Time for a Short Winter Break

                              A winter barnyard scene on U.S. 11W northeast of Knoxville, Tennessee.

The arctic weather is finally easing its grip on our campsite a few miles north of Knoxville. We have been able to keep warm in our RV, but our water has been frozen for days, which is inconvenient but unfortunately, not a new experience for me. I grew up in the southern Indiana hills in a house without running water, and in the great blizzard of March, 1993 our water was frozen for a week. 

However, the cumulative effects of the recent cold snap have left me feeling a little bummed out. 

Plus, I have a busy few days ahead.

Thursday we are driving to Atlanta for the wedding reception of grandson Nathan and his bride Hannah. We'll be back Saturday night. Then, on Monday, January 2, we have to move to a different site in this campground. So I'm going to take a little winter break. I'll be back Wednesday, January 4th.

If you enjoy my photographs, you can see more of them in my online gallery at https://davejenkins.pixels.com/  Looking is free, and, who knows? You might find something you want to keep.

The second edition of my book, Backroads and Byways of Georgia will be released in June, 2023. 

Photograph and text copyright 2022 David B.Jenkins.

I post Monday, Wednesday, and Friday unless life gets in the way.

Soli Gloria Deo -- For the glory of God alone.

The Origin of the Rock City Birdhouse

 Clark Byers and the first Rock City Birdhouse.

Clark Byers, the man who painted "See Rock City" on more than 800 barns over 30 years, most of them multiple times, was also the inventor of the distinctive red-and-black birdhouse which is now a principal advertising device for Rock City. Hundreds of thousands, probably millions of them, have been sold.

I went to interview Byers at his home in 1995 as I was working on the Rock City Barns book. A warm, soft-spoken man of deep Christian faith, Byers was quietly happy with the life he had lived.  In addition to his years of painting Rock City barns, he was the developer of Sequoyah Caverns, a tourist attraction in northeast Alabama, and at the age of 80 still ran a three hundred acre farm. For years the roof of his home on U.S. 11 in Rising Fawn, Georgia, just over the state line from Alabama, sported a "See Rock City" sign.

"I painted the first birdhouse that Rock City ever had," he told me. "It was my original idea -- I didn't copy nobody. I was gonna use it for a mailbox, but the Post Office wouldn't let us. It's still settin' in my garage."

Of course I wanted to see it, so he brought it out and placed it atop his mailbox. Naturally, I took a picture. And that's the story of how the Rock City birdhouse came to be. 

Rock City picked up on the idea and began making and selling the birdhouses. As far as I know, Clark never received a cent for his invention. 

Blog note: Sorry to have missed Friday's post. We are in a deep freeze here, with temperatures just above zero. We are keeping warm in our RV, but our water is frozen. All-in-all, we're doing okay. No thaw predicted until Tuesday.

If you enjoy my photographs, you can see more of them in my online gallery at https://davejenkins.pixels.com/  Looking is free, and, who knows? You might find something you want to keep.

The second edition of my book, Backroads and Byways of Georgia will be released in June, 2023. 

Photograph and text copyright 2022 David B.Jenkins.

I post Monday, Wednesday, and Friday unless life gets in the way.

Soli Gloria Deo -- For the glory of God alone.

A Few More Mail Pouch Barns

 

More Mail Pouch barns from my collection. I wish I could tell you where all these photos were made, but unfortunately I lost my travel notebook with most of my notes from 2000-2010.

 

If you enjoy my photographs, you can see more of them in my online gallery at https://davejenkins.pixels.com/  Looking is free, and, who knows? You might find something you want to keep.

The second edition of my book, Backroads and Byways of Georgia will be released in June, 2023. 

Photograph and text copyright 2022 David B.Jenkins.

I post Monday, Wednesday, and Friday unless life gets in the way.

Soli Gloria Deo -- For the glory of God alone.

More about Mail Pouch Tobacco Barns

                                          A well-preserved Mail Pouch barn in southeastern Ohio.

Mail Pouch Tobacco barns are not well-known in the South, but in the Midwest they were a pretty big thing. At its peak in the 1960s there were 20,000 barns bearing the Mail Pouch Tobacco sign in 22 states. 

The barns even have fan clubs. In 2003 I attended a meeting of a group known as the Mail Pouch Barn Association, which has, or at least did have, an annual get-together in barn painter Harley Warricks home town in Southeastern Ohio. Naturally, I photographed Mail Pouch barns coming and going, two of which are in this post. There's also a group called Mail Pouch Barnstormers, which has its own Facebook page.

I hoped at one time to do a book about Mail Pouch barns, similar to my Rock City Barns book, but couldn't find a publisher who was interested.

                          The southernmost Mail Pouch barn I've found was on U.S. 25 in southern Kentucky.

Both these photos were made in July, 2003 with a Canon 10D, my first digital camera.

