Lamoka Ledger

Passenger Pigeon Donated to Purdue

A mounted passenger pigeon found at a California jewelry store has been donated to the Purdue University Department of Forestry and Natural Resources. The bird was purchased by Purdue alum Andrew Howe and then flew by plane to Florida before making its final flight to Indiana.

Alumni Donation Brings Rare Passenger Pigeon to FNR Collection

Something that rare carries a ‘stewardship obligation’ and I determined that he needed to be shared with as many people as possible in a public setting.
Andrew Howe

State and Local Incentives for E-Bikes

From Juiced Bikes, a guide to rebates and other incentives for E-Bike purchases in the United States. As of July 2022, 12 states are represented.

Comprehensive Guide to State & Local E-Bike Rebates and Tax Credits

Sometimes, the Jazz Age becomes Archaeology

This artifact, likely a brooch, depicts a 1920s-era flapper, cloche hat and all. It was found at an archaeological site in Jersey City, New Jersey. This and the many other artifacts found during excavation of a series of former houses, most demolished by the 1930s, provide a glimpse of the middle class families who lived in Jersey City in the early twentieth century.

Reference:

Howson, Jean, and Leonard G. Bianchi

2014 Covert-Larch: Archaeology of a Jersey City Neighborhood: Data Recovery for the Route 1&9T (25) St. Paul’s Viaduct Replacement Project Jersey City, Hudson County, NJ, Volume 1. Cultural Resource Unit, The RBA Group, Inc.

Southern Comfort’s 1960s Guide to Toasts and Cocktails

Southern Comfort, the whiskey+fruit n’ spices liqueur (I guess?), produced these pamphlets that you could find in your favorite magazine from the 1950s on. This one is probably from the early 1960s and everyone looks like they’re having a grand time.

You may not be a SoCo fan, but it’s more tasteful than most of these toasts.

Someone else who helped sell Southern Comfort in the late Sixties? Janis Joplin, who drank a lot of it. Joplin died of a heroin overdose (possibly compounded by alcohol) in 1970.

Janis Joplin Source: Jim Marshall Photography LLC

Source: The Hagley Museum

A Week in Southern Maine

Ferns galore at Wells Reserve at Laudholm

From the Pedestrian Drawbridge at Perkins Cove

The View, with clouds, from Mount Agamenticus

Featured image: Ogunquit Beach from the Marginal Way.

Rhode Island’s Newport Tower

Here’s the Newport Tower in Touro Park, Newport, Rhode Island. The remains of a windmill built of stone in the 1600s, it’s sometimes claimed to have been built by Vikings (it wasn’t) or other alleged early visitors to North America. It was originally part of the property of Rhode Island Governor Benedict Arnold (great-grandfather of the other, more infamous, Benedict Arnold), who arrived in Newport in 1651 and died in 1678. The tower is described in Arnold’s will as “my stone built Wind Mill” and by 1741, it was already referred to as the “old stone mill.”

The mortared stone of the Newport Tower.

Statue of William Ellery Channing, Unitarian theologian, in front of the Newport Tower.

The Chesterton Stone Windmill, built 1632, in Warwickshire, England. Photo is from the 1930s. Source: ourwarwickshire.org

Topeka West Holidome

We talked about the Holidomes before. Now, the former Holiday Inn Holidome in Topeka, Kansas, will be torn down and replaced with apartments. This Holidome, located on the west side of town just off I-70, appears to have been built in the early 80s. It eventually became a Ramada Inn but kept much of the Holidome architecture, including the interior courtyard and pool. It permanently closed about four years ago. Photos of the shut-down hotel are at the Topeka Courier-Journal online. Some photos of the hotel in happier times (when it may have already transitioned into a Ramada) are below, by way of Google.