<p>The former First Church of Christ, Scientist, located at 1904 Pacific Avenue in Forest Grove, Oregon, in the United States is a historic Christian Science church built in 1916. It was designed by Spencer S. Beman, son of the noted designer of Christian Science churches, Solon Spencer Beman who had died in 1914. On January 21, 1994, it was added to the National Register of Historic Places.</p><br>
<h2>National Register listing</h2><br>
<p>First Church of Christ Scientist (added 1994 - Building - #93001505)</p><br>
<p>1904 Pacific Ave., Forest Grove</p><br>
<p>Historic Significance: Architecture/Engineering, Person</p><br>
<p>Architect, builder, or engineer: Beman, Spencer S., Loynes, James S.</p><br>
<p>Architectural Style: Colonial Revival, Other</p><br>
<p>Historic Person: Rogers, Adeline Fisk</p><br>
<p>Significant Year: 1916</p><br>
<p>Area of Significance: Architecture, Social History</p><br>
<p>Period of Significance: 1900-1924</p><br>
<p>Owner: Private</p><br>
<p>Historic Function: Religion</p><br>
<p>Historic Sub-function: Religious Structure</p><br>
<p>Current Function: Religion</p><br>
<p>Current Sub-function: Religious Structure</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<p>First Church of Christ Scientist, Forest Grove was designed by Chicago architect Spencer S. Beman, son and partner of noted architect, Solon Spencer Beman.</p><br>
<h2>Current use</h2><br>
<p>First Church of Christ Scientist, Forest Grove was downgraded to the Christian Science Society, Forest Grove, but is no longer an active Christian Science congregation.</p><br>
<p>The Techa River is a river on the eastern flank of the southern Ural Mountains noted for its nuclear contamination. It is about 240 km long, and its basin covers 7,500 km&sup2;. It begins at the formerly secret nuclear-processing town of Ozyorsk, Chelyabinsk Oblast about 80 km northwest of Chelyabinsk and flows northeast to Dalmatovo on the Iset River, a tributary of the Tobol River. Its basin is enclosed on the southeast by that of the Miass River, another river that flows northeast into the Iset.</p><br>
<h2>Water pollution</h2><br>
<p>From 1949 to 1956 the Mayak complex dumped an estimated 76 e6m3 of radioactive waste water into the Techa River, a cumulative dispersal of 2.75 &deg;C of radioactivity.</p><br>
<p>As many as forty villages, with a combined population of about 28,000 residents, lined the river at the time. For 24 of them, the Techa was a major source of water; 23 of them were eventually evacuated. In the past 45 years, about half a million people in the region have been irradiated in one or more of the incidents, exposing them to as much as 20 times the radiation suffered by the Chernobyl disaster victims.</p><br>
<p>Lake Sélingué is a 409 km² artificial lake in Mali&#39;s Sikasso Region, formed by the Sélingué Hydroelectric dam on the Sankarani River. Its southwestern arm forms part of the border with Guinea. Lake Sélingué, rising and falling in the rainy and dry seasons, allows agriculture on the irrigated perimeters, managed by the Office of Rural Development of Sélingué, as well as fishing. Since its creation, numerous communities have grown along the lake, the two largest being the towns of La Carrière and Faraba. Fishing the lake provides employment for more than 8,000 people in its various fishing communities, with an annual catch of around 4,000 tonnes. Most fish available in Bamako come from Lake Selingue.</p><br>
<p>Selingue is Mali&#39;s second largest artificial lake (reservoir) after Lake Manantali, created by the construction of the Manantali dam in 1988.</p><br>
<p>The Graniteville Historic District encompasses one of the very first textile company towns to be established in the Southern United States. Built in the late 1840s by William Gregg near Aiken, South Carolina, and now known as Graniteville, it was modeled after New England mill towns. Gregg used the success of this enterprise to advocate for the industrialization of the South, laying the groundwork for its eventual domination of the American textile industry. The district, which includes the original canal, mill building, mill worker housing, and a period church, was designated a National Historic Landmark District in 1978.</p><br>
<h2>Description and history</h2><br>
<p>William Gregg (1800-1867) had already had a successful career as a jeweler by the time he became involved in the textile industry in the 1840s. After touring New England and seeing its textile mills and industrial towns, he began advocating that the states of the Southern United States should industrialize to compete economically with the north. Gregg obtained financing from Charleston financiers to establish a model textile business, which would (controversially for the slavery-dominated South) employ white laborers.</p><br>
