Rust Belt Road Trip: Revisiting the Midwest by Rail Fan

[jtbell]

[This is an old thread. I revived it a year later to add a related factoid.]

Some of you with long memories might remember my western road trip several years ago, from which I posted pictures en route. I don't know how to paste links on my phone, but you can easily find the thread with a forum search.

I'm on the road again, this time to the Midwest, mainly Ohio and Michigan, again mainly for streetcar and other rail fanning, and revisiting places that I was familiar with when I was a kid. And maybe some places that I didn't get around to visiting back then.

Today I started the trip by heading up I-26 and US-23 through western NC, eastern TN, western VA, and eastern KY. Sounds confusing? Look at a map and see how the boundaries run!

These two pics are from western VA. One is from Natural Tunnel State Park, where early railroad builders saved themselves most of the work of tunneling through a ridge by taking advantage of a pre-existing natural feature.

Tonight I'm in the small town of Louisa KY. Tomorrow I'll head through Ohio to Dearborn MI where I'll spend a few nights.

 

[jtbell]

In fact I did see a bit of WV today. It's right across a river from the town where I'm staying tonight. I drove around both towns while looking for a place to eat dinner.

Actually eastern KY is very similar since it too was very dependent on coal for its economy.

One can definitely see that economic conditions have deteriorated. Every town has a lot of empty storefronts. There are billboards all over for addiction and other social services.

People are trying to make tourism a bigger part of the economy. The road I was on for most of the day has been branded as the "Country Music Highway ". Pikeville KY has the "Hatfield-McCoy Feud Historic Site". Etc.

But I suspect this attracts basically a regional audience. This area is way off the beaten track for people in the well-off areas of the northeast and Midwest, let alone the west coast.

 

[dlgoff]

Should you find yourself in Kansas, here's a map and listing of Abandoned Railroads of Kansas.

Thanks for sharing.

 

[Mark44]

One can definitely see that economic conditions have deteriorated. Every town has a lot of empty storefronts. There are billboards all over for addiction and other social services.

A book that I enjoyed very much is about the people in the part of the country you're going through -- "Hillbilly Elegy," by J. D. Vance. He grew up, mostly raised by his grandparents, due to his mother's addiction and her highly unstable marital situation. Doesn't sound very promising, but he praises his grandparents highly for allowing him to break free of the rut that so many of his peers fell into. Highly recommended.

 

[jtbell]

Serendipity strikes! Outside Huntington WV I passed an amusement park with a stream of cars and school buses pulling in. Even though they aren't open to the public today (it's one of their May School Days), they let me pay and get in. Probably figured I was one of the teachers or parents or grandparents.

According to Wiki it was built by the local streetcar company in 1903 so it sort of fits with the theme of this trip.

 

[StatGuy2000]

My father is originally from Michigan, and I have relatives living in Dearborn, so I saw your post above with a certain degree of interest. I hope you enjoy your road trip, as well as your stay there.

 

[jtbell]

I'm in a hotel on Michigan Ave at Telegraph Rd. I didn't have a car until near the end of grad school in Ann Arbor so I drove here only a few times. But I didn't have any trouble getting here. I even remembered the Michigan Left Turn!

 

[jtbell]

Pop quiz: What's "missing" from this new Detroit streetcar?

 

[dlgoff]

What's "missing" from this new Detroit streetcar?

That brush thingy on top?

 

[jtbell]

Yep! It runs on battery power for about half its route, and uses an overhead wire elsewhere. At the ends of the route there are charging points.

 

[jtbell]

What would a road trip be without eating at a diner? A short walk down the road from my hotel is "Leon's Family Dining" which in the Northeast or in South Florida would be called just "Leon's Diner". A big clean place, with a huge menu, packed with local residents. I had a Philly cheesesteak omelet for brunch just now.

I walked so much yesterday that my left foot is sore and a bit swollen, so I'm taking it easy today. On my western road trip seven years ago I let it get so bad that I had to cut that trip short. I don't want that to happen this time.

I've read about a good used-CD store in Dearborn, so I'll check it out later today.

