Jessica Cyders Archives

July 13, 2014

North Riverfront Park

Brother Mark and I rode our bikes from his house near the Botanical Gardens, past the Gateway Arch, and onto the St. Louis Riverfront Trail, over Chain of Rocks Bridge and into Illinois. You can read an account of our 2004 adventure on my bike blog.

Chain of Rocks Bridge

The blog has some neat photos and some interesting history of the Chain of Rocks Bridge, which used to be part of U.S. Route 66. The unusual bridge has a 22-degree bend in it to allow river traffic to have uninterrupted navigation of the river.

Quick tour for Curator Jessica

When I took Curator Jessica to the airport last November, we had some time to kill, so I took her to the North Riverfront Trail where we parked at the Union Electric Light and Power Company. Whenever I park at a trailhead, I scope out the lot for broken glass that indicates that cars have been broken into while their owners were away. Bad guys figure that you’re going to be gone for awhile.

The lot passed that sniff test, but I still felt uneasy for some reason. I’ve parked there before and ridden my bike in the area without my hackles going up, so I don’t know what I was picking up.

Floodwall Art Project

We passed the Floodwall Art Project, a seven-foot tall, 150-foot long tile mural designed by ceramic artist Catherine Magel and created with the assistance of at least 1,500 youth and adults from at least six St. Louis communities. The mural displays the history of the natural world beginning with microscopic life forms, moves into sea life, graduates to earth creatures, then ends with migrating birds.

Here’s where you can find out more about the Great Rivers Greenway. You can click on the photos to make them larger, too.

I felt uneasy

Curator Jessica was thoroughly enjoying herself, but my feeling of unease was growing. We were the only ones around, so there was no obvious reason why I was picking up bad vibes, but I suggested that we head back to the car.

This weird feature on a pedestrian overpass is unsettling, but I don’t think it was what was poking at my lizard brain.

I told Jessica that my misgivings were probably unfounded, but I had learned over the years to trust that instinct that something isn’t as it should be. She gave me her normal eye roll and “crazy guy” look, but didn’t object to moving on. I fully expected to see my car broken into when we got back to the parking lot, but everything was as we had left it.

I’ll have to see if I get the same feeling the next time I go there.

July 10, 2014

Beer Comes to Ohio University

Curator Jessica called to ask if she could use one of my photos to promote the Athens Country Historical Society & Museum’s Historic Tavern Tours this week. It’s all part of the 9th Annual Ohio Brew Week Festival, not that university students need any excuse to quaff beer. [Miz Jessica explained to me later I was wrong. Brew Week was cooked up to help the bars out during the slow summer season when the student population drops off.]

Kenny Kerr pours the beers

It was a chilly February day in 1969 when Kenny Kerr (the guy with the shiny hairdo) of Kerr Distrubuting poured the first beers to be served in Ohio University’s Ohio Room in Baker Center.

You had your choice of Stroh’s, Stroh’s or Stroh’s. And, it was low-test 3.2 beer. Low-point beer, as it is more accurately called, is a beer that contains 3.2% alcohol by weight.

Since it could be sold to 18-year-olds, it eliminated having to determine if a drinker was 18 or 21. I don’t think I ever saw anyone carded at the Ohio Room, probably because most college students were at least 18.

Theory about binge drinking

When I was in Athens over Halloween, I debated going uptown to shoot the costumed pub crawl festivities, but opted out because (a) it was cold, (b) parking was a problem and (c) one of the OU Post’s former editors from my era said, “I got tired of having my shoes puked on.”

He went on to explain that we lived in a different era: we didn’t have any money in 1969. Students would pool their cash with a few friends, head over to the Ohio Room for a couple of pitchers of 3.2 beer, do some socializing, then go home. Now it’s all about large quantities of booze, he said, and the streets are filled with inebriated students engaged in inappropriate behavior, some of which finds its way onto the Internet.