If you enjoy my photographs, you can see more of them in my online gallery at https://davejenkins.pixels.com/  Looking is free, and, who knows? You might find something you want to keep.

The second edition of my book, Backroads and Byways of Georgia will be released in June, 2023. 

Photograph and text copyright 2022 David B.Jenkins.

I post Monday, Wednesday, and Friday unless life gets in the way.

Soli Gloria Deo -- For the glory of God alone.

 

The Other Great Barn Advertising Campaign

Mail Pouch Tobacco barn on U.S. 50 near Brownstown, Indiana

 Who first painted an advertising message on a barn? No one knows for sure, but it’s generally agreed that Bloch Brothers Tobacco Company of Wheeling, West Virginia, was first to mount an organized, large-scale, barn advertising program. They began painting “Chew Mail Pouch Tobacco” on barns around 1897, and hundreds of Mail Pouch barns still dot the Midwestern landscape. They are very common in Indiana, where I grew up, but I've never found one south of the Tennessee-Kentucky line.

The last of the Mail Pouch barn painters was a man named Harley Warrick, who began his career just after returning from service in World War II. He criss-crossed the Midwest for more than 40 years, painting and repainting the red, yellow, and black Mail Pouch signs as many as 20,000 times before finally hanging up his brushes in 1992,

The above photograph was made in the late 1990s on U.S. Highway 50 near Brownstown, Indiana, not far from my home town of Bedford. It was still in great condition, so it must have been one of the later ones Warrick painted. Although the paint he used seems to hold up really well -- in some cases it looks as if the paint is all that's holding many of the old barns together.

I made the photo with a Canon A2 camera. The film, as usual, was Fujichrome 100D. Can't remember what lens I used.

If you enjoy my photographs, you can see more of them in my online gallery at https://davejenkins.pixels.com/  Looking is free, and, who knows? You might find something you want to keep.

The second edition of my book, Backroads and Byways of Georgia will be released in June, 2023. 

Photograph and text copyright 2022 David B.Jenkins.

I post Monday, Wednesday, and Friday unless life gets in the way.

Soli Gloria Deo -- For the glory of God alone.

 

Connectivity (Again!)

 

This photo has nothing to do with today's subject, but will be relevant to

Friday's post. Canon 10D, September 10, 2003, Southern Indiana, I think.

 

 Getting consistent cell phone service and receiving internet data is an ongoing problem for those of us who live and travel in RVs. I missed posting on Monday because of  connectivity issues. 

As full-time RVers living in campgrounds in various places, we get our wifi through our cell phone companies and find it necessary to have two different ones in order to be sure of getting service wherever we go. We have a small "mifi" device from each company through which we receive data.

Unfortunately, for some reason my main computer will only receive wireless data from Consumer Cellular. It will not recognize T-Mobile's wifi. The 50 gigs of data per month we receive from CC is usually enough, but also unfortunately, Louise has been having quite a bit of back pain recently, so she's been spending more time than usual watching TV. Well, okay -- she's been bing-watching Hallmark Christmas movies! And more unfortunately still, she inadvertently had the TV set to stream on Consumer Cellular instead of T-Mobile (which has unlimited data). Consequently, she used up our 50 gigs of Consumer Cellular data in ten days and I could no longer use my computer online. 

After consulting with a long-time friend who is a professional computer expert and also calling T-Mobile support, I was no closer to getting my computer to recognize T-Mobile. I'm kinda slow, but eventually I remembered an old-tech solution: I pulled out an ethernet cable from my bottom desk drawer, connected my computer to the T-Mobile device with  it, and I'm back in business.

See previous posts about connectivity issues here and here.

If you enjoy my photographs, you can see more of them in my online gallery at https://davejenkins.pixels.com/  Looking is free, and, who knows? You might find something you want to keep.

The second edition of my book, Backroads and Byways of Georgia will be released in June, 2023. 

Photograph and text copyright 2022 David B.Jenkins.

I post Monday, Wednesday, and Friday unless life gets in the way.

Soli Gloria Deo -- For the glory of God alone.

The Gray House

The Gray House, all dressed up for Halloween.

 

(Adapted from my book Backroads and Byways of Georgia.)

John D. Gray, the English-born contractor who built the Western and Atlantic Railroad, including digging the tunnel at Tunnel Hill, liked the Northwest Georgia area so much that he bought 4,000 acres on Chickamauga Creek and laid out the town of Graysville in the late 1840s. 

Gray also built a mill dam on the creek, which still stands, and a large grist mill, which was burned during the Civil War. It was rebuilt in 1869 and operated into the 1950s.

In 1883, Dr. William T. Blackford, a Chattanooga physician, built a Queen Anne-style house and moved his practice to Graysville. In 1916 a member of the Gray family bought the house from Dr. Blackford's daughters. It has had numerous owners in the intervening years and was at one time a restaurant, The Graysville House.

