Yesterday, I received the email quoted below from former Montgomery County Council president Nancy Floreen in response to my blog post on Montgomery County employees writing letters to the editors of local newspapers on behalf of private citizens. Continue reading
Shortly after the Washington Post published its article on Montgomery County’s purchase of the property long believed to be the “real Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” the National Trust for Historic Preservation published a blog post reporting on the Post story. Titled, “Preservation Round-Up: Snafu! Edition,” the National Trust’s post was roundly criticized by Montgomery County preservationists. On November 30, 2010, two Montgomery Preservation, Inc., officers wrote a guest blog post for the National Trust for Historic Preservation titled, “Uncle Tom’s Cabin: Beyond History and Interpretation to the Internet.” Continue reading
Picking up on this morning’s blog post on my first visit to the National Archives at College Park with my new IPad, I am now sitting in the textual research room writing this post on the IPad. Continue reading
On Monday, November 29, 2010, I set out for the National Archives at College Park (Archives II) armed with my new IPad. This was my first research outing with the IPad. I was at Archives II on a project to identify Civilian Conservation Corps records related to a 1937-1940 lake improvement project in Wisconsin.
Wednesday afternoon, the day before Thanksgiving, I got a call from Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reporter Bob Bauder. Bauder was working on a story about the demolition of buildings located along the north shore of the Allegheny River in Pittsburgh. The reporter had gotten my name from a colleague who had kept a copy of a 1997 web page I had written about some historic preservation regulatory review work done along the road where the buildings known as the Millvale Industrial Park were located. Bauder wanted to get some more information on the building he had driven by many times and his story ran in the November 26, 2010, edition of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. Continue reading
Updated December 2, 2010
Montgomery County residents see a bleak future for vital public services and amenities due to an evolving budget crisis. Over the past several weeks, we have learned that public safety jobs may be cut and that revenues continue to disappoint county leaders. So in times that demand austerity, I wonder why Montgomery County officials believe we have the resources to undertake a public relations campaign to promote the development of the park formerly known as “Uncle Tom’s Cabin”? Continue reading
The Montgomery County Planning Department will hold a work session next week on the proposed Josiah Henson Special Park master plan. Today, the Montgomery County Parks Department posted its staff memo to the Planning Board detailing its cost estimates to develop the park. Parks Department staff estimates that it will cost between $3 and $5 million to implement the option recommended at the October 28, 2010 hearing. Continue reading
The Archaeology Channel – Video News from TAC, November 2010 (Tom King Interview).
Tom King, a Silver Spring resident, is interviewed by The Archaeology Channel. Continue reading
One hundred and sixty-three years ago this Thursday, gas lights replaced oil lamps in the U.S. Capitol. On the evening of Thursday, November 18, 1847, gas made in a plant beneath the Capitol flowed through newly installed pipes and into light fixtures throughout the building. “We witnessed last evening one of the most splendid and beautiful spectacles we ever beheld,” reported one Washington newspaper the next day. “It was the first time that the gas-lights of Mr. James Crutchett were exhibited.”
James Crutchett (1816-1889) was a self-styled engineer who briefly gained fame in 1847 for installing a gas-fueled lantern atop the Capitol dome in a failed bid to secure a contract to light the nation’s capital city. Crutchett spent the final 45 years of his life in Washington and his entrepreneurial exploits have largely been overlooked by Washington historians. His Capitol lantern scheme became a sidebar to architectural histories of the Capitol and his four decades as a gas man are little more than a footnote in the narratives on the history of Washington’s gas infrastructure. Continue reading
In 1997 the newsletter editor for the California Council for the Promotion of History read an email list post I had sent out documenting how the then-new Internet could contribute to revising historical research with factual errors. In that case, it was my factual error stemming from a Section 106 (National Historic Preservation Act) survey for a highway project (Internet Archive link) I had done a few years before the post.
Here is the reprint from the Fall 1997 California History Action newsletter:
