Round Robin: Surrounded by History

For this week's Round Robin Photo Challenge: History!, I asked to see anything historic, with a number of suggested ways to interpret that term. My inspiration was a recent trip to Ft. Lowell, which I've photographed before for this Challenge. We'll get to that in a moment. But I'm also reminded tonight of a walk I took in Lucerne, Switzerland when I was 15 years old. All on my own for a few hours (maybe my brother was with me; I dont remember for sure) during a family bus tour of Europe, I walked over an old wooden bridge on which were painted frescoes of the Danse Macabre. I absolutely loved it. Part of what impressed me was that that bridge was older than the United States. Arizona as a state is especially recent - it was the last of the lower 48, coming in on February 14th, 1912, just over a hundred years ago.

But it doesn't mean this place doesn't have much history. I've showed you the ruins of Casa Grande, which go back much further than that bridge in Lucerne. Indigenous peoples were all over this land a very long time ago. Then came Padre Kino and, separately, the Spanish conquistadors, and eventually the Anglos arrived. And in 1953, an architect from Switzerland, Josias Joesler, designed the church I attend and am employed by. It was one of the last of many well-regarded projects he did here in Tucson.

Let's start with Ft. Lowell. Now it's a park, but its main claims to history are the ruins of adobe buildings from the fort that was active there from 1873 to 1891, and a little museum.

Now it's well inside the city limits, but back in the day it was miles away from Tucson on horseback. Officers' wives looked forward to their shopping trips into Tucson, which wasn't exactly the Big City, and still isn't.

Among the people stationed there during the fort's brief heyday was a surgeon named Walter Reed.

Yeah, okay, maybe that's not the most fascinating history ever. Let's venture 70 miles southeast - to Tombstone!

As I mentioned in a previous post, I took my Dad down to Tombstone on Labor Day weekend, pretty much on the spur of the moment. I was planning to go to Bisbee, but Tombstone was on the way. As we drove through there were people in costume standing around and I thought, never mind Bisbee today! As we got out of the car I heard gunfire - but it turned out to be only where paying customers could watch it. No matter.

It turned out that Tombstone was hosting a Redezvous of Gunfighters that weekend.

And there were all sorts of characters wandering about!

I even saw Bat Masterson, who left town months before the gunfight that made Tombstone infamous.

Of course the gunfight that Tombstone is famous for took place at the OK Corral - except that it didn't. Virgil, Morgan, and Wyatt Earp, and Doc Holliday faced off against Tom and Frank McLaury, and Billy and Ike Clanton in a vacant lot and alley behind the corral, and on Fremont Street. But as at least one writer has noted, that doesn't look good on a move marquee..

 The front of St. Michael's, 60 years after it was built.

I'm in the middle of promoting and preparing for St. Michael's 60th Anniversary. As I mentioned above, it was originally designed by a rather well-known architect named Joesler, who liked a "romantic revival" take on Spanish Colonial style. I've just started going through church archives and digitizing old photos and documents. I obviously didn't take any of those 1953 photos (I was only 6 years old, and living in Manlius, NY!), but if you're interested in history that goes almost exactly 60 years in Tucson, Arizona, you may want to scroll down for a peek at some of my recent entries. Then take a look at the other Robins' historic photos!

Karen

Linking List
as of Saturday, September 21st, 2013
1 AM MST

Freda - Posted!
Day One
http://fredamans.blogspot.ca

Karen - Posted!
Outpost Mâvarin
http://outmavarin.blogspot.com
http://www.facebook.com/mavarin

Carly - Posted!
Ellipsis
http://ellipsissuddenlycarly.blogspot.com

Jama - Posted!
Sweet Memories
http://mummyjam.blogspot.com

Round Robin: Gladly Beyond

somewhere I have never traveled, gladly beyond
any experience, your eyes have their silence:
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
or which I cannot touch because they are too near

--from Somewhere I Have Never Traveled by E. E. Cummings

For this week's Round Robin Photo Challenge: Someplace I've Never Been, I asked to see photos of someplace you've never been, whether it's a new restaurant half a block away or a whole new continent. (That's not exactly what I said, but you get the drift.) My inspiration is this: I've been going on long drives with my Dad, and exploring museums with him, sometimes on the same day. The idea is to try to keep his mind engaged with new experiences, and mine too. So where did I find to go last weekend that I'd never been before?

