By Jessica Cole and Ben Swenson You would hardly guess by strolling down the timeworn Main Street in Pamplin City, Virginia that this small hamlet was once renowned as a giant in the manufacture of a very specific product. Today, … Continue reading →
by Jessica Cole Have you ever dreamed of what your past life might look like? To venture back centuries and hear the sound of hooves hitting cobblestone – or at the very least, the opportunity to purchase incredibly cheap groceries? … Continue reading →
Not much happens in Croaker, Va., a rural expanse named for a noisy fish. Yet there on a sprawling property, amid mountains of mulch and tidy lines of row crops, is a curious assemblage of United States presidents. The 43 … Continue reading →
This is the third in a six-part, yearlong series called Disappearing Virginia in Distinction magazine. This story originally appeared in the June issue as “The Sons and Daughters of Slabtown.” The letter was bureaucratically frank. “I have been advised that you have refused … Continue reading →
When Melcenia Fields failed to retrieve her groceries, railroad workers knew something was wrong. Fields, inexplicably to all but herself, lived in the ruins of Beury, WV, one of dozens of company towns in the New River Gorge that residents … Continue reading →
A fire smolders in an abandoned coal mine deep underground. Gases seep to the surface through fissures in the earth. A blue-collar Pennsylvania town vaporizes, chased away by the blaze. But this is not Centralia, where subterranean seams of anthracite have … Continue reading →
To hear William Byrd II tell it, these springs made wet dreams, allowing his exploring party’s “appetites to mend, our slumbers to sweeten, the stream of life to run cool and peaceably in veins, and if ever we dreamt of … Continue reading →
Great things have been accomplished in pursuit of drink. The Pilgrims made an early exit from the Mayflower because their beer was running low. New England may be the most prominent example of landmarks that exist because of the need … Continue reading →
Three remain. Not three villages, but three people. That’s of thousands who once counted themselves among the believers, scattered in two dozen communities from the Deep South to New England to the Midwest. Now just two women and a man–the … Continue reading →
I’m often asked for tips by folks who want to find and explore abandoned history, and the discussion always circles around to trespassing. “Do you ever ignore ‘No Trespassing’ signs?” they ask. My answer? No. There’s no reason to, especially … Continue reading →
New York City has its share of abandoned history, but none quite like the Renwick Ruin on Roosevelt Island. With its Gothic facade, the Smallpox Hospital, as it was once known, looks like some forsaken castle lost in time, better … Continue reading →
Teddy Roosevelt slept here. Or might have were he not the home-schooled, mountain-climbing, really-big-game-hunting, rough-riding-war-hero and boxer of a man he turned out to be. “Sleep when you die,” you can almost hear him bellowing. “I’m pressing on.” Despite that … Continue reading →
Eight out of every ten New York City skyscrapers originated here, not to mention every bridge and tunnel linking New Jersey and Manhattan. Wartime product was even grander: 1,127 World War II-era ships, as well as every 16-inch gun and … Continue reading →
Virginia’s iron industry was neither the first nor the largest in early America–those distinctions belong to Massachusetts and Pennsylvania. But the demand for day-to-day items such as nails and barrel staves and, later, armaments for the Confederacy, meant that some … Continue reading →
How many high-speed commuters drive by the towering shell of Chapman’s Mill—or any old mill, for that matter—and connect the crumbling ruins to the energy that allows them to zoom past? Not many, I’d wager. But as calls mount to … Continue reading →
There’s a good chance that if you’re better than 40 years old, you have a vivid recollection or two from a drive-in movie theater. After all, more than 4,000 of them once peppered the American landscape. For Bob Mondello, National … Continue reading →
A word to the wise: if you’re going to erect a monument to one of world history’s watershed moments, don’t do it like “Old John” Shaw did. Otherwise critics might similarly pan your work. “A monument crude and unsightly,” one … Continue reading →
Go big or go home, right? That’s no doubt what Henry Lee III was thinking when he signed a 900-year lease on land near the Potomac River’s Great Falls. In the 1790s, old Light-Horse Harry had high hopes for the … Continue reading →
It’s a stretch to imagine that this country village was once animated with knights, maidens, minstrels and jesters. The music of penny whistles and steinfulls of ale made day and night merry. Now, fifteen years later, a ghost town is … Continue reading →
St. Mary’s College and Chapel had a good run but, in the end, never had a prayer. The imposing structures were too big to survive disuse, the old grounds too perfect a milieu for mischief. Now all that’s left are … Continue reading →
