During the second half of the 19th century, when traveling sideshows were all the rage, the so-called wonders of the world were taken from city to city to be gazed upon by spectators aching to see bearded ladies, tattooed men, and other “curiosities” that often fed the colonialist fantasies of the Western mind. But among many of the attractions included in such shows there was, at one point, an unlikely protagonist: the giant sequoia of the Sierra Nevada.
Native only to this California region, giant sequoias are some of the most ancient and massive beings in the world. The largest specimen, the General Sherman Tree, is the biggest single-unit living organism in mass and volume in the planet. It stands at 275 feet above the ground, and weighs around 1,900 tons. The oldest known sequoias are about 2,500 years old.
Indigenous groups had known about the existence of the giants, but they remained unknown to western settlers until the 19th century, when, in 1851, a pioneer named A.T. Dowd, who was pursuing a bear, stumbled upon the Calaveras Grove at what is now Yosemite National Park. Word spread quickly, and nationalists claimed sequoias as proof of America’s greatness, while scientists from all over the world prepared their luggage and set out to see the trees with their own eyes. Some businessmen, meanwhile, were thinking of profits.
The initial reports and pictures of trees that rose hundreds of feet above the ground and had circumferences of more than 30 feet were, as could be expected, met with skepticism, often aggravated by inaccurate and exaggerated reports.
But it was a desire to monetize that skepticism and curiosity that motivated entrepreneurs like William Hanford, who bought the Discovery Tree, and with much toil, mining equipment, and steely resolve, felled it. His idea was to take the tree on a sort of traveling sideshow tour and charge people to see it.
[The tree] was taken off in sections, so that it can be placed, relatively, in its original position, and thus give the beholder a just idea of the gigantic dimensions of the tree. [...] Probably it will not be very long, therefore, before our readers will be able to get a view of this monster of the California woods for a trifling admission fee.
The Discovery Tree was then taken to San Francisco, where people paid 50 cents to see it, and eventually to New York. Ward Eldredge, Curator of the Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks, explains that it was a “big deal,” describing it as a sort of Coney Island experience, where the tree would be erected temporarily and people would line up to buy tickets to see it.
Yet, despite the public’s overwhelming curiosity, Hanford’s costly and arduous project did not prove profitable. The necessity of cutting and reassembling the giant made it appear fake, as spectators claimed it had been assembled from several trees. This was in part because some of the same spectators had fallen for P.T. Barnum’s hoax, which displayed what was actually a coastal redwood.
This failure, however, did not stop others. A tree named Mother of the Forest was the next victim, though this time, the tree was not felled, but rather peeled using scaffolds. The Discovery Tree and the Mother of the Forest were two of only three sequoias known to non-indigenous groups at the time, according to Michael Theune, Acting Public Affairs Officer at Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks. “And we killed two of them,” he says.
The plank peeled from the Mother of the Forest was around a hundred feet, proof of the astonishing size of the trees, yet without the need to cut and reassemble. It eventually made its way to the Crystal Palace in New York, before crossing the Atlantic to be exhibited at the larger Crystal Palace in London, where it was a huge success. The scarred tree remains standing, if also partially consumed fire and dead. The plank itself was destroyed along with the London Crystal Palace in an 1866 fire.
There were, of course, several other trees that met similar fates, and it’s even said that P.T. Barnum himself managed to acquire a legitimate sequoia plank for his shows. Others were taken to cities across the U.S., displayed at events like centennial anniversary of the American Declaration of Independence and the 1893 World Columbian Exposition.
Exhibitions, though, weren’t the only way people tried to profit off the sequoias. The Mammoth Tree Hotel started to be constructed in 1853 close to where the Discovery Tree Stump was located. A bowling alley was built on top of the body of the fallen tree, while dances and other events were held on its stump.
And then there was the lumber industry, which thought it had struck green gold. It was soon discovered, however, that the destructive fall rendered a large percentage of the tree unusable, and that the wood of sequoias was surprisingly brittle and unfit for manufacturing. Most of the harvested sequoia wood, in the end, was used for matchsticks, fences, and pencils. The lumber industry later gave up, discouraged by the low profit and the ever-growing outcries of conservationists, but not before causing heavy damage on the existing sequoia population, or as much as 34 percent in some areas.
Almost from the beginning, at any rate, there was criticism, like that of the naturalist John Muir, who said that peeling the Mother of the Forest was "as sensible a scheme as skinning our great men would be to prove their greatness."
Sequoia National Park, Yosemite National Park, and General Grant National Park (later incorporated into Kings Canyon National Park), were created in 1890, while the Calaveras Grove, the site of the Discovery Tree, became protected in 1931. Today, the giant sequoias are considered one of the natural gems of the world, though some of the damage can still be felt, like earlier this month, when the famed tunnel tree fell during a storm.
When the threat of nuclear weapons loomed during the 1950s, a whopping 928 atomic tests were performed in Nevada, mostly in Yucca Flat, a desert drainage site set aside by the U.S. government as the Nevada Test Site. This bout of nuclear experimentation also inspired a strange sociocultural movement uniquely tied to Nevada. In Vegas, there were "dawn parties" where gamblers would continue to carouse until the test signal alerted them to the impending mushroom cloud (and the end of the night). Numerous "Miss Atomic Bomb" pageants were held on the Strip, where the winner was guaranteed to be radiant.
The Cold War mercifully never turned hot, but half a century later, Nevada is left with the fallout of the atom age— literally and figuratively. Here are five spots that shaped atomic Nevada to pique your curiosity. (Please note that several of these spots are not accessible to the public, or are only accessible under particular circumstances.)
In 1955 a series of 14 nuclear test explosions known as “Operation Teacup” were set off in a swath of the Nevada desert, Yucca Flat, set aside just for this purpose. These tests were relatively common by this point, but this one was particularly memorable for the houses constructed at varying distances from the blasts to test the impact and effects of the explosions.
This cute little village was known collectively as “Survival Town”—or, somewhat less optimistically, “Doom Town.” The homes were populated by 1950s picture-perfect families (mannequins of course), bravely facing their imminent doom, frozen in their daily routines in dapper outfits. Much of Survival Town was decimated with the original blast along with other tests over the years, but some structures like the wooden house above still stand.
Tours of Survival Town and the surrounding test site are top security and in high demand, but well worth forgoing a cell phone for a few hours. They occur once every month.