Well, here. I know it doesn't look like much; it's just an obscure little restaurant called Seoul Kitchen in a strip mall called Crossroads Festival, which sounds more festive than the shopping center deserves. I was looking for someplace different to take Dad, preferably something that would also work for RRPC. I'd seen the name of this Korean restaurant while driving by. Seoul Kitchen! Cute name! But when I initially chose it over Smashburger (what an exciting name for a burger joint!), parked and went up to the door with Dad and his walker, I almost chickened out on going in.  My tastes in food are not very adventurous, and I got pretty nervous when the posted menu items had names like Spicy Squid, Bi Bim Bap and Mandu Guk. Furthermore, I was not at all sure my dad could handle such choices; he barely copes with a menu in a familiar American chain restaurant. But he surprised me, pointing at menu items that had relatively familiar names and ingredients. "I think it's all right," he said, or words to that effect. Thus he very nicely shamed me into trying the place after all.

Having taken the plunge, I looked the menu over and actually went with an entree with a delightfully exotic name: Bi Bim Bap. This was a rice bowl with a little shredded beef, nicely crisp mung bean sprouts and other veggies, and a fried egg on top. I was a little disappointed there wasn't more meat, but that was my fault for choosing Bi Bim Bap over some of the meatier items. Dad had chicken with Yakisoba noodles, which is to say that he ate the chicken and left most of the noodles. That's exactly what he does with all pasta dishes, so I wasn't a bit surprised.

The neat thing about the meal was the extras. We started with miso soup, which was minimalist but nicely low carb. Then with the meal we had individual dishes of marinated veggies as seen above. I liked the cucumbers, and Dad actually liked the kimchi, which turned out to be fermented cabbage. That was a little too spicy for me, but Dad ate most of it. The service was excellent and the prices were right, so overall it was a successful adventure in going "somewhere I have never traveled, gladly beyond."

After lunch we went to the Ft. Lowell Museum at Ft. Lowell Park. I'd certainly been to the park before and photographed the ruins somewhat extensively, but I'd never been inside the actual museum. It turned out to be a total bust in terms of interesting Dad in its people or contents, but I enjoyed photographing a docent who wore period clothing and demonstrated how to load a period rifle.

Another docent was also connected with the Pima Air and Space Museum, which Dad and I had visited the week before. The part of it devoted to World War II is currently closed for expansion and renovation, but that was the area of this docent's particular interest. He was very interested in my Dad's history as a B-17 navigator and Stalag Luft 1 POW, which, by the way, my dad no longer remembers at all. I gave the docent Dad's particulars and my contact info. He promised to do some research and get in touch.

After that we went for a drive, as the monsoon got ready to start monsooning. I went looking for a back way to Mount Lemmon, and found myself on a section of Snyder Road that is definitely "Not a Through Street." Kind of pretty, though!

Eventually we made it by all-too familiar route to Catalina Highway. I took one more detour, onto a road less traveled, by me at least. But I'm not quite certain that I've never traveled it.

After that I couldn't resist driving up Mount Lemmon, a place I go all the time. But it doesn't usually look like it did that day! I brought back lots of pictures from that, some of them quite striking, I hope. But they definitely don't fit the "somewhere I've never been" criterion, so I'll post some of those in a separate entry.

Meanwhile, let's see what new places our other Robins photographed!

Linking List
as of Saturday, July 27th, 2013, 12:52 AM MST

Karen - Posted!
Outpost Mâvarin
http://outmavarin.blogspot.com
http://www.facebook.com/mavarin

Carly - Posted!
Ellipsis
http://ellipsissuddenlycarly.blogspot.com

Jama
Sweet Memories
http://mummyjam.blogspot.com


Karen

RRPC: The Old Fort

Two weeks ago when I posted the topic "The Old Place" for today's Round Robin Photo Challenge, I had a vague idea of going to Old Tucson for my photos, or maybe downtown. Over the years I've taken many hundreds of photos of historic places around Tucson - old office buildings, the courthouse, a movie location built in 1930s, midcentury modern buildings, old hotels and motels, even my own church. I could fill this entry up many times over with file photos, but I'd rather post something new!