<p>Between 1845 and 1849 Gregg supervised the construction of a mile-long power canal, drawing water from Horse Creek and Bridge Creek, a mill building, schoolhouse, and 100 Carpenter Gothic wood frame worker housing units (of which 26 survive in good condition). He made available lots of land within the development for the construction of churches, of which two were eventually built. (One of these, St. Johns Methodist Church, is still standing.) The mill was furnished with the most recent technology for spinning and weaving, and went into operation in 1849. The financial success of the enterprise prompted the development of other, similar mills elsewhere in the South. Development was interrupted by the American Civil War, although this facility was one of the mainstays of textile production in the Confederacy. Greggs businesses continues to operate today, as Graniteville Specialty Fabrics.</p><br>
<p>Graniteville is located west of Aiken, on the east side of Horse Creek, a tributary of the Savannah River to the south west. The historic district includes the original 1846 power canal (no longer used for that purpose), which runs north from the center of Graniteville on the west side of Canal Street (South Carolina Highway 191). It also includes the original 1849 mill building, the 1847 Graniteville Academy building, St. John&#39;s Methodist Church, and the surviving line of 1840s worker houses on Gregg Street.</p><br>
<p>The former First Church of Christ, Scientist is an historic Christian Science church building located at 1200 North Robinson Avenue in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, United States. Built in 1922, it was designed in the Classical Revival style of architecture. On September 9, 2001, was added to the National Register of Historic Places. The building is now vacant.</p><br>
<h2>National register listing</h2><br>
<p>First Church of Christ, Scientist (added 2001 - Building - #01000949)</p><br>
<p>Also known as Center for Design Arts</p><br>
<p>1200 N. Robinson Ave., Oklahoma City</p><br>
<p>Historic Significance: Architecture/Engineering</p><br>
<p>Architectural Style: Classical Revival</p><br>
<p>Area of Significance: Architecture</p><br>
<p>Period of Significance: 1900-1924</p><br>
<p>Owner: Private</p><br>
<p>Historic Function: Religion</p><br>
<p>Historic Sub-function: Religious Structure</p><br>
<p>Current Function: Work In Progress</p><br>
<h2>Current status</h2><br>
<p>The former First Church of Christ, Scientist building at 1200 N. Robinson is now vacant and on the market. First Church of Christ, Scientist now holds services at 4700 North Portland.</p><br>
<p>Kahal Kadosh Beth Elohim , founded in 1749, is one of the oldest Jewish congregations in the United States. The congregation is nationally significant as the place where ideas resembling Reform Judaism were first evinced. It meets in an architecturally significant 1840 Greek Revival synagogue located at 90 Hasell  Street in Charleston, South Carolina. It was designed by Cyrus L. Warner.</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<p>Before 1830 Kahal Kodesh Beth Elohim (KKBE) was a place of worship in Charleston, South Carolina for Spanish and Portuguese Jews using Portuguese rituals as done in Portugal before the Spanish and Portuguese inquisitions, it later adopted a reformed religious ritual, after reabsorbing a splinter group originally led by Isaac Harby. In 1824 Reformed Society of the Israelites was founded by Portuguese Jews. It adoped ideas from the European Reford movement, and itself contributed ideas to the later, widespread American Reform movement, but was also quite different form either of them, with its own unique Reform prayer-book, the first in America</p><br>
<p>The founding members of the KKBE were Sephardi Jews of Spanish and Portuguese descendants, who arrived into Charleston from London, England. While the congregation is sometimes considered to be the originator of Reform Judaism in the United States, that movement was established by European immigrants mostly from Germany later on.</p><br>
<h2>Synagogue</h2><br>
<p>The present Greek Revival building is the second oldest synagogue building, and the oldest in continuous use, in the United States. It is a single story brick building, set on a raised granite foundation. The brick is stuccoed and painted white, and is marked in manner to resemble stone blocks. The front has a full Greek temple front, with fluted Doric columns supporting a gabled pediment. The Coming Street Cemetery, owned by the Congregation, is listed separately on the National Register of Historic Places.</p><br>
<p>The Clark Mills Studio is a historic building at 51 Broad Street in Charleston, South Carolina. Built as a tenement house, it was the residence and studio between 1837 and 1848 of sculptor Clark Mills . Mills is credited with creating the first cast equestrian bronze staue, the 1852 statue of Andrew Jackson at Lafayette Square, Washington, D.C. It was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1965, and now houses professional offices.</p><br>
<h2>Description and history</h2><br>
<p>The former Mills Studio building is located Charleston&#39;s old city, on the south side of Broad Street just west of Church Street. It is a four story masonry structure, built out of stuccoed brick. Its front facade is now commercial, with store fronts on the ground floor, projecting bay windows on the second and third floors. The interior is also reflective of its modern uses, having been converted into professional offices around the turn of the 20th century.</p><br>
<p>The building was originally built as a tenement house, and had two tenants in the 1830s, one of whom, Erastus Bulkeley, maintained a yard nearby from which he sold marble. When the other tenant moved out in 1837, Clark Mills rented that space, and established his residence and studio there. It is believed that it is here that the self-taught Mills produced his first significant work, a marble bust of South Carolina politician John C. Calhoun. In 1848 Mills was awarded the commission to produce a memorial statue to Andrew Jackson, to be located in Washington, D.C. His dynamic portrayal of Jackson, sitting astride a rearing horse, is remarkably balanced on the horse&#39;s two rear legs, and was the first American-cast full-size equestrian statue. Mills accomplished this by overweighting the rear of the horse to achieve the proper balance. He is best remembered more for his innovations in the engineering related to monumental sculpture than for the artistic merit of his output.</p><br>
<p>Woodlands, or the William Gilmore Simms Estate, is a historic plantation estate in Bamberg County, South Carolina. The property is nationally notable as the home for many years of author William Gilmore Simms , considered one of the leading literary voices of the antebellum Southern United States, and was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1971. The main house, built in part by Simms, contains mementos from his period.</p><br>
<h2>Description and history</h2><br>
<p>The Woodlands estate is located 3 mi east of Bamberg on both sides of USA Highway 78, on the south bank of the south branch of the Edisto River. The main estate house is a two story structure, brick on the first floor and wood frame on the second. Its main facade is five bays across, with asymmetrical window and door placement. The estate has two outbuildings from the 1860s: a small cabin that was used by William Gilmore Simms as a study, and a small dairy house.</p><br>
<p>The estate was already of some age when William Gilmore Simms inherited it from his in-laws in 1836. It was for many years his primary residence, where many of his most significant works were written. The main estate house was rebuilt several times, once after a fire, and again after its destruction by Union Army forces late in the American Civil War. Simms was not able to fully rebuild the main house, and only completed the library wing in 1867, which forms the first floor of the current main house.</p><br>
<p>A documentary was made about the enslaved population at the Woodlands plantation.</p><br>
<p>Lake Manantali is a large artificial lake, formed by the 1989 construction of the Manantali Dam, on the Bafing River in Mali. Its northern point is located 90 km to the south-east of the city of Bafoulabé.</p><br>
<h2>Size</h2><br>
<p>Lake Manantali covers 477 km and contains 11.3 billion m of water. Its formation forced 12,000 people from their homes and flooded 120 km of forest. The lake largely ended the flood patterns on both the Bafing and Senegal Rivers, compromising traditional agriculture which depended upon seasonal flooding. The lake has created benefits as well: consistent navigation downstream of the dam, irrigation of surrounding land, and a source for commercial fishing. The dam itself provides hydroelectric power through much of the region.</p><br>
<p>The Humes Ranch cabin was built around the year 1900 by William Humes. William Humes was originally from New York and arrived in the Elwha River area en route to the Klondike. William, his brother, and a cousin liked the area so much they set up homestead sites. In the early 1940s, Herb Crisler settled into the cabin at Humes Ranch with his bride, Lois, while they filmed wildlife for what became Walt Disney&#39;s "Olympic Elk" film. Since acquiring the property from Peninsula Plywood, the National Park Service has restored the cabin, conforming to its original appearance and with much of the original materials. Wood deterioration, however, is occurring, as a result of the moist Olympic Peninsula environment.</p><br>
<p>The cabin is accessible via the Geyser Valley trail, approximately 3 miles from Whiskey Bend Trailhead and 1.3 miles from Goblins Gate. Just beyond the cabin lie Humes&#39; old fields and then the trail continues for less than 0.5 miles to Dodger point bridge and the Grand Canyon of the Elwha.</p><br>
<p>The Church of the Holy Apostles is an historic Carpenter Gothic Episcopal church located at 1706 Hagood Avenue in Barnwell, South Carolina. On April 13, 1972, it was added to the National Register of Historic Places as the Church of the Holy Apostles, Episcopal.</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<p>The Church of the Holy Apostles was organized on November 18, 1848. The church was built in 1856 and dedicated on March 11, 1857 The cemetery adjacent to the church dates from the same time. Burials include Johnson Hagood, a confederate general in the Second Battle of Fort Wagner where Robert Gould Shaw was killed leading the all-black 54th Massachusetts regiment, a defeat portrayed in the 1989 film Glory.</p><br>
<h2>Current use</h2><br>
<p>The Church of the Holy Apostles is still an active parish in the Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina. The Rev. Robert Horn is the current rector.</p><br>
<p>The Sankarani River is a tributary of the Niger River. Flowing northward from the Fouta Djallon highlands of Guinea, it crosses into southern Mali, where it joins the Niger approximately 40 km upstream of Bamako,</p><br>
<p>The Sankarani River watershed, traditionally well suited to crops and rich in iron and gold, covers some 35,500 km&sup2, two-thirds of which are in Guinea, where it is joined by three tributaries: the Kourai, Yeremou and Dion Rivers. In Mali, it flows into the Niger River upstream of Bamako near the village of Kourouba.</p><br>
<p>Construction of the Sélingué Dam began in 1980, with the goal of supplying Bamako with electricity; it was inaugurated on 13 December 1982. It and the accompanying hydroelectric plant comprised the largest development project in Malian history up to that time. The plant has the capacity to produce 44.8 million kilowatt-hours of electricity. An irrigation scheme was also implemented, initially to compensate people who had to be moved; it covered 1,200 hectare, split up among 1943 plot holders, or 60,000 hectare.</p><br>
<p>The Sankanarni has a discontinuous floodplain over a distance of 170 km in Guinea. The river banks support gallery forests, though the Selingue Dam&#39;s reservoir covered many of them. As of 2008, more than a thousand fishermen catch "between 400 and 1000 kg/day in peak season and 10 to 50 kg/day in low season (March to May)" in the section of the river between the dam and the junction with the Niger.</p><br>
<p>At the height of its power, from the 13th to 16th centuries CE, the capital of the ancient Mali Empire is believed to have been at Niani, on the banks of the Sankarani.</p><br>
<p>The Dungeness School is a historical schoolhouse building located at 657 Towne Road in Dungeness, Washington. The idea for the school was formed in 1892 by the settlers of the Dungeness area. On May 10, 1892 a meeting was held in which settlers created a bond for land and a two story school house. The school house opened on February 27, 1893. The school originally had 73 students from the ages of 5 to 20. The school had one teacher who lived on the second floor of the school. Classes were large and books and supplies not easy to get. School Board minutes of April 8, 1895, show a motion was passed to buy the school a bottle of ink.</p><br>
<p>In 1955, the Dungeness and Sequim School Districts were consolidated, and the old Dungeness School was closed. In 1967 the Dungeness Community Club purchased the land and the building from the Sequim School District. The Dungeness School was designated a Washington State Historical Site in 1973. On May 19, 1988, the building was listed on the National Register of Historical Places. In 1995, faced with rising maintenance costs, the schoolhouse was donated to the local museum and is now operated as a division of the Museum and Arts Center.</p><br>
<p>The Church of the Holy Apostles Rectory is an historic Carpenter Gothic house located at 1700 Hagood Avenue in Barnwell, South Carolina, On April 13, 1972, it was added to the National Register of Historic Places. It is also known as the Roberts House, the Old Patterson House, or The Rectory.</p><br>
<h2>National Register listing</h2><br>
<p>Church of the Holy Apostles Rectory (added 1972 - Building - #72001189)</p><br>
<p>Also known as Rectory, The; Roberts House; Old Patterson House</p><br>
<p>1700 Hagood Ave., Barnwell</p><br>
<p>Historic Significance: Person, Event, Architecture/Engineering</p><br>
<p>Architect, builder, or engineer: Unknown</p><br>
<p>Architectural Style: Gothic</p><br>
<p>Historic Person: Aldrich, James T.</p><br>
<p>Significant Year: 1857</p><br>
<p>Area of Significance: Architecture, Religion, Military, Politics/Government</p><br>
<p>Period of Significance: 1850-1874</p><br>
<p>Owner: Private</p><br>
<p>Historic Function: Domestic, Religion</p><br>
<p>Historic Sub-function: Church Related Residence, Single Dwelling</p><br>
<p>Current Function: Domestic</p><br>
<p>Current Sub-function: Single Dwelling</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<p>The Rev. Edwin Wagner, first rector of the Church of the Holy Apostles, had this house built before 1857 on land that he owned. He deeded part of the land adjacent to his house to the church for the erection of a church and cemetery. The house, though, remained in separate ownership from the church until recently. Later owners include James T. Aldrich and Dr. Angus Bethune Patterson, who both served in the South Carolina General Assembly.</p><br>
<p>The Huguenot Church, also called the French Huguenot Church or the French Protestant Church, is a Gothic Revival church located at 136 Church Street in Charleston, South Carolina. Built in 1844 and designed by architect Edward Brickell White, it is the oldest Gothic Revival church in South Carolina, and has been designated a National Historic Landmark and listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The congregation it serves traces its origins to the 1680s, and is the only independent Huguenot church in the United States.</p><br>
<p>As Protestants in predominantly-Catholic France, Huguenots faced persecution throughout the 16th and 17th centuries. Following the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685, many Huguenots fled France for various parts of the world, including Charleston. The early congregation of Charlestons Huguenot Church included many of these refugees, and their descendants continued to play a role in the churchs affairs for many decades. The church was originally affiliated with the Calvinist Reformed Church of France, and its doctrine still retains elements of Calvinist doctrine. The church&#39;s services still follow 18th century French liturgy, but are conducted in English.</p><br>
<p>The church is located in the area of Charleston known as the French Quarter, which was given this name in 1973 as part of preservation efforts. It recognizes that the area had a historically high concentration of French merchants. Peter Manigault, once the wealthiest man in the British North American colonies, is buried in the church cemetery.</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<p>The Huguenots, who were French Calvinists who faced suppression in France, began to settle in other areas in the sixteenth century, founding such failed colonies as Fort Caroline in Florida and Charlesfort in modern South Carolina, as well as settling in established areas, such as South Africa, Britain, and existing colonies such as New Netherlands and Virginia. In 1598, King Henry IV of France issued the Edict of Nantes, granting certain rights and protections to the Huguenots. This edict was revoked by Louis XIV in 1685, prompting a mass exodus of Huguenots from France.</p><br>
<p>A group of 45 Huguenots arrived in Charleston in April 1680, having been sent to the colony by the English King Charles II to work as artisans, and began holding sporadic services the following year. Prioleau remained pastor of the Charleston Hueguenot Church until his death in 1699.</p><br>
<p>Families associated with the church in its early decades included the Gourdin, Ravenel, Porcher, de Saussure, Huger, Mazyck, Lamar and Lanier families, though the churchs early years have been difficult to document due to the loss of its early records in a fire in 1740. Families associated with the church in later years included the Bacot, de la Plaine, Maury, Gaillard, Meserole, Macon, Gabeau, Cazenove, LHommedieu, L&#39;Espenard, Serre, Marquand, Bavard, Boudouin, Marion, Laurens, Boudinot, Gibert, Robert, and Fontaine families. Huguenots continued to migrate to Carolina throughout the first half of the 18th century, though most of their congregations were gradually absorbed into the Episcopal Church.</p><br>
<p>The first Huguenot Church, located at the site of the present church, was blown up by city authorities in an effort to stop a spreading fire. It was replaced by a simple brick church in 1800. This building was torn down in 1844 to make way for the present church, which was completed the following year. This third church sustained damage during the Civil War and the Charleston Earthquake of 1886, and was restored with funds from Huguenot descendant Charles Lanier of New York. The church is surrounded by a graveyard where many Huguenots are buried.</p><br>
<p>Due to a decline in membership in the early 19th century, the church began translating its French liturgy into English in 1828. With the new English liturgy, an elaborate new building, and charismatic 19th century pastors such as Charles Howard and Charles Vedder, church membership and attendance increased.</p><br>
<p>By 1912, membership had again declined, and for most of the 20th century, the church was not used for regular religious services. The local community of Huguenot descendants did occasionally open it for weddings, organ recitals, and some occasional services organized by the Huguenot Society of South Carolina. Today&#39;s congregation dates from 1983.</p><br>
<h2>Design and construction</h2><br>
<p>The present church was designed by Edward Brickell White, a local architect who had also designed a number of Greek and Roman buildings in the area, most notably Market Hall, the steeple of St. Philips Episcopal Church, and the St. Matthews German Evangelical Lutheran Church. The church was built by local contractor Ephraim Curtis.</p><br>
<p>The church is a stuccoed brick structure, three bays wide and six bays long, with each bay divided by narrow buttresses topped by elaborate pinnacles. The three front windows are topped with cast-iron crockets, and a battlement parapet surrounds the top of the church. The interior consists of walls with plaster ribbed grained vaulting, with marble tablets etched with names of Huguenot families.</p><br>
<p>The churchs organ, purchased in 1845, is a unique tracker organ designed by New York organ maker Henry Erben (1801&ndash;1883). The "tracker" connects the keys and pipe valves, and responds to the organist faster than modern mechanisms. The organs tone is similar to organs used during the Baroque period.</p><br>
<h2>Current use</h2><br>
<p>The church now holds regular services, which are in English, although since 1950, an annual service has been conducted