The Spokesrider

Ken Steinhoff says he wants to take photos of old bank buildings next time he’s back in Cape Girardeau, especially the old ones that look like bank buildings.    Here’s a building that’s not a bank, but looks like one.   The photo was taken in Notasulga, Alabama in April 2006. I have a hunch it used [...]

In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, cattle came to displace whitetail deer in the economy of the Creek Indians of what is now east central Alabama.   You could even say that this change was one of the factors that led to the Creek Wars that were exploited by Andrew Jackson during the War [...]

In the last post about the Front Porch Republic I mentioned how Nikita Khrushchev didn’t care to have his mother sitting outside their apartment building, zavalinka-style, because in Stalin’s Russia these heart-to-heart discussions could get you killed. Ken of Palm Beach Bike Tours commented on the front porches of his childhood, saying they were good [...]

The article that inspired the name for the new blog, Front Porch Republic, tells of a 1975 essay titled “From Porch to Patio”. It explains how homes used to be built with front porches where people could interact with their neighbors. Now we more often have patios in back. They are more secluded and private–places [...]

On September 18, 2003, I happened upon this historical marker in Crawford County, Ohio, on my way from Nevada to Mount Vernon. It’s where William Crawford’s army fought on its retreat from Ohio in 1782. Crawford himself had been captured the previous day, and was later tortured to death near Upper Sandusky. It’s a well-known [...]

The introduction to “Creeks and Southerners” by Andrew K. Frank (2005) tells of Andrew Brissert, who in 1783 got in trouble with the Spanish authorities in Pensacola. He and his wife had come to buy some food supplies and sell two African American slaves. He was arrested for being “dressed and painted as an Indian” [...]

The latest issue of American Historical Review has a review of “Creeks and Southerners: Biculturalism on the Early American Frontier” by Andrew K. Frank (2005). I wish I had known about this book in April 2006 when I rode to the Horseshoe Bend National Military Park and other sites of Creek Indian history in Alabama. [...]