Midwest Lost Site Blog

My girlfriend and I took advantage of the awesome weather in Columbus, Ohio today to do some exploring. We ended up visiting 3 cemeteries so I could photograph them. The cemeteries were Brown Pet Cemetery, Primitive Baptist Cemetery, and Silent Hill Cemetery.

My favorite was the pet cemetery. I was amazed at how expansive the cemetery was. I left a bit sad thinking of how many loved family members and friends were buried there.

I hope to get the HTML written in the next few days.

This post deals with 2 events. First off, I was giving permission to photography a cemetery that is on the property of a Dublin, Ohio business. This required several emails and coordinating with their PR & security staff. Due to the requirements placed on me, I am not allowed to mention the business, the exact location of the site, or show any pictures that depict their building (which was kind of hard and I was not able to post several of my favorite photos from the shoot).

Mitchell Cemetery

The second piece of of news is that when I visited Salem Cemetery on 10/20/2007, I had the chance to meet with a news paper reporter for The Times Leader. Here is a link to scans of the actual article. I really wish I could have found a copy of it online. This is the first media attention the website has received, so I am pretty excited.

Sunday morning after going to a ham festival (yes, in my personal life I am an amateur radio operator). Myself and some friends were driving back, and wanted to ride past the new E. L. Bowsher High School they are building. As we rode past it, there was a comment about an old cemetery behind the building site.

It was decided to stop and look around, and I took the chance to snap some pics. These pics are from my cellphone, so they are crappy.

Ron, (one of the people I was with) said he thought he had some older photograph’s of the cemetery from somewhere between the 70’s & the 90’s. If I can get my hands on those pictures, I plan to scan them and get them into the gallery.

Click here for a link to the gallery.

Also, upon further research of the area, across the road (now University of Toledo property) sat an insane asylum and/or a TB hospital. There was also a cemetery there that has long since been moved. If that didn’t make this area cool, there is a small creek near there that was a spur off of the Erie canel, and was used to move stuff to the docks in Maumee, Ohio (or so I have been told). I look foward to researching and exploring this area in the future.

I’ve had these pictures of the “S” bridge in Blaine, Ohio online for atleast a year and realized lately that I never wrote any HTML for them. Today I took the chance to write up an HTML page for the “S” Bridge, and do some house cleaning on my Belmont County page.

I also visited the bridge the weekend before last. I just didn’t have my camera to get some shots. I plan a visit to Belmont County very soon and get pictures of the bridge along with afew other things.

Per Harrison Coal & Reclamation Historical Park, they failed to raise the required amounts to save the Silver Spade. As of the Fed 9, 2007, explosives were used to lower the boom. By March, 1st, 2007, much of the machine was gone.

I was unaware of this until I visited their website today. I cannot say how sad I am that this piece of machinery, this piece of (dare I say)….. history is gone.

Another link to the past of Eastern Ohio and coal mining is gone. A piece of my history and the history of where I am from is gone. At least in my mind, this is a very sad day indeed.

Today is truly a day where a piece of the Midwest was lost.

Per Harrison Coal & Reclamation Historical Park, they failed to raise the required amounts to save the Silver Spade.

As of the Fed 9, 2007, explosives were used to lower the boom. By March, 1st, 2007, much of the machine was gone. I was unaware of this until I visited their website today. I cannot say how sad I am that this piece of machinery, this piece of (dare I say)….. history is gone.

Another link to the past of Eastern Ohio and coal mining is gone. A piece of my history and the history of where I am from is gone.

At least in my mind, this is a very sad day indeed. Today is truly a day where a piece of the Midwest was lost.

When I found out the Silver Spade was the sister shovel to the GEM of Egypt, I had to see it. This was made more important by the news that the Silver Spade had been idled, and had broken down as they were moving her out of the pit. The chances of her working again when they started moving her out of the pit were slim, but with her breaking down halfway out. She was pretty much headed for the scrap pile. Luckly there is hope.

A group called the Harrison Coal & Reclamation Historical Park is trying to save her. I ask anyone who has a love for big machinary, history, or just cool oddities to help out. This group is desprate. The GEM of Egypt is gone, along with The Mountaineer & the Big Muskie. This is something I feel very strongly about and ask all of my visitors to stop and take a moment to consider what one of the last (if not the last) large shovel in the US is almost gone. Please help this group save her.

Another reason this shovel means so much to me is that when the GEM of Egypt was scraped, a lot of her useable parts went into keeping the Silver Spade running. For me this is a link to the GEM.

I just finished the HTML for last weekend.  This included The Silver Spade, Harrison Coal & Reclamation Historical Park, Union Cemetery in St. Clairsville, the covered bridge on the property of OUE, and a cemetery in St. Clairsville which I suspect Thomas Carr is buried in.

Feel free to check out the new pages.  I also ask anyone who enjoys these pages to support the efforts of the Harrison Coal & Reclamation Historical Park’s efforts to save the Silver Spade from being scrapped.