The atomic age drew tourists to Nevada in droves. People would take a break from casinos on the Strip to sit in the hot desert sun, shield their eyes and watch the mushroom clouds from the biggest weapon known to man. Today, Las Vegas draws a whole new kind of atomic tourist with the National Atomic Testing Museum, a partner of the Smithsonian, which highlights the science, the history, the pop culture and sociology of one of America's most controversial periods.
Nuclear experimentation didn't end in the '50s, far from it. Some high level nuclear waste has a half-life of up to 24,000 years, so in 1997 a three-mile-long, 25-foot-wide hole was bored through Yucca Mountain. Its purpose is to store radioactive waste for the next 10,000 years and beyond. Deep in the Exploratory Studies Facility in the mountain, pellets of spent nuclear fuel held in specially configured metal racks will be sealed in wheeled canisters made of a corrosion-resistant metal.
The project is still ongoing after a number of reversals, but the fate of the Yucca Mountain Repository is in question as review committees make decisions about how to properly dispose of nuclear materials. There were public tours offered in previous years in an effort to sway public opinion, but as of now the only way to visit the federal site is with permission from the government.
The Sedan Crater, the largest manmade crater in America, is the result of a massive underground nuclear test. Part of Operation Plowshare, so named to reflect the use of the destructive energy for good instead of as a weapon, the Sedan explosion was meant to test if nukes could be used to displace large amounts of earth. Clearly, they can. When the 104 kiloton bomb was detonated 600 feet below the ground level, it lifted the ground above it into a dome over 300 feet high before it broke the surface, sending a massive shockwave of dirt cascading from its epicenter. According to the informational site that sits at the site today, over 12 million tons of dirt got blown away.
Today the giant crater is still there in the middle of the desert and is safe to visit, although tours occur only on a monthly basis (you can't just drop in). A viewing platform for these guided tours has been built on the lip of the giant divot so that atomic tourists can peer down into its depths. A small amount of plant life is even returning to the crater, making it seem a little less bleak.
While no actual atomic testing occurred at this bar, the oldest freestanding one in town, Atomic Liquors is certainly a part of Nevada atomic history. Originally a simple liquor store, a tavern license and rooftop service were added so customers could tipple a few “atomic cocktails” while watching the blasts 65 miles to the north (it being a time before people were aware of the dangers of observing nuclear testing).
All kinds of customers came: Construction workers drank alongside the Rat Pack, Barbra Streisand kicked back with the staff and played a little pool, and casino workers dropped by at all hours to cap off a long shift dealing blackjack. A kind of respite from the glitzier Strip, the Atomic and its classic good looks drew the attention of Hollywood too, eventually appearing as a set location in “The Twilight Zone,” and later in the films Casino and The Hangover.
Atomic Liquors has held down its corner of Fremont Street for over six decades. The bar was restored to its original configuration, with the famous neon kept intact. You can still order up some atomic cocktails, though the view of mushroom clouds is long gone.
If you have a steady hand, an eye for detail, and a love of latitude and longitude, Bellerby and Co. would like to hear from you. The London-based company is one of the world’s few remaining traditional globe-makers, and they’re looking to take on an apprentice.
The job may sound dreamy, but it’s not easy. Applicants should be prepared for a long training period. Everyone at Bellerby starts out as an apprentice, and it takes at least six months to learn to make the smallest and simplest globes, and years to make the bigger ones.
This is largely because their globes are all made by hand, with every detail meticulously painted in. It takes a lot of practice to create entire coastlines and mountain ranges with only a bit of paint, including building up muscle memory.
“Globe making involves a unique set of skills that take a long time to get the hang of,” says Sam Clinch, a globemaker who has been working at Bellerby and Co. for a year and a half, and remembers the challenge of her apprenticeship. “You’re training your hands to remember the curve of the gore.”
Gores are the strips of map laid down over the globe, and apprentices start by applying them to reusable practice globes.
“You make a globe as well as you can and then strip the paper off at the end of the day and start all over again,” explains Clinch. “Gradually you learn from each attempt.”
It’s a demanding process, but it pays off—Bellerby and Co. globes end up in museums, blockbuster films, and homes around the world.
If globe making is your calling, details on applying can be found on the company’s blog.
Fredric John Baur may not be a household name, but he did invent something almost universally recognizable: the Pringles can. Having secured the patent for the famous tubular container for the distinctively stacked potato chips, Baur left a rather unusual request in his will. He asked that his ashes be buried in a Pringles can.
Baur was a chemist who specialized in food storage research and development for Proctor and Gamble in Cincinnati. In 1966, when almost every other potato chip came in bags, Baur developed the iconic tube, stating that, “the Pringles can was a revolution within the realm of snack food.”
He stipulated that upon his death, a portion of his cremated ashes would be sealed up in a Pringles tube. Passing away at the age of 89, it was left to his children to act out his peculiar final wish. In a 2008 interview with Time, eldest son Larry described how they stopped at a Walgreens on their way to the funeral home to buy a can of Pringles. They decided on the classic original flavor to send their father off in style.
Today in a peaceful cemetery in the Cincinnati Springfield Township, surrounded by much fancier coffins and graves, is the final resting place of Fredric Baur in his famous invention.
While driving from Nashville to Memphis there is a bit of musical history that's not to be missed. In Brownsville, Tennessee an old blacks-only schoolhouse has been restored and turned into a museum honoring the legacy of its student-turned-superstar, Anna Mae Bullock, better known as Tina Turner.
The one-room Flagg Grove School was one of the first schools for African Americans in the South, built in the 1880s. It was originally located in the small town of Nutbush, where Turner grew up (you may remember her song “Nutbush City Limits”?) and attended grade school in the rustic building in the 1940s.
Located in the old schoolhouse, the Tina Turner museum includes a collection of photographs of the beloved diva, her outlandish dresses and costumes including outfits from some of her most famous performances, old yearbooks, and gold and platinum records.
The schoolhouse remained in use up until the 1960s, after which it stood as an old barn until 2012 when it was restored and moved to its current location off Interstate 40. The museum was opened with the help and guidance of Turner, as well as donations from her fans. It is part of the West Tennessee Delta Heritage Center, which also includes the childhood home of blues musician Sleepy John Estes, located next door, and exhibits dedicated to the area's heritage and musical history, namely the blues.
Though the schoolhouse and its museum are small, they're well worth the stop off the highway. The people at the center are very welcoming and there are frequent musical events worth checking out.
In Saltney, which lies on the northwest border of England and Wales, there was, until recently, a cat that might greet you in the aisles of the local Morrisons, part of a chain of British supermarkets.
