Springfield, Illinois, is a small city but it is Illinois’ state capitol and has the history to go with it. Among its varied historic sites you will find a Lincoln mecca. If you stop through, don’t just stop by the Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum (though definitely stop there–it’s great). The hidden gem of a… Read More 5 Reasons to Visit the Lincoln Home Historic Site
A trip to Cape Cod is a trip into lighthouse history. Lighthouses span the coasts (and can even be found in the Midwest) but until rotating lenses were introduced, there was no way to really know which light house you were seeing from the water. The rotating lenses are what allows lighthouses to develop a unique… Read More Shining the Light on Lighthouses
In the mid-20th century, the United States had its gaze steadfastly fixed on the future. Just look at Tomorrowland in Disneyland, which opened in 1955, with the Space Age quickly on its heels in 1957. Two decades earlier Chicago hosted the 1933 Century of Progress International Exposition, a world’s fair with a theme of technological… Read More The House of Tomorrow Today
We have a joke in the historic preservation world about “George Washington slept here.” There are an amazing number of houses and hotels that claim this honor. Our 16th president, Abraham Lincoln, has similarly left behind a trail of historic places and multiple states that claim him for their own. Illinois may be the “Land… Read More Views of Lincoln’s Kentucky
Bryce Canyon National Park is located in southern Utah and is notable for stunning landscapes. The Park sits along the rim of a steep-edged valley that drops away to reveal a maze of sunset-toned hoodoos, ridges and nobs of rock that form an alien and endlessly interesting landscape. Trails zigzag down into to the… Read More Landscape Design Meets National Park
This post is in collaboration with Cristana Corrao. For somewhere so remote, the middle of nowhere, Nevada, has an impressive reputation. The wilderness is incredibly scenic, it has a bizarre and interesting history, and stories abound about mysterious happenings from UFOs to rocks that move on their own in Death Valley National Park, just across… Read More Hard Luck Castle
Last week I spent a long weekend in Vermont. It was beautiful and the fall color stuck around just long enough for us to see it. Woodstock, Vermont, has made it onto my blog before but my focus was Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller National Historical Park. Today I’m bringing you on a little trip through the town of… Read More Views of Vermont
Pullman, a historic company town located just south of Chicago, has been a favorite neighborhood of mine since I first visited in 2015 (the early days of my blog! Check it out here, here, and here). The history is complex and there are so many interesting and important threads you can follow (see links at the… Read More Views of Pullman
I’ll be upfront and say, I generally gravitate towards fiction (I’m currently reading this with my bookclub and my favorite book last year was definitely this one). I like to always have a architecture or preservation book on the back burner, but I take my time with them. Recently, however, I’ve found myself excited by multiple… Read More 2017 Preservation-Themed Reading List
Oregon Caves National Monument and Preserve is located in the steep and rolling hills of southern Oregon, on a dead-end highway 20 miles east of the town of Cave Junction. The cave itself, reportedly discovered in 1874 by Elijah Davidson, is the namesake and highlight of the park. However, due to the long history of… Read More Oregon Caves: More Than A Cave