 

[jtbell]

In Detroit, "Coney Island" means a restaurant that specializes in chili dogs. These are the two oldest Coney Islands, the Lafayette (left) and American (right, with the pointy end). They were founded as a single restaurant by a pair of immigrant Greek brothers, who fell out and split the restaurant into two!

 

[davenn]

View attachment 205495

quintessential Americana right there

am enjoying your travel pix

cheers
Dave

 

[jtbell]

This is the former Michigan Central railroad station in Detroit. On one of my day trips from Ann Arbor long ago, I took a train from here to return, instead of my usual bus. Amtrak moved out in 1988, and I think the building has been empty since then. People have come up with various plans for it, but they've all fallen through.

Detroit has a lot of "urban ruins" like this: old automobile factories, etc.

In 1950, Detroit's population was 1.8M. In 1980 (around the time I used to visit), it was 1.2M. Now it's less than 0.7M. So there are lots of abandoned businesses along most of the main arteries, such as Michigan Ave. which I drove along, coming in from Dearborn. The side streets have lots of vacant lots and empty houses, in the outer parts of the city, between the central area and the suburbs.

The central area has actually revived significantly. Tech startups and other information based companies are relocating there, attracted by cheap rents. Old office buildings have been converted to apartments, and new apartments are springing up.

Yesterday I saw lots of people downtown, eating at sidewalk cafes, walking their dogs, kids playing in a new park on the site of the former city bus terminal. All this would have been unimaginable on a Sunday in the 1970-80s. There are new trendy shops next to vacant storefronts, and a lot of construction/renovation activity.

So things are looking up in the center of the city, from downtown about 3 miles out Woodward Ave. to the New Center area at Grand Blvd.

But the rest of the city is still in bad shape. Lots of poverty, and not enough tax money from 0.7M people to provide services for a city built for 1.8M. It seems to me there's going to have to be some kind of contraction, concentrating people into a smaller area so they can be served more effectively.

 

[gfd43tg]

I went on a road trip to DC coming from upstate new york last month. Driving through western pennsylvania and Harrisburg (which I found out was the capital of PA when I went through) was a real eye opener. That place puts the rust in rust belt.

 

[davenn]

The Rust Belt

I had to google the term as to its relevance to the USA

The Rust Belt is a term for the region of the United States from the Great Lakes to the upper Midwest States, referring to economic decline, population loss, and urban decay due to the shrinking of its once-powerful industrial sector, also known as deindustrialization. The term gained popularity in the U.S. in the 1980s.[1]

The Rust Belt begins in western New York and traverses to the west through Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Ohio, Indiana, and the Lower Peninsula of Michigan, ending in northern Illinois, eastern Iowa, and southeastern Wisconsin. Previously known as the industrial heartland of America, industry has been declining in the region since the mid-20th century due to a variety of economic factors, such as the transfer of manufacturing further West, increased automation, and the decline of the US steel and coal industries.[2] While some cities and towns have managed to adapt by shifting focus towards services and high-tech industries, others have not fared as well, witnessing rising poverty and declining populations.[3]

I sort of got that from your descriptions, but wasn't totally sureDave

 

[jtbell]

Today I visited Ann Arbor, nearly 35 years after finishing my PhD at the U of Michigan. I last visited there 12 years ago.

The physics building, Randall Lab, still looks pretty much like it used to, from the front (first pic). It was expanded considerably at the rear about 25 years ago (second pic), and renovated completely inside so it looks nothing like when I was there.

As I expected, all the profs that I worked with are now retired, listed in the "Emeritus" section of the faculty photo gallery in the hallway.

A couple more views of campus nearby:

 

[jtbell]

You know you're getting old when most of the shops and restaurants that you knew at university are gone or going, and some of them are mentioned on historical markers on the corners of buildings.

Ulrich's was where I bought most of my textbooks for grad school. There were once 3 or 4 bookstores in Ann Arbor that sold textbooks. I think this is the last one.

But some things haven't changed. Minnie's Coop is still purple! I think I remember reading that the color is specified in their bylaws.