His name was Brutus, and, since about 2010, he'd managed to endear himself to local Morrisons shoppers, eventually scoring over 12,000 likes on his Facebook page.
Brutus was beloved, his owners said, for his "cattitude," often jumping into shoppers' carts just to investigate.
Brutus died earlier this month from an incurable kidney disease, but since then his owners have launched a crowdfunding campaign to build a statue for the cat at the market. Their efforts managed to take in over £1,000, or around $1,250, in less than 24 hours, according to the Chester Chronicle.
"We all loved Brutus and we often shopped at Morrisons just to give him a cuddle," wrote one Facebook user.
As of this writing, Brutus's owners have reached nearly half their goal of £5,000, with 23 days left to go. Which means that, for now, a permanent memorial for Brutus is looking pretty likely.
Rest in peace, departed friend, you may soon get the statue you deserve.
In June of 1907, prospector James McDuffy struck gold in north central Nevada, leading to the immediate creation of the mining town of Gold Circle. Over the next few years, the town became filled with miners and, two years later, Gold Circle was renamed to Midas when the federal government refused to build another post office with “gold” in its name.
Following the discovery of gold, Midas immediately grew, expanding to a small town of 5,000 with four real estate offices, five hotels, town dances, a red-light district, and shootouts in Main Street. The mining town thrived for over three decades until 1942, when the boomtown lost its “Midas Touch.”
In the middle of World War II, the unpredictable gold economy in Midas finally ran dry and all mining operations ceased. The town’s post office was permanently shut down and the local school was forced to close after its enrollment dropped below the three student threshold. Nowadays, the doctor’s office, jail, hotels, and feeding stables that were established in the early 1900s have largely rusted over. The remains of the old mines, mills, and cemeteries have been left to erode and decay.
But there is one remnant of Old Midas that remains open to this day in its original form: the Midas Saloon and Dinner House. In recent years, Midas Ghost Town has experienced a minor revitalization and now houses a small population of 20 retirees, leading to a demand for a restaurant in town. Bringing burgers, beers, and history to the table, the Midas Saloon was restored, and to this day it is single-handedly keeping the town's history alive and well.
By the standard of land on Earth, the island of Mauritius is quite young. Rocks found on the island are no more than 9 million years old, a fraction of the age of rocks on large continents, which date back billions of years. Islands tend to be new land, formed relatively recently by dramatic geologic events.
But a new report, published in Nature Communications, identified tiny grains of mineral, embedded in otherwise young rocks, that were much older—2.5 to 3.0 billion years old. Those zircon crystals indicate, the authors write, that underneath Mauritius is a piece of ancient continental crust, hidden below the young island.
Geologists had already been thinking that seemingly young islands might have fragments of continental crust hidden below. In Mauritius, models had shown that the crust under the island was thick, and zircons dating back hundreds of millions of years had been found on the beach. In their study, the scientists located outcroppings of 6-million-year old volcanic rock. From one sample of that rock, they extracted thirteen grains of zircon; three of those grains had the characteristic of ancient continental crust.
These results lead the report’s authors to propose that Mauritius and other potential continental fragments, which they call, collectively, “Mauritia,” actually has an ancient continental crust underlying it—there’s a previously unknown piece of ancient continent hiding under the ocean. That land would have formed part of ancient Madagascar and India and been fragmented during the early Cretaceous period, as the Indian ocean formed.
One little piece of that ancient continent, though, stuck around long enough to be covered in young lava and form the island of Mauritius. About six million years ago, tiny specks of mineral from billions of years ago got caught up in a burst of lava and came back to the surface, where eventually scientists were able to discover them.
The village of Elsecar, like many villages in Northern England, once relied almost completely on the mining of iron and coal for its economy. It’s a tradition that Elsecar is proud of, and works hard to preserve. Many shadows of this hard-scrapple past can be seen at the town's Heritage Centre, including one of the most important remnants of the Industrial Revolution in the area, a fully restored and functioning steam engine that dates back to 1795.
It’s called a "beam engine," a landmark design by an 18th century ironmonger named Thomas Newcomen, who first dreamed up this harnessing of steam in 1712. Unlike later engines that relied on high-pressure steam, the Newcomen used atmospheric pressure. It was not the most efficient machine, but with coal practically flowing like water in Elsecar, it was still cheap to operate. So cheap, the engine stayed in full service until 1923 (even used as a standby as late as 1930).
The engine was used to pump water from the Elsecar New Colliery (coal mine), a task it completed at a remarkable rate of more than 600 gallons a minute. It moved so much water, over so many years: It’s estimated that the old reliable Newcomen pumped out over ten billion gallons (that’s 40 billion liters) in its 135-year working life, allowing access to coal seams at much greater depths.
Thanks to a restoration grant, the beam engine, mineshaft, and engine house have been restored and preserved, and can now be seen at the Elsecar Heritage Center, about 10 miles north of Sheffield in Northern England. The Elsecar Newcomen beam engine is the only atmospheric engine in the world that still sits where it was originally installed, and it’s the oldest beam engine of any type in its original position.
If not exactly a champion of efficiency, the Elsecar beam engine won the crown for longevity, a characteristic that caught the eye of Henry Ford, building those cars over in America. It’s said he offered a blank check to take the engine off Elsecar’s hands. Needless to say, the answer was “no.”
The landlocked state of Iowa is not the place you'd expect to find one of the few cities in the world to base their government on an island. Yet this tiny island in the middle of the Hawkeye State is home to the Cedar Rapids City Hall, courthouse and jail, a clever bit of urban planning that centralizes the local government and unifies the communities on either side of the river.
Situated in the Cedar River, Mays Island, also known as Municipal Island, also serves as the key landmark for the postal system in Cedar Rapids. It is the center of a quadrant system that demarcates the northwest, northeast, southwest and southeast. Every address in the city is covered by a quadrant, except for the three buildings on Municipal Island.
The island itself is small, about four blocks long and one block wide. It’s National Register for Historic Places nomination form colorfully notesthat the shape somewhat resembles that of a battleship: the government buildings as bow and aft conning towers, the bridges as mooring lines, and the underground parking garage floating draft.
The buildings on Municipal Island are also worthy of note. On the northern tip is a combination City Hall, veterans memorial, and convention center. It boasts a two-story stained glass window designed by famed Iowan artist Grant Wood. On top of the building a towering cenotaph is based on the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington National Cemetery.
