Historic Highway Guides

Forgotten Landmark-Hand Trading Company Building, Pelham, GA

caddofl — Sun, 19 Feb 2012 20:36:46 +0000

After visiting the Marshall Field Department Store in Chicago Illinois, J.L. Hand was inspired to return to his hometown and build the beautiful Hand Trading Company. The structure was finished in 1916. This four-story historical building, once called the “Big Store” carrying a variety of goods for sale, has now been adapted for new uses.

Forgotten Landmark-Dixie Highway Marker, Meigs, GA

caddofl — Sun, 19 Feb 2012 19:41:58 +0000

Marker is located at County Line Road and Dixie Highway in Meigs, Georgia. This was the original route of U.S. Highway 19, which followed the earlier path of the western branch of the Dixie Highway. The marker is similar to many along the route, designating the highway at each county line. This marker indicates the crossing of the boundary between Mitchell and Thomas Counties.

Forgotten Landmark-National Youth Admin Roadside Rest Area, Gum Springs (AR)

caddofl — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 23:06:17 +0000

This roadside rest area is located on U.S. Highway 67, just south of Duke Road, between Gum Springs and Curtis, Arkansas. The plaque on the cracked wall states this rest area was constructed by the National Youth Administration in 1936. The rest area is on the north side of the abandoned earlier roadway of U.S. Highway 67. The present U.S. Highway 67 runs parallel to the old route between Curtis and Gum Springs. Much of the original concrete slab is still in existence, but is badly buckled in many spots.

U.S. Highway 67 follows the route of the Bankhead Highway through southwestern Arkansas. The Bankhead started at Washington D.C. and crossed the continent through the southern states, ending at San Diego and passing through some of the South’s largest cities, including Atlanta, Birmingham, Memphis, Dallas, Ft. Worth, and El Paso.

As a New Deal organization the National Youth Administration (NYA) was established within the Works Progress Administration (WPA) on June 26^th, 1935, and funded by the Emergency Relief Appropriation Act of 1935. NYA provided work training based on U.S. citizenship and financial need for youth between ages sixteen and twenty-five. In addition to offering courses in writing, reading, and arithmetic, NYA operated two programs: the Works Project Program to train unemployed, out-of-school youth, and the Student Aid Program to provide work-study training for high school, college, and graduate students.

Hundreds of NYA projects evolved according to the facilities, funds, materials, and manpower particular to each state, county, or community. Major projects included construction, public and semiprofessional service, and home economics. The projects gave rise to learning skills in road and building construction, woodworking, office work, nursing, furniture and auto repair, radio operation, landscaping, blacksmithing, welding, agriculture, and domestic science. The national WPA regulated work hours at eight hours a day, forty hours a week, and seventy hours a month. Earnings ranged from ten to twenty-five dollars per month, which often went to the worker’s family. NYA offered self-improvement, health benefits, citizenship courses, and vocational guidance. It also provided social opportunities through community youth centers featuring athletics, hobby clubs, dramatics, games, music, and dancing.

By 1938 camps converted to youth resident centers for participants who needed housing, particularly those from rural areas who could not travel. They lived in dormitories and trained for six to eight months. NYA utilized school campuses, but most centers’ facilities were built, maintained, and furnished by trainees. Residents received a thirty-dollar monthly stipend with twenty dollars deducted to cover room and board.

During its eight years of existence NYA trained more than two million nationally under the Student Aid Program and employed another 2.6 million youth through its Works Projects Program.[i]

[i] National Youth Administration; Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History & Culture, Oklahoma Historical Society; http://digital.library.okstate.edu/encyclopedia/entries/N/NA014.html

Forgotten Landmark-Old Frederick Douglass High School, Oklahoma City (OK)

caddofl — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 23:02:01 +0000

Old Douglass High School, 600 N. High Avenue, Oklahoma City, OK (photo from Bing Maps Birds Eye accessed 1/21/2012)

The first African American school in OKC was founded in 1891, and would later become Douglass High (named for the famous ex-slave author and abolitionist). It has had a somewhat troubled and nomadic existence. The first location of the school suspiciously burned down, and the second location was grossly inadequate and in an unsafe, industrial neighborhood. Due to legal battles regarding city, county, and even Federal ownership of properties, it took three years to move Douglass High students into a new building. In 1934, the old “Lowell School”, a previously all-white school originally built in 1910, was expanded and became the third location of Douglass High School. With a swimming pool, auditorium, stage, and proximity to students’ neighborhood, this was a great step forward for the school’s student body.

Douglass High School was home to pillars of the Oklahoma City African American community. Examples include Zelia Breaux, the first woman ever appointed President of the Oklahoma Association of Negro Teachers, and daughter of the first President of Langston University, Inman Page; and Ralph Ellison, author of the national bestseller “Invisible Man” and one-time Vice President of ONG.

As the only African American school in OKC, Douglass High School quickly became overcrowded. A new high school was constructed in 1954, and Douglass High School became the Page-Woodson 5th Grade Center. Page-Woodson was then closed permanently in 1994 when 5th Grade Centers across the city were converted to elementary schools through a federal grant. The former Douglass High School was the only school not converted, but simply closed, and has been vacant since 1994.