I also discovered that my favorite German restaurant in Ann Arbor, Metzger's, which I thought had gone out of business when I was here last time, actually moved to a new location just outside town. So I went there for dinner before driving back to Dearborn.

 

[jtbell]

Yesterday I crossed an item off my bucket list: Put-in-Bay, a resort village on an island in Lake Erie. First you take a half-hour ferry trip.

Then to get to the village about 2.5 miles away you bring your car over on the ferry (expensive), rent a golf cart on the island (also expensive), rent a bicycle (rental place not open for the season yet), or take a converted school bus that shuttles back and forth ($2.50), or walk (which I did because it was a nice day).

The big historical thing there is a monument to the naval Battle of Lake Erie in the War of 1812, in which the US defeated Britain. Every kid in Ohio learns about this in school, or at least did when I was in school. There's a nice view from the top of the monument, but unfortunately it isn't open for the season yet.

Fortunately the local historical museum opened on Monday. Even some of the restaurants weren't open yet. It's a bit early in the year. In a couple of weeks the island will probably be full of visitors. Lots of rental apartments, cottages and bed & breakfast places.

Back on the mainland, across the road from my hotel in Port Clinton is an unpretentious fast-food style restaurant that specializes in fried lake perch and walleye. I couldn't decide which one, so I had the combo platter that has both, with a pile of onion rings. Mmmmm.

 

[dlgoff]

Then to get to the village about 2.5 miles away you ... walk (which I did because it was a nice day).

There's a nice view from the top of the monument, but unfortunately it isn't open for the season yet.

bold by me

I would think "fortunately it isn't open"; after 2.5 mile walk, how many steps to the top of the monument? Nice pics. :)

 

[jtbell]

I've gotten behind. First I left my phone charger in the hotel in Port Clinton and didn't realize it until my battery had nearly run down. I had to conserve battery power until I could buy a new charger. Then I spent an evening visiting a friend.

Just after leaving Port Clinton I came to Lakeside, a sort of religious / educational summer colony associated with the Methodist church. During the "season" day-trippers have to pay an entrance fee at the gate, but that hadn't started yet so I could just drive in, park, and look around.

Hoover Auditorium holds 3000 people and is used for religious services, lectures and musical performances.

Except for the cars and clothing, I suspect the place looks much as it did in the 1920s. If you Google for "lakeside Ohio" and "Chautauqua" you'll get some more background.

A bit further on I came to Johnson's Island which was used as a POW camp for Confederate officers during the Civil War. Nowadays the island is a gated private community, but outsiders can visit the camp's cemetery by paying a toll for the causeway that now connects the island with the mainland.

All that took up the morning on Wednesday. Then I headed east past the Cleveland / Akron area to my hometown which I'm using as a base for northeast Ohio and maybe Pittsburgh.

 

[jtbell]

I've mentioned occasionally that I did my undergraduate at a small liberal arts college in the Midwest. Well, here it is. On Thursday I drove over to my alma mater, Hiram College. Graduation was last weekend so the campus was pretty quiet, but I did find one of the physics profs in his office. I introduced myself and we chatted a bit. He arrived long after I left and I had never had a chance to meet him.

The physics offices are in a new building, but the classrooms and labs are still in the basement of the old building.

This classroom is where I had my freshman intro physics course, using Halliday & Resnick as the text. The furniture and projection monitor are new but the blackboard is the same!

Trees have grown so much that it's hard to get decent pictures of campus now, when they're in leaf.

 

[jtbell]

Yesterday I crossed another item off my bucket list: I went to a Cleveland Orchestra concert in their renovated home, Severance Hall. I was last here 42-43 years ago when I was an undergraduate. Back then they had covered up the original stage decor with some kind of white or gray acoustic paneling. Now it's back to its as-built state.

As with most of their Friday concerts, this was at 11am instead of the evening, so I didn't have to spend more than an hour driving "home" in the dark.

Across the street is Case Western Reserve University where I passed this historical marker:

 

[jtbell]

After the concert on Friday I took the bus downtown and walked around.