This week when Friday afternoon arrived, I hadn't taken any new pictures for it yet; so I selected a closer, probably more appropriate locale: Fort Lowell. Please excuse my delay in posting - aside from one tv show and four hours of sleep, I have been alternating between this and my CPA review course auditing assignment for the past 19 hours.

From Fort Lowell, Arizona

Fort Lowell was established in 1873, near what is now the corner of Craycroft Road and Fort Lowell Road in Tucson, Arizona. At the time it would have been at the edge of town, or more likely beyond it.

The fort soon became a supply depot, garrison and trading center. From here troops were dispatched to protect settlers, wagon trains and supply wagons, and to fight the Apaches. After Geronimo's defeat, the need for the fort declined. Despite local protests, the army shut it down in 1891.

The main site is now Fort Lowell Park, located on the east side of Craycroft near the end of Ft. Lowell Rd. The photo above is of historic Cottonwood Lane, the tree-lined dirt road that nowadays leads from the modern parking lot past the Fort Lowell Museum.

The buildings were made of Sonoran-style adobe brick. This was a common, relatively quick and easy building material around here - still is, really. A disadvantage is that over the decades it crumbles away unless maintained and repaired.

The museum is housed in the reconstructed Commanding Officer's quarters. Two sides of this have overhangs for shade, edged with ocotillo ribs. Ocotillos are a spiky, tall flowering shrub that dries into sticks, only to grow new leaves and flowers during the monsoon.

If you look closely, you can see that at least some of the ocotillos in the museum's two fences are living plants.

The dogs were very interested in the closed museum entrance. Cayenne in particular wanted in!

The post hospital is in an advanced stage of decomposition. This is what happens to adobe during a century of neglect.

The hospital ruin is fenced off, with a roof over part of it to protect it from the desert sun. Carved letters can be seen on an inner wall of the remaining structure. I'm not sure whether that is old or recent graffiti. It could easily be both. At least it's not spray paint!

The historic site extends beyond the park onto Fort Lowell Road, where ruins and near-ruins co-exist with private homes. Here is an old house on which you can see the more modern facade added to the caved-in adobe.

San Pedro Chapel is also part of this historic neighborhood. I don't know anything about it other than that it has an historic marker, an adobe crypt and a sign about a concert.

As usual, I took many more photos than I can show here, so I've set up an online album for the best ones on Picasa. Click on any photo to get to it, and see larger versions of these and other photos.

Now let's tour the other Robins' old places!

Linking List

Karen - Posted!
Outpost Mâvarin
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Julie
Julie's Web Journal
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Ellipsis
http://ellipsissuddenlycarly.blogspot.com

Suzanne R - Posted!
SuzyQ421's Photo Blog
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Jama - Posted!
Sweet Memories
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Jessica
QuickSilver Dreams
http://www.thewatersedge.us/QuickSilver/

Monica - Posted!
Click Shots
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Terri
Ways I See the World
http://teelgeephotos.blogspot.com/

Gattina - Posted!
Keyhole Pictures
http://gattina-keyholepictures.blogspot.com/

Chris - Posted!
Camera Obscura RRPC
http://yecap1970rrc.blogspot.com

Liz
Visual Counterpoint
http://visualcounterpoint.blogspot.com/

Molly Mavis - Posted!
Visual Dialogues
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Nancy - Posted!
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-P ***Welcome new member!***
Its Only Words
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Mojo - Posted!
Why? What Have You Heard?
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TJ - Posted!
TJ's Photo EXPRESSIONS
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Linda - Posted!
Mommy's Treasures
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Rita ***Welcome new member!*** - Posted!
Cashjocky and the Old Salt
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Marina - Posted!
Milepebbles
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Connie - Posted!
Far Side of Fifty Photos
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Duane - Posted!
Meanwhile...
http://fdtate.blogspot.com

Teena - Posted!
It's all about me!
http://www.purple4mee.com

Wammy - Posted!
The Ellis Family Cincinnati
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Leslie **Welcome New Member** - Posted!
Empty Nest
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Vicki - Posted!
Maraca
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Karen **Welcome New Member** -Posted 03/22/09
In The Moment
http://inthemoment-karen.blogspot.com


And be sure to check the Round Robin blog for a heads up on the next topic!

Karen