The village of Graysville is just across the state line from Chattanooga and easy to get to. Just take East Brainerd Road, then Graysville Road into Georgia.

If you enjoy my photographs, you can see more of them in my online gallery at https://davejenkins.pixels.com/  Looking is free, and, who knows? You might find something you want to keep.

The second edition of my book, Backroads and Byways of Georgia will be released in June, 2023. 

Photograph and text copyright 2022 David B.Jenkins.

I post Monday, Wednesday, and Friday unless life gets in the way.

Soli Gloria Deo -- For the glory of God alone.

The Chief Vann House

                               The Chief Vann House at Spring Place, near Chatsworth, Georgia. 

(Adapted from my book Backroads and Byways of Georgia.)

The Chief Vann House is an elegant, two-and-a-half story, brick mansion built in 1804 by wealthy Cherokee Indian Chief James Vann, who also owned a hundred slaves and more than a thousand acres in what is now Murray County. In 1805, Vann opened his home to Moravian missionaries to hold one of the first Christmas celebrations in the Cherokee Nation. 

James Vann was murdered in 1809, and the property passed to his son Joseph, who, with other Cherokees, was forced out of the area in 1834. A bloody battle between claimants to the house ensued. The structure gradually deteriorated over the years until 1952, when it was purchased by a group of concerned citizens, given to the Georgia Historical Commission, and restored to its original grandeur. 

The Vann House features beautiful hand carvings, an unusual "floating" staircase, a 12-foot mantle, and fine antiques. The plantation also included 95 log outbuildings, none of which survives; however the Cherokee Farmstead Exhibit at the site is made up of original 1800s Cherokee outbuildings moved from other locations. 

The house and grounds are open for tours Thursday through Saturday, 9 a.m.–5 p.m. and Sunday 1 p.m.--5 p.m., with the last tour at 4:15 p.m. Admission is $6.50 for adults, $6 for seniors, and $5:50 for ages 6 to 17.

If you enjoy my photographs, you can see more of them in my online gallery at https://davejenkins.pixels.com/  Looking is free, and, who knows? You might find something you want to keep.

The second edition of my book, Backroads and Byways of Georgia will be released in June, 2023. 

Photograph and text copyright 2022 David B.Jenkins.

I post Monday, Wednesday, and Friday unless life gets in the way.

Soli Gloria Deo -- For the glory of God alone.

Old Clinton

  The Barron Blair House in Old Clinton was built in 1820.

 

One of the oldest settlements in central Georgia is Old Clinton, which was settled in the early 1800s. In 1820, when Captain John Mitchell built the home now known as the Barron Blair House, Clinton, which is a small community and historic district on the west side of Gray, in Jones County, was the fourth largest town in Georgia, with a population of 841. 

In November, 1864, Sherman's March to the Sea devastated Clinton. Today only 13 of the original buildings remain.

The 1809 McCarthy-Pope House is believed to be the oldest house in Old Clinton. 

 

The Clinton Methodist Church, built in 1821, is still in regular use.

If you enjoy my photographs, you can see more of them in my online gallery at https://davejenkins.pixels.com/  Looking is free, and, who knows? You might find something you want to keep.

The second edition of my book, Backroads and Byways of Georgia, originally scheduled for December, will be released in June, 2023. 

Photographs and text copyright 2022 David B.Jenkins.

I post Monday, Wednesday, and Friday unless life gets in the way.

Soli Gloria Deo -- For the glory of God alone.

The Real People of McLemore Cove

Some older residents of McLemore Cove gather for the annual raffle of a hunting rifle.

For more than 30 years it was our privilege and pleasure to be members of the Cedar Grove Community Club. Membership was not formal; anyone who wished could be a member, attend meetings, and join in the club's community service efforts. We met on the third Saturday of every month (as best I remember) for a pitch-in dinner and discussion of whatever issues were currently within the club's purview. 

The biggest event of the year was the Wild Game dinner, which drew hundreds of people from around the area. The proceeds were used to buy Christmas gifts for poor children.

It's tempting to say that there aren't many people left like those we knew in the Cove, but I don't think that's true. I believe there are people like them all over this country -- solid, goodhearted, honest, hard-working people who love God, their families, their communities, and their country. These people are the real America. If enough of them were to wake up to the power they possess, America would soon be on a much different and very much better track.

The ladies of the Community Club serve hundreds at the annual Wild Game Dinner.

 

If you enjoy my photographs, you can see more of them in my online gallery at https://davejenkins.pixels.com/  Looking is free, and, who knows? You might find something you want to keep.

The second edition of my book, Backroads and Byways of Georgia, originally scheduled for December, will be released in June, 2023. 

Photographs and text copyright 2022 David B.Jenkins.

I post Monday, Wednesday, and Friday unless life gets in the way.

Soli Gloria Deo -- For the glory of God alone.