Cleveland's signature building was formerly known as the Terminal Tower because it was the main railroad station. Now it hosts only local rail transit lines (the "Rapid") and is known as Tower City, with a shopping mall surrounding the rail station.

On the lakefront, from left to right, the Amtrak station with a local light-rail "Rapid" train in front, the Great Lakes Science Center, and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

If you've seen the movie "Christmas Story" you may remember the scene in Higbee's department store. Although the movie was set in the fictional Hohman, Indiana, the scene was filmed in the real Higbee's in Cleveland, next door to Terminal Tower. (My mother and I always went there on our visits to Cleveland when I was a kid.) Alas, the store is gone. The building is now a casino, but plaques remind of its previous life.

I then set out across the Lorain-Carnegie Bridge which spans the Cuyahoga River valley, watched over by the Guardians of Traffic (not to be confused with the Guardians of the Galaxy) at both ends.

Most of the industry that used to be in the valley has now disappeared, but it's still an interesting view.

On the other end of the bridge is the Ohio City district which was once a separate city. Its anchor is the West Side Market which to me looks a bit like a German railroad station outside, but smells rather different inside.

 

[dlgoff]

...the classrooms and labs are still in the basement of the old building.

The classroom below is where I had my intro physics course,

These excellent photos take me back to my undergraduate physics day. Some of the best times of my life. Thank You for sharing.

 

[Borek]

PIEROGI PALACE made my day :)

 

[jtbell]

Yesterday (Sunday) I drove around the rural part of northeast Ohio, stopping in some of the villages.

Bristolville:

Mesopotamia ("Mespo" to the locals):

Andover:

If these village greens remind you of New England, that's no coincidence. This area belonged to Connecticut until 1800, as the Connecticut Western Reserve, and many of the first settlers came from that state. Even some of the larger towns have retained their village greens.

Cleveland's Public Square:

Warren's Courthouse Park:

Youngstown's Central Square (a bit too small IMO):

 

[jtbell]

The Amish of Pennsylvania are well known, but there are a significant number of them in Ohio, too. Some villages have special parking spaces for them.

Like in New England, there are covered bridges. This one near Harpersfield is the longest one in Ohio.

The Lake Erie shore is lined with beach-cottage colonies. My grandfather built a cottage in one of these.

When I was a kid, Geneva-on-the-Lake was the place to go for fun while we were at the lake for the weekend. It went downhill for a while but now seems to be coming back a bit. As in Ann Arbor there are historical markers about vanished attractions, like Kiddieland with its miniature train ride.

 

[jtbell]

On Tuesday I made a day-trip to Pittsburgh, which has one of the most spectacular geographical situations among US cities. Top 5? Top 10? Whatever.

Its two remaining funicular railways ("inclines"), of which there were once about 15, are landmarks of transportation engineering.

Down at the "Point", you can stand next to the fountain, with the Monongahela River coming in on your left, the Allegheny River coming in on your right, and the Ohio River going straight away from you underneath the bridge to the left of the fountain.

Near here is the Fort Pitt Block House, built by the British army in 1764, making it one of the oldest structures west of the Appalachian Mountains.

The hilly neighborhoods just across the rivers from downtown have seen some revival in the past few decades.

Steel mills made Pittsburgh great, but now they're gone, or mostly gone. Healthcare industries and education now dominate the economy.

 

[jtbell]

On Wednesday in Youngstown I visited the Historical Center for Industry and Labor, which is basically a museum about the steel industry in the Mahoning Valley. This was the second largest steelmaking center in the US, after Pittsburgh.

Most of the people working in those mills were immigrants who poured into the region around 1900-1920.

In a span of four years, 1977-1981, five major steel mills closed. The others eventually followed.

During 1930-1950 Youngstown's population was about 170K. Now it's about 65K. This was once one of the better neighborhoods:

The biggest employer now is probably Youngstown State University. Some former office buildings in nearby downtown are being converted into apartments marketed to students, including the former Erie Lackawanna railroad station. The tracks that used to run behind it were probably taken up about thirty years ago.

 

[dlgoff]

This one is amazing IMO.