Pouring beer like water

Here’s a gallery of photos of the day when Stroh’s beer poured like water – and according to some purists – tasted about the same. Stroh’s, by the way, had an interesting history. It started as a regional beer, then ended up as the third largest brewer in the country. It even marketed a Stroh’s ice cream. A whole bunch of market changes caused problems for the company, though, and in 1999, after being in business for 149 years, it sold its labels to Pabst Brewing Company and Miller Brewing Company.

Click on any photo to make it larger, then use your arrow keys to move through the gallery.

July 4, 2014

Have a Happy 4th of July

Mother doesn’t need a holiday to break out The Flag. Here she is with Curator Jessica on November 4, 2013.

With Robin and Mark

Robin Hirsch and Mark, October 17, 2011

Graham and Adam

Grandson Adam and Great-Grandson Graham, October 16, 2011.

Tulsa Branch

Amy, David and Diane July 21, 2013.

Florida Grands and Greats

Mother with Matt, Elliot, Carly, Adam, Graham, Malcolm and Sarah, the Florida Steinhoffs, on August 9, 2013.

Mother and Flat Stanley

Mother and Malcolm’s Flat Stanley for a school project November 1, 2011.

June 24, 2014

Eugene Beckett’s Smelterville Treasures

I hinted yesterday that I many have to cut back on blog posts while I rush to finish an update to my Smelterville stuff before the Vine Street Reunion July 25-27 and put together a workshop in Athens, Ohio, in August.

I’ve spent most of the past week editing video interviews. Today I waded through emails and comments from people who talked about Smelterville. That’s where I stumbled across a treasure trove of information. Just about this time last year, I got an email from Eugene Beckett. He said he had some photos of the area in the ’30s, ’40s and ’50s, plus a map that he had put together showing many of the landmarks. I asked if he could send me the info.

Consigned to the Future Basket

When it arrived, I looked at it hurriedly and put it in my Future Basket. Well, today, I took a closer look and was floored by what he had sent.

It dovetailed directly with my workshop topic. He did everything I’m going to encourage the participants to do

1. Make or collect the photographs
2. Document when they were taken
3. Write a description of what they show.

(Basically all the stuff I wish I had done for the past half century)

He went the extra step of producing the map of an area that doesn’t exist today.

Legend for map

1   – City Pump. The only water between the railroad and the river.
2   – Funny Ferrell’ Store
3   – Ben Cannon’s Church
4   – Old foundation of the Lead Smelter plant
5   – Central Packing Co.
6   – Fish Market
7   – River Navigating Light
8   – Blue Hole Garden Barbecue (the old Blue Hole Garden was at the bottom of toll-gate hill where they build the new hwy.)
9   – Standard Oil Service Station
10 – Federal Material Co. Office
11 – Kelley’s Store
12 – Sandy Beach.
13 – John Deiteker’s Store
14 – Lane’s Market
15 – Railroad switch house
16 – Booker T’s scrap yard

I told Curator Jessica that she needs to find a Eugene who has done that kind of documentation in the scores of old coal towns in SE Ohio that are ghost towns or merely memories. The goal of our workshop is to encourage people to go out today to start the documentation that will be invaluable in 30 or 50 years. I’m just beginning to realize what a resource my files are, and I’d like to encourage others to produce similar collections.

Living in Houck Woods during flood

One of Eugene’s photos is of his grandmother, Sarah Addie Bequette in a tent village in the Houck Woods up Tollgate Hill where Smelterville residents fled Mississippi River floodwaters. I’m going to guess this was the Flood of 1943. I had read accounts of that, but here is an actual photograph of one of those refugees. Eugene also wrote an extensive biography of Mrs. Bequette.

Here’s why his detective work and captions are so important: if you look at the photo without the background, you might think she’s on a camping trip or that there’s a tent revival set up in the background. Filling in that detail about the flood places it in historical context.

Thanks to Eugene for sharing his family documentation.

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