To the south, facing the City Hall, is the Linn County Courthouse. It is a stately Beaux Arts building connected via sky bridge with the adjacent jail. Beautiful Great Depression-era murals and a three-story rotunda decorate the interior.
In early 2015, Dave Schweiger, a longtime Las Vegas resident, came home from work to find his teenage daughter sitting on the lawn, surrounded by six bunnies. These weren't the dun-colored jackrabbits of the Nevada desert: they were bonafide domestic bunnies, sleek and multipatterned, with cute ears and fuzzy coats. The Schweigers, who are animal lovers, were unfazed. They started buying extra carrots on their weekly trip to Costco.
But six bunnies doesn't stay six bunnies for long. Within two months, there were 24 living under the Schweiger's shed. When, with the help of a local rescue center, Dave caught them and took them to the vet to get neutered, he found out several of his new friends were pregnant again. "In another month, we would have had over 50," he says. If they hadn't taken action, the Schweigers' yard might have turned into a common, but little-known Sin City feature: the bunny refugee camp.
The yards, parks and lots of Vegas are home to thousands of feral rabbits. Known as "bunny dump sites" to the legions of volunteers that care for their residents, they're strange places, more tragic than adorable, where the human heart clashes with the limited resources of the state. Released by overwhelmed pet-owners and left to breed, the rabbits now overwhelm any attempt at government control, digging up public property, chewing on pipes, and ending up dead in the sewers. To survive, they depend entirely on the kindness of self-identified "bunny-lovers"—volunteers faced with an impossible task.
Schweiger works near one of the more legendary dump sites, a state-run mental health facility in the center-west of the city. It's home to hundreds, if not thousands, of rabbits—although if you didn't already know that, you might not find out. "You go out to the field and you don't see any," Schweiger says. "I start throwing out hay, romaine lettuce, and carrots, and they just come out of everywhere."
Schweiger runs an awareness-building website called Las-Vegas-Bunnies.com, and often meets other concerned citizens at this particular site to feed and check on the rabbits. In a video from his most recent visit, scores of excited bunnies traipse over the dead grass and under the picnic tables as volunteers strew bits of lettuce across the ground.
The facility was also the site of the most recent official attempt to address the problem. Last year, the state gave V Animal Sanctuary, a local farm and domestic animal shelter run by Sacbe Meling, a $17,000 contract to capture, spay, and rehome a few hundred rabbits. In a Channel 13 News investigation, the state said it expected 80 percent of the rabbits to be gone within six months. But although Meling did what he was supposed to—he says he got 258 rabbits off the property, although many were too sick to rehome—it wasn't nearly enough, and whatever dent he made in the feral population was filled within months.
In Meling's view, his experience illustrates the many intractable issues facing anyone who tries to pull off a long-term fix. "The issue is not one that can be fixed in a couple of months, or even a year, without a proper budget," he says. He estimates that, even if volunteers did all the work, at least $1.5 million would be required—money that citizens could, and likely would, argue should be spent elsewhere. "There's going to be a group that's going to complain, 'Why's that going for animals? Why not for homeless people, or for the vets?'" Meling says.
In the very small chance you managed to drum up the funds, there's the problem of space—what hoppens in Vegas has to stay in Vegas, but where? "Once you take them, where are you going to put them?" he asks. "Someone's going to have to float a whole property for rabbits, and I don't see that happening. I think it's just a never-ending issue." The state did not respond to a request for comment.
In the meantime, various volunteers and groups work to make the situation a little more tenable for the rabbits. Their most effective option—"trap, neuter, return," in which bunnies are spayed or neutered and then brought back to the wild—is technically illegal in Las Vegas, as the "release" part of it constitutes abandonment. Instead, they focus on keeping them strong and healthy, so they can survive their lives' many difficulties. They're territorial, and if food is scarce, they'll fight each other. Snow and heat both take a toll on them. Although hunting, culling, or poisoning the rabbits is illegal, there have been rumors of bowhunting, and last summer some volunteers found avocado—deadly to baby rabbits—stuffed deep into a warren.
Schweiger, who walks past a local crew of bunnies every night with his wife, goes through a few 10-pound bags of Costco carrots per week, along with a dozen or so heads of romaine. Evenings and weekends he goes to the state facility, where he regularly leaves big jugs of water. Of his 1500 or so Facebook friends, Schweiger estimates 1200 are fellow rabbit helpers, each with their own chosen territory. "There's people at Floyd Lamb State Park, people at Sunset Park," he says. "We've got a bunch of rogue bunny-lovers all over, feeding."
Education is another vital prong in the volunteers' approach. A lot of people don't know the truth about pet rabbits, says Schweiger. If people are dissuaded from adopting one before they're truly ready, they're less likely to abandon them—and if they're empowered to treat them well, they might be encouraged to adopt one of the many rescue bunnies that he and others are currently fostering. On a Facebook wall called "Bunnies Matter in Vegas Too," successful rescues with names like Oreo and Patriot twitch their noses and explain what is required to properly take care of them—chew toys, a good pen with a litter box, a local vet who's willing to handle the occasional bout of rabbit colic.
Schweiger himself is back up to seven rabbits—two in the garage, five in the house. If possible, he'd like to rehome them, but in the meantime, he's ok with being greeted by them every evening, sleek and happy in their pens, safe from starvation, poison, and other rabbits. "They're such good bunnies," he says. "If I can ever get them adopted, people would be amazed."
Naturecultures is a weekly column that explores the changing relationships between humanity and wilder things. Have something you want covered (or uncovered)? Send tips to cara@atlasobscura.com.
The town of D'Hanis was the third settlement founded by Henri Castro, a Alsatian employee of the Texas Congress charged with populating the desert with European immigrants. He named the village after one of his top employees upon its groundbreaking in 1847. It was inhabited by a just few dozen families in mesquite shacks.
As the town grew the shacks were replaced by European-style stone buildings. A post office and a schoolhouse made it a real town. The church of Saint Dominic was built, and priests from another of Castro's settlements held mass there.
D'Hanis wasn't quite substantial enough to be included as a railroad stop though. When the newly laid tracks skipped over D'Hanis, residents picked up and moved closer to the tracks. The new D'Hanis just a half mile away, centered around a railroad depot.
The only thing that remained in Old D'Hanis was Saint Dominic's Catholic Church. Churchgoers continued to attend mass there until a fire ravaged the old building in 1912. In 1915 new church was built closer to town and the ruins of Saint Dominic's were left behind.
Little is left of Old D'Hanis aside from the ruins. The history of the town might be lost to time if not for the cemetery attached to the church, in which D'Hanis' original settlers are interred. The grave markers themselves are French-German in style, and the epitaphs, though difficult to read, tell much about the people who lived in Old D'Hanis.
Alexander Bohemia Hoffman's gravestone reads, "Killed by Indians in Uvalde County;" Mary Anne Rudinger's states, "The first death upon arrival of settlers at Dhanis May 25, 1847 Carrying smaller children over streams she became ill and died on above date."
New D'Hanis is still small, with a population of 550 or so. The ruins of Saint Dominic Catholic Church and the D'Hanis Cemetery are part now of the D'Hanis Historic District. The district was added to the National Register of Historic Places on June 24, 1976.
We're living in crazy times, and sometimes you've got to take a few minutes to blow off some steam. Two men in China did just that last weekend, taking to the streets for a dramatic fireworks duel.
Each man began with a packet of fireworks attached to a long stick. They then lit their packets and ran to and fro in the empty road, screaming. After a few moments, the fireworks began to go off, and smoky masses of green and red sparks blasted across the road. When it was over, the two ran off, cackling.
The People's Daily posted a video of the fight on Twitter, where people responded appropriately. "This looks fun as hell though in an odd way," one viewer remarked.
The occasion was Spring Festival Eve, the night before the Lunar New Year. On the Chinese calendar, we just crossed over into the Year of the Fire Rooster. Congratulations, guys—this is absolutely something a fire rooster would do.
Every day, we track down a fleeting wonder—something amazing that’s only happening right now. Have a tip for us? Tell us about it! Send your temporary miracles to cara@atlasobscura.com.
Crossing the border from Tajikistan to Afghanistan is often highly dangerous or outright impossible, but in Afghanistan’s panhandle-shaped Wakhan Corridor anyone can freely cross the border even without a visa. Welcome to the Ishkashim Market, a strip of no man’s land where locals from both countries meet to buy and sell each other’s crafts.
The mountainous Panj River is the dividing line between Ishkashim, Tajikistan and the Afghan town of the same name on the other side. The river is a neutral “no man’s land” between the two countries, meaning that any structure in the center of the river is easily accessible by both Afghans and Tajiks, so long as they return to their respective countries after visiting.
The Ishkashim Market, located in the center of the Panj River, is exactly that. The border bazaar is accessible to locals from both sides, and occasionally foreign tourists in Tajikistan who have visiting Afghanistan on their bucket list. To enter the market, no long immigration process is required; an armed guard will simply take your passport (preventing you from passing on to the Afghan side) and instruct you to cross a bridge to the market.
Inside the Ishkashim Market, you can haggle for delicious food, Afghan trinkets, pakol hats, and Tajik souvenirs. In addition to handcrafted goods, foreign products can also be found, including cheap clothing and household items from China, and more disconcertingly, World Food Programme aid packages for sale. The market is also an optimal spot for people watching.
The Ishkashim Market is open every Saturday, unless violence or disease are present in the area. Whenever it’s open, it’s a remarkable display that friendship and commerce can cross both rivers and borders.
The first person to hike the full length of the Appalachian Trail, a white man named Earl V. Shaffer, wanted to “walk the Army out of his system.” That was in 1948. Since the 1970s, when 775 hikers completed the trail, the number of “thru-hikers” has doubled each decade so that in the 2000s, close to 6,000 hikers covered all 2,190 miles.
Most of those people still look like Shaffer—they’re white men. Only about a quarter of thru-hikers are women, according to the Appalachian Trail Conservancy, and though there’s little information about the racial breakdown of thru-hikers, it’s safe to say that the vast majority of them are white.
Last year, Rahawa Haile, a writer now based in Oakland, California, became one of the very few black women to attempt to hike the entire trail. (She was able to find exactly one other attempting the feat in 2016.) In March, she began in Georgia, the more popular end of the trail to start on, and by the middle of October had hiked its entire length. She carried along with her, too, a series of books by black authors, which she left in trail shelters along the way.
Haile spoke to Atlas Obscura about the challenges and joys of hiking all those miles and the particular experience of being one of the few people of color spending months on the trail.
When did you first start thinking about thru-hiking?
The first time I climbed a mountain was when my good friend John Coyne took me to Bear Mountain, outside of New York City. He said, "I know you like being outside, I know you love mountains, and they hold a fascination with you. Would you like to hike with me and my family?" I climbed Bear Mountain, and it was a life-changing experience. There was still snow and ice on the ground that March, and I slipped and fell on my butt many times. It’s an intro climb. There are stairs carved into the mountain. It’s not like I was climbing Mount Washington. We were standing on the mountain, and John said, "This is the Appalachian Trail. These are the white blazes." I thought, these marks go from Georgia to Maine, and that’s incredible. And I thought, maybe I could hike this trail one day.
I had a dull real estate-adjacent day job that didn’t pay me well. I was depressed and trying to write on the side. I realized I was the most unencumbered I would be in my entire life. I didn’t have kids or a mortgage. No car payments. I was in decent health. I thought, you either hike the AT at this age—I was 31 when I started my thru-hike—or you wait until you’re 60. You’re not going to get another opportunity. I would meet older people who’d say I wish I had your back, I wish I had your knees. I thought, I still have my back, I still have my knees.
I told a friend from Portland in October of 2014 that this was something I was going to work towards over the next year and a half. That’s when it started. I spent all my free time researching the trail, the gear I’d need. I stopped writing. I started saving up. I barely went out. I barely bought clothes for myself. It wasn’t until a few months ago when I was looking at photos of readings I gave from 2014 and 2015 that I realized all of them have me wearing the same four shirts.
There’s a great deal of privilege that goes into thru-hiking. The idea of broke hikers in the wild, where you don’t have to pay for a place to live and your only expense is food—that’s bullshit. You have to buy your gear. You have to travel. You have to take six months out of your life. You have to find a way to feel safe. That’s one of the reasons the trail look likes it does.
I knew that going into this hike it wouldn’t just be a hike: There’s no movement in America for black women that’s just about movement, especially throughout the South.
At the end of January of 2016, I quit my job. My boyfriend and I had split up. I packed all my belongings. I moved my things into my friend’s basement, handed my cat to another friend, and flew to Oakland, where friends were letting me crash for a month. There’s a ton of hiking in the Bay Area, and it was a good chance to prepare. People think that the thru-hike was the biggest thing I did in 2016, but my relationship ended, I moved out of my apartment on January 31, I quit my job February 1. And then I flew across the country on February 2. Those were three very big days.
When did your attraction to mountains start?
I’ve always been outdoorsy. In Florida, where I’m from, that means the swamp, the Keys, the Everglades, the beaches. I try to explain to people that this was a very important factor toward what gave me the confidence to hike the trail—I never felt that nature was a place where I didn’t belong. I know that, historically and through systemic racism, the outdoors was the purview of wealthy, white men. But, growing up, endless exposure to nature was a huge thing to me.
I started reading thru-hiking blogs online. I spent a good chunk of 2014 and 2015 reading them. That’s where most people know of my affinity for the mountains. I kept tweeting about thru-hiking blogs.
There’s a pretty good series of tweets, it’s threaded from a few years back. I wrote, "Wow, thru-hiker blogs have replaced short story collections for me." I considered myself a part of literary Twitter at the time and often tweeted about short stories. I wrote them as well. I said, "I have no idea how these people hike the AT." When I went hiking this year, I responded to the original tweet with “let’s find out.”
That’s the first time I noticed, this matters to me. This is something I can’t stop consuming.
Part of your plan for your hike was to bring books by black authors with you and leave them along the trail. When did you come up with that plan? What inspired it?
In 2015, I started a Twitter project called Short Story of the Day. This was a way to say, “This is the extent that I can participate in literature at this moment.” Diversity matters to me. Many of the most celebrated short story collections are by white men, so on Twitter I published one short story a day by underrepresented groups.
When I thought about 2016—how can I participate in literature this year?—I thought, I want to bring these books places no one likely has. I want to document where black brilliance belongs. There’s so much talk about where the black body belongs. Most of my hike was saying, this is a black body, and it belongs everywhere. These books were a way of me saying, black intellect belongs here, too. I was hoping that by carrying these books and taking them to these incredible vistas, fellow people of color might say, “If those books can go there, so can I.”
I would leave the books at the shelters. I attempted to create a library of black excellence along the Appalachian Trail. That’s why I focused on short story collections, poetry collections, essay collections—something that people can spend a half-hour reading. People would message me and say, "I found this, and I liked it." Or, "I read this, and it didn’t resonate with me but thank you for leaving this material."
How did your books compare with other books you found in those shelters?
Leaving a book in a shelter is like leaving trash. I don’t think the books I left will be around longer than this season. Many people just leave books because they don’t want to carry them. People will leave part of the book, and that is considered a dick move. No one is going to enjoy reading chapter 17 of a book they don’t know. Books that are left in shelters are also used as kindling, because it’s hard when it rains all the time on the Appalachian Trail to find dry wood.
Mostly, it was Harry Potter as far as the eye could see. I saw many copies of The Girl on the Train. I saw many, many copies of Bryson’s A Walk in the Woods. I was surprised that I didn’t run across a single copy of Wild. Tennessee has a Bible in almost every shelter. The people who maintain the trail provide them.
What’s interesting to me is that hostels act as libraries. They’re a place where people can leave a book, take a book. In the South, there weren’t that many, but the farther north you went you’d start seeing some Zora Neale Hurston, some Toni Morrison. The best library I saw all trail was in Maine, at a hostel right before the 100 Mile Wilderness. The person who runs it is a former English teacher, and it had a diverse, top-notch library. It was the first time I felt like I wasn’t in the whitest space ever.
I should be clear that the trail itself was the kindest and most generous white space imaginable in America. I have nothing but good things to say about the thru-hiking community. It’s incredibly warm. I don’t know if I’ll ever experience something like that again.
Maybe this is a good time ask you about that. You found the hiking community so warm, as you’re saying, but you also posted on Twitter this one picture of you and a couple of other black hikers with a comment about the intense conversation you’d had with them.
That photo I took—there’s a Confederate flag at that hostel. We had just finished talking about how we were spending our money at a hostel that flew a Confederate flag. The men I was talking to, they tried to get hitches into town—you hitch into town to resupply or take a night off—and they’d be hanging out with their friends, three white guys and a black guy. And people would stop and would say, "We’ll take those three, but we won’t let you in our car."
There are two sides to the trail. There’s hiking the trail, but there’s also having to go into trail towns. You need food, you need to do that laundry. It’s not the trail that’s the problem with the trail. It’s what it’s like to be bothered in places that don’t expect to see you.
People were kind. Some people said, "I don’t see many people of color hiking, and it’s great that you’re hiking, and I hope that’s okay for me to say." One hostel owner in Virginia was incredible. His name is The Captain, and he came up to me and said, "It’s so good to see a black girl hiking." He said, "I’ve been doing this for years, and I’ve barely seen any people of color—I demand to see a summit photo when you get to Katahdin."
We haven’t talked about the actual hiking part of your hike yet... how was your hike?
Holy shit, it hurt. It hurt so much. There were several Triple Crowners on the trail. They had hiked the Pacific Crest Trail and the Continental Divide Trail, and they were doing the AT to get their Triple Crown. They were pissed. They were like, you don’t have switchbacks. We come from the land of happy switchbacks. On the East Coast, the trails just go straight up. You frequently have, in New Hampshire and Maine, more than 1,000 feet of elevation gain in less than a mile.
The trail is the steepest at its two ends. Most people go northbound. You show up in Georgia, and you don’t have your trail body, and you’re carrying too much weight. You’re going up and down these incredibly steep mountains. There are people who don’t have a ton of hiking experience. The two groups that seemed to have a huge advantage, at least at the start, were runners, especially marathon runners, and chefs, people who were used to being on their feet 70 hours a week. That was a huge deal.
It was difficult. There were sections of trail where it’s just rocks and copperheads and where it doesn’t look like a trail at all. When I finished the trail, I thought, I will never thru-hike again. But recently I started looking up PCT hikes, and when I looked up photos, I was shocked, like, that looks like an actual trail! A guy I hiked with up north does trail maintenance in Colorado, and he said that often the Appalachian Trail follows the fall line, so you just have this crazy jumble of rocks to climb down.
The hardest thing, though—holy shit, climate change. People were like, how were your feet? Why don’t you ask me about hiking in the mid-Atlantic during the hottest July ever recorded? Because there was no water. There was no water anywhere. Fewer people would have finished the hike if there hadn’t been trail angels leaving huge caches of water at road crossings. That’s the only way I made it through Pennsylvania. In Maine you’re supposed to get your feet wet and ford a stream every day. I had to ford one stream during my entire time in the state. That is bad. That is absurd. I feel like I walked through one of the most severe droughts the East Coast has ever seen, and no one is talking about that.