View attachment 205967

 

[jtbell]

On Thursday I started my return trip by driving south along the Ohio River. I've done this many times, in both directions. It's one of my favorite drives in the eastern US. The northern part from Pittsburgh down to about Wheeling WV has (or had) a lot of industry. Then it becomes mostly rural.

My first stop was a geeky landmark by the side of the road along the north bank, where Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia meet. This was the "Point of Beginning" of surveying the Northwest Territory in the 1780s, which produced a checkerboard grid of townships covering what we now call the Midwest.

The Ohio River has a series of dams and locks to provide a consistent depth for the barges that haul coal, grain, etc. This one, Pike Island, is just north of Wheeling WV.

In Wheeling is the first bridge built across the Ohio River (1849). It's also the oldest vehicular suspension bridge still in use in the US.

It gives a nice view of the river, too.

I continued along the WV side to Sistersville, and crossed the river on one of the handful of ferries that still operate.

Someday I'd like to drive all the way to Cincinnati along the river, but that would take at least two full days and I wanted to get to Cincinnati that day. So, late in the afternoon I left the river a bit south of Marietta and headed west on a semi-expressway. I still didn't get to Cincinnati until late evening.

 

[jtbell]

I arrived home last night, but I still have two days of pics. I'll post them when I get a chance, after stashing all the stuff I unloaded from the car, doing laundry, catching up on snail mail, etc.

The previously-posted pictures don't look nearly as crisp on my desktop computer as they do on my phone. My quick-and-dirty resizing method must have optimized them for phones. I emailed them to myself, letting Apple's Mail app resize them to "Medium" quality. This produces file sizes similar to what I get in Photoshop on my desktop computer. Then I saved the images from email and uploaded them to PF.

I'll do the final two batches in Photoshop so you can see the difference.

[added on June 24] I've now replaced all the old pictures with better versions, processed from the originals from the phone.

 

[davenn]

You have had an awesome trip. I and I am sure many others have enjoyed your photo adventure through a number of states,
their towns and cities.

Thankyou for sharing

Dave

 

[jtbell]

Time to finish this trip, belatedly! As I promised in my previous post, these pictures are from my phone, but downloaded to my desktop Mac and "processed" in Photoshop. (Not the first one... I found that on the Web.)

I'm embarrassed to admit that even though I grew up in Ohio, I nefer vas in Zinzinnati except to drive through on the Interstate on my way to somewhere else. This was my first real visit. The main purpose was to visit their new streetcar line which opened last fall. It connects downtown and the sports stadiums on the riverfront with the Over-the-Rhine district to the north, which is redeveloping with restaurants, renovated townhouses, etc.

After riding down to the riverfront, I walked across the Roebling suspension bridge to Kentucky. This opened in 1867 and was built by the guy who later designed and started construction on the Brooklyn Bridge in New York.

Cincinnati claims this as the first bridge across the Ohio River, instead of the one in Wheeling that I visited upstream. Their excuse is that the Wheeling bridge doesn't go all the way across the river; it goes to an island which is separated from the other side of the river by a narrow channel.

If I had stayed in Cincinnati another night, I probably would have headed for a German Biergarten in Over-the-Rhine for dinner. However, I wanted to get home the following day, so I had a hotel reservation down the road in Lexington KY so as to get a head start, and left late in the afternoon.

Instead, for lunch, I sought out Cincinnati's best-known culinary specialty: chili! Specifically, the five-way chili at Camp Washington Chili:

Going upwards from the bottom you have (1) spaghetti, (2) chili, (3) beans and (4) diced onions, and finally (5) shredded cheese. The two packages of oyster crackers are for crumbling into the leftover chili sauce and soaking it up when you're finished.

Camp Washington Chili is a local landmark. Their original location dated from 1940. I visited it once, years ago, making a quick detour off I-75 while driving through town. In 2000 they had to move to a new location a short distance away because of a street widening project.

Another common place to get Cincinnati chili is Skyline Chili, a chain with parlors all over the area, and even a few in Florida to cater to homesick transplanted retirees. I've eaten at their parlors in Dayton OH and Fort Lauderdale FL.

One more day, coming up...