For a short period of time around 2004, the non-profit organization Oklahoma City Northeast Incorporated had plans to renovate the building to be utilized for a community cultural or development center. Unfortunately, these plans fell through, and again the building sits abandoned, dangerously close to being lost, either to its own deterioration or to make way for new development.[i]

[i] Douglass High School; Preservation Oklahoma; http://www.preservationok.org/Douglass_High_School.html

Forgotten Landmark-Goodholm House, Oklahoma City (OK)

caddofl — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 22:27:41 +0000

Andrew Goodholm House, 10735 NE 23rd Street, Oklahoma City, OK (Satellite image accessed from Google Maps 1/21/2012)

Construction was started in 1899 by Andrew Goodholm, one of the first millers in Oklahoma City. He was also a city councilman, builder, developer, lumber dealer and an officer of the first packing plant. Goodholm was organizer of the Acme Milling Company, an early flour mill, and headed a company that built the original Sears Roebuck & Company store which has been demolished by urban renewal. As a director of the Oklahoma City Chamber of Commerce, Goodholm had a hand in early development of several industries in the city and state. He served two terms on the City Council.

Goodholm’s house later was acquired by another builder, the late Manzy Leon Jones, whose general construction company erected a number of residences and commercial buildings in Oklahoma City. Jones and his wife, Gracelyne, owned the house from 1955 until it was sold in 1977 to Fentriss Sound Company.

James Fentriss was eager to have the house preserved and offered it to any group which agreed to move and restore it to its original splendor. In the event there were no takers, the building was to be razed to make room for commercial development. Sandy Saunders, State Fair President, proposed moving the house to the Fairgrounds for preservation and to illustrate an example of life in the Capitol City at the turn of the century. Other uses for the house included a museum, teaching tool for children in history, and the creation of a preservation laboratory in conjunction with the Preservation Office of the Oklahoma Historical Society. The house was moved from the State Fair Park in 2008 to this location in Nicoma Park.

National Register of Historic Places Nomination Form

National Register of Historic Places, picture taken in 1982 when located at State Fair Park

Forgotten Landmark-Farmers Public Market, Oklahoma City (OK)

caddofl — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 19:50:36 +0000

Built in 1928, this structure comprises a main building, occupying the center of a block, and sheds. The two-story main building, finished in three-tone buff stucco with terra-cotta colored trim, was designed by Gaylord B. Noftager in the modified Spanish style. It has an auditorium on the second floor, used for athletic events, and shops on the ground floor. Surrounding the block on three sides are steel and concrete sheds, where Oklahoma County truck gardeners had their market stalls and dealers handled vegetables shipped in from the Rio Grande Valley.

More information is available at http://www.okcfarmersmarket.com/html/about.html, including a rendering of possible future renovations.

Farmers Public Market, S. Klein Avenue and Exchange Avenue, Oklahoma City, OK (Image from Google Streetview, accessed on 1/16/2012)

Endangered Landmark-Greenwood House, Greensboro (AL)

caddofl — Sat, 17 Dec 2011 20:54:58 +0000

Greenwood might be considered two houses in one. When attorney Sydenham Moore built the present handsome Greek-Revival residence in 1856, he incorporated materials and decorative features from an even older dwelling — the original “Greenwood” from which the house takes its name. This first Greenwood was the plantation home of Governor Israel Pickens, built on the prairies south of Greensboro. Israel Pickens was the third governor of Alabama (1821-1825). In March of 2002, the house was severely damaged by a fire Link to Gadsden Times Article. In 2009, the Alabama Historical Commission created a website to solicit offers for purchasing the house Link to Alabama Historical Commission.

Greenwood in 1978 (Alabama Historical Commission)

Greenwood facade in 2008

Greenwood in 2011 (Photo courtesy of Deep Fried Kudzu, http://www.deepfriedkudzu.com/2011/02/beautiful-homes-of-greensboro-alabama.html)

Forgotten Landmark-Wesley Plattenburg House, Selma (AL)

caddofl — Sat, 10 Dec 2011 22:31:45 +0000

The rare raised cottage with Greek Revival and Italianate details was built in 1842 as the center of Weseley Plattenburg’s plantation. It is one of the few structures shown on the map of the Battle of Selma. The city grew up around it and now the house is all that remains of the 2200-acre plantation. House is listed as “In Play” status by the Alabama Preservation Scorecard, a joint project of the Alabama Historical Commission, the Alabama Preservation Alliance, and University of West Alabama http://preservationscoreboard.uwa.edu/inplay/plattenburg.htm.

Photo from Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Collection, taken March 1934

Welsey Plattenburg House, Selma Alabama (Photo courtesy of Google Street View accessed 12/2011)

Forgotten Landmark-Tukabatchee Lodge, Crawford (AL)

caddofl — Sat, 26 Nov 2011 19:18:58 +0000

This frame structure at the eastern edge of town was named for the most important town of the Upper Creek. Crawford Masonic Lodge no. 863, F & M (originally Tuckabatchee No. 96) was built in 1848 and served intermittently for Lodge meetings, school classes and church services.

Forgotten Landmark-Glover Tavern, Forkland (AL)

caddofl — Thu, 24 Nov 2011 21:02:25 +0000

Photo Courtesy of Google Streetview accessed 2011

Photo by Frances Benjamin Johnson in 1939

This structure, built in 1830, was originally the William Glover House. It is located at the junction of A.L. Isaac Road and County Road 20 in Forkland, Alabama. William Glover was the owner of Rosemount Plantation, built in 1832 and located 2 miles northwest of Forkland.