The Appalachian Trail doesn’t have the system of water caches that the PCT does in the desert. I think you’re going to start seeing that appear.
What are some other strong memories, of good days or bad days?
A low day? All of Pennsylvania was a low day. They call it Rocksylvania. Once you leave the town of Duncannon, going north, it’s really hard, and there was no water, and the temperature was in the 100s. Having your feet ache nonstop, being thirsty nonstop, being more sweaty than you thought possible…nothing was worse for me than the monotony of rock... rock... copperhead... rock... rattler... rock.
One of my favorite days was in Maine. I was hiking the Saddleback range. I felt so free. It was so beautiful. My body felt so strong. I felt complete freedom. Many people say the White Mountains are their favorite section, and granted, I think the single most beautiful place I hiked was Franconia Ridge in that range. But the Whites are also swarming with tourists. You can drive up to the summit of Mount Washington!
In Maine, there’s hardly anyone. The difference is night and day. It was so freeing. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky. I was above treeline. The state has one of the most racist governors in the country, and I was thinking, I don’t know how many people who look like me have stood here. I felt so lucky that I got to make myself into what I’d become by the time I reached Maine.
I remember holding the flag of Eritrea in front of the northern terminus AT sign, knowing that I’m probably the first Eritrean to thru-hike. So much of the news that comes out about my country is depressing and rightly so. To have this one positive meant a lot to me, and I know it meant a lot to my parents and to other Eritreans.
We talked some earlier about the whiteness of the trail, but what was your experience with its maleness?
Most statistics report the trail is about 75 percent men. This year, there were so many women—I’d be shocked if it was under 33 percent. It was still a very, very masculine space. But I saw so many women. Some of them had hiking partners, but there were also so many solo hikers. I look forward to seeing the Appalachian Trail Conservancy stats for this year. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t think Wild had anything to do with it. There were SO many women. And I didn’t feel the weight of walking as a woman to the same degree as walking as a black person, though both were there.
Talk more about that. How did you feel that weight day to day?
In the day to day, it was fine. Let’s say I’ve left the town, I’m on the trail. You hike, it’s nice, you have nice chats. It’s fine. The day to day wasn’t the weight. The weight was—will I get a hitch into the town? Will the hotel charge me or the person I’m with more, because they’re with me? Will I be followed in the Dollar General? If I stop at the crossing to have a snack, will someone throw trash at me? That happened once.
I was trying to find a thru-hiking blog by a black woman before I started, and I found one. Her name was Chardonnay. She thru-hiked the PCT in 2015 in 4 months. She’s not like a speed hiker. She just put on her pack and walked for 30 miles a day. She started the AT in 2016. I was like, great! One other black woman! She ended up leaving the trail before we could meet in person.
About two weeks ago, I was looking to see if there were any other black women who thru-hiked in 2016 and blogged about it, and I found one. It was called browngirlonthePCT.com. She talked about running into a hiker with a Make American Great Again hat. His trail name was MAGA. I don’t know what I would have done.
Another reason I documented this hike is because there are so few resources for black hikers. If you search on Google, the first result for “black hiker” is a pair of Timberland boots.
You’ve put yourself out there as a resource for people if they need it; what have you been hearing?
I’ve gotten emails and DMs from people saying how inspired they are. I’m at the far end of the hiking spectrum, though. The extreme is people who go into the woods for six months. Most people want to day hike and go on weekend trips. I’ve pointed so many people to Outdoor Afro, Latino Outdoors, and other organizations dedicated to getting people of color outside. I also bristle when people say there are no black people outdoors. What we consider “outdoorsy” is so narrow at the moment. I do hear from people who say, "I want to hike, but I don’t know where to go, I don’t know where it’s safe."
One of the reasons I did this in 2016 was that I wasn’t so sure I would do it in 2017. If I were planning my thru-hike for this year, I’m not sure I’d go. That’s sad. It’s really, really, really sad. The rule is you don’t talk about politics on the trail, but it’s going to become increasingly hard not to. Especially if you want to talk about diversity or the environment.
Any last thoughts?
There’s already a debate about who the outdoors are for. There are many Americans, especially white Americans, who don’t understand why that question is being asked at all—who say, all are welcome in the national parks, do what I do, go outdoors. Nothing is stopping you. There’s no sense of history whatsoever.
What gets lost in talking about diversity isn’t just [a question of] how can we can get more people of color outdoors. We have to address how we can get white audiences to acknowledge there are barriers and why that matters. I’ve seen so many people who are like, I don’t understand why we’re talking about race, the outdoors are where we go to get away from it all, why does no one ask why there are no white people in the NBA, etc. There needs to be more work focusing on educating individuals about this country’s history.
One of the most the important things I did on the trail was talking to people. Trying to be patient. I shouldn’t have to be a black ambassador, but I also know I got through to a lot of people, and I hope I can get through to more.
When Ollie, a seven-year-old female bobcat housed at the Smithsonian's National Zoo in Washington, D.C. escaped on Monday, there was some alarm.
Bobcats are not known to be aggressive to humans, but 13 nearby schools opted not to let children outdoors for recess anyway. Residents, meanwhile, spotted Ollie all across D.C.'s Cleveland Park and Woodley Park neighborhoods, but searchers could never quite catch up to the bobcat, which are known for their evasiveness.
So on Wednesday, officials said they were giving up, suspending the search because, they said, Ollie's too good at hiding.
Zookeepers had initially issued a "Code Green" after Ollie had been found missing from her enclosure Monday morning, which alerted staff that an animal was out of containment but also signaled that there was no immediate danger.
“I don’t mean to be pessimistic at all but, we’re looking for a cat who could literally be sitting in a tree right next to us,” said Craig Saffoe, the zoo's curator for big cats, according to the Washington Post.
Ollie lived with two male bobcats at the zoo, and it's fair to say that—like any other being who has lived with two men for any stretch of time—she might've just wanted out.
Southeast Iowa may be one of the last places you'd expect to find a Transcendental Meditation-themed town. Yet it is here that the Maharishi Vedic City was established in 2001. Though it is Iowa’s newest town, it is based around the ancient Hindu principles of Veda ("knowledge"), promoting balance, harmony, and natural law.
The idea for the town came from a real estate developer, who took his vision of a meditation-themed community to the late spiritual guru Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, the leader of the international Transcendental Meditation (TM) movement who had established the Maharishi International University in Fairfield, Iowa in the early ‘70s.
Since its inception, daily life in this unusual American town has revolved around Transcendental Meditation, which Maharishi believed was the ultimate meditative practice for finding world peace. Large meditation gatherings are held twice a day under the village’s huge golden domes, including a type of group meditation called Yogic Flying, a mind-body activity akin to hopping while cross-legged. Meditation is also required curriculum in the city's school system. The town is frequented by filmmaker David Lynch, one of the most high profile promoters of TM's benefits.
The city plan and buildings are based on an ancient Vedic system of architecture and city planning, revived by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. Structures are situated and designed to promote happiness, health, and prosperity. The city is just over one square mile in size, made up of a ring of 10 circles in which all the structures face due east toward the rising sun. The buildings are designed with precise Vedic proportions so that the rooms are situated according to the movement of the sun. Each has a silent space in the center called a Brahmasthan and a golden roof ornament called a kalash.
In town is also the Vedic Observatory, made up of ten astrological and astronomical instruments based on ancient designs, arranged in a circle to align with the sun, moon, and stars. Like the rest of Vedic architecture, it is designed to promote inner happiness and balance, and align oneself with the cosmos.
Just as large as its commitment to meditation is the town's devotion to being at one with the Earth. Pesticides and nonorganic foods are banned, and nearly all of the town’s electricity is generated from renewable sources. It is America's first all-organic city, with greenhouses and organic farms that produce food for residents.
Maharishi Vedic City's way of life has attracted lots of positive attention, however there is a more sinister chapter of the town's story. On the edge of town is a compound where hundreds of “pandits” (a Hindu religious scholar or wise man) live segregated from the rest of the village. They are brought in from India to help reach a spiritual quota—according to the ancient tradition, a certain number of meditators are needed to to generate a ripple effect of peace and cohesion across the country.
The pandits emigrate from India to the United States on religious visas for upwards of two years, and are expected to work for very little pay. There has been a great deal of unrest and amid the community, and large numbers pandits have disappeared, for reasons unknown. According to a 2014 report, each pandit is paid a small monthly stipend for living expenses, most of which is sent back to their family in India, and pandits can earn bonuses for longevity or good behavior. They have limited freedom, strongly encouraged or by some accounts forced to remain separate from the rest of town. Given all this, in many ways the program resembles an internment camp more than a meditation and peace program, and it has been shrouded in controversy over the years, a disturbing contradiction in a city founded on the principles of happiness and peace.
Last week, we looked at the early days of the CIA’s foray into extrasensory espionage. Today we’ll be following up with the veterans of the NSA’s psychic wars, which they foresaw being waged well into the ’90s and beyond.
The NSA document, dated from early 1981, calls for a number of steps to be taken, including identifying the potential for mind control.
Once the individuals had been identified, the Agency wanted to create “cadre’s of talented synergized gifted people … for special problem solving tests.” However, the NSA was afraid that these people could be hard to control “Consciousless [sic] or morbid people of talent must be strictly screened out of active programs because of the danger of severe mental illness and unscrupulous violation of security.”
Beyond personnel available to the NSA, the Agency wanted to build a database of psychics around the world.
Additional NSA documents, produced by the government later in the year after MKULTRA had been shut down and all mind control programs had been disavowed, show the government’s continued interest in researching mind control techniques, no matter how esoteric they seemed.
A number of predictions were made about the development of psychic warfare, including that subconscious mind control through telepathy would be possible “by 1990.” The report concluded grimly that “there is no known countermeasure to prevent such applications.”
At least one prediction came true - CREST documents show psychic trials still being performed as late as 1992.
The rest of the NSA's guidelines can be read here.
For a cemetery created in the hectic panic of a plague epidemic, Prague's sprawling Olšany Cemetery is a beautifully planned public work.
In the 17th century it was considered unhygienic to bury the corpses of plague victims within city limits, so a large cemetery was designated by Emperor Joseph II in 1680 for this very purpose. It was continually used up until the 20th century, when a number of elaborate art nouveau grave monuments made the cemetery a place for sightseers, not just mourners.
Olšany Cemetery is the largest in Prague and one of the largest in the Czech Republic. This is because it is comprised of 12 different sections. The New Jewish Cemetery was created to replace the Old Jewish Cemetery, and included a small Orthodox section. An even smaller Muslim section sits on the opposite side of the graveyard. A "Learning Trail" provides a historical walk through the graves. Visitors can walk from the 17th century graves at the north end of the cemetery to the filigreed mausoleums of the 20th century near the center.
The crisply groomed military cemetery marks a stark contrast to the leaning, ivy-covered graves of earlier centuries. Soldiers from a range of conflicts are interred here, from the Napoleonic Wars of the early 19th century to World War II. Many Czech soldiers who died fighting for their country's independence are buried here, and so are members of the Soviet Red Army who died fighting in Czechoslovakia. As per an agreement between the Czech Republic and Russia, each maintains the graves of their former who died on their soil.
Picturesque setting aside, people come to Olšany to pay their respects to their deceased loved ones as well as some famous figures in Czech history. A number of actors, writers, and painters are buried here, as are Jan Palach, a student who immolated himself in protest of the invasion of Czechoslovakia, and Pavel Roman, one of the first celebrity ice skaters.
Some people just want to watch the world burn. Others are happy to look at chimney demolition videos online.
Controlled Demolition, Inc., an implosion subcontractor based in Phoenix, Maryland, maintains a YouTube channel dedicated to its most telegenic acts of destruction. The company conducts controlled demolitions of many kinds of structures, including disused hotels, condos, radio towers, and bridges. And though it's entertaining to watch a concrete monolith collapse like a waterfall, nothing quite beats the "Timberrrrrrr!"-tastic fun factor of seeing giant chimneys come crashing down.
Here are a few highlights from Controlled Demolition, Inc.'s chimney destruction repertoire.
These 165-foot-tall brick stacks in Birdsboro, Pennsylvania, were dynamited to death in December 2016:
Here are the final moments of a pair of 300-foot-tall, reinforced concrete chimneys at the Grainger Generating Station in Conway, South Carolina. They met their end in February 2016.
And below is the deeply satisfying demise of a 250-foot-tall structure at APS Four Corners Power Plant in Fruitland, New Mexico. It took place in July 2016. (While, technically, this reinforced concrete tower is a windscreen, not a chimney, it is sufficiently cylindrical and visually impressive enough to include in this roundup.)
Every day we track down a Video Wonder: an audiovisual offering that delights, inspires, and entertains. Have you encountered a video we should feature? Email ella@atlasobscura.com.
