The Spokesrider

After putting up the last post about the town square in Coldwater, I looked to see what else I had from that ride on October 22, 2005.    I saw that I had never gotten around to learning about this building from my first photo stop of the day,  at the intersection of D Drive and [...]

Mercy Hicks, the wife of Solomon S. Hicks, was the youngest of six surviving children in the Warren Nichols family. The parents and three children succumbed to cholera and were buried somewhere in Athens. I’ve had no luck finding that grave site, but I also got interested in the surviving children, some of whose graves I’ve found.

No Dig, No Fly, No Go : How Maps Restrict and Control. That’s the title of a new book by Mark Monmonier that I’ve just barely started to read. The introductory paragraph made me think (in a contrary way) of the leftmost of the two points circled in white on the above Royce Map of [...]

Several days ago I received an e-mail from a descendent of Reuben Bentley, whose place was the destination for a ride on September 29. She had not known about Bentley’s role as a juror in one of the trials for the Fall Creek Massacre in 1824-1825, but she had family information about him that I [...]

Ken Steinhoff’s post about Bicycle Gardens Sprouting Up All Over made me think of this scene from a ride on August 31. In this land of corn and soybeans one might get the idea that life is strictly business — agribusiness. Then one sees a bit of whimsy, like this red bike left to grow [...]

After I crossed I-70 and approached its predecessor, the old National Road, I thought it would be a shame not to cross it and not see an old historic tavern. I wondered if the road was like US-20 in Michigan, where a number of the old houses and taverns from the stagecoach days are still standing.

(29 Sep 2009, cont.) These are more scenes from the walk in Falls Park. My bicycle and I walked together. I wanted to get down to Fall Creek itself, but railroads prefer not to come down to our level in places like this. I was assured by the increasing height of the railroad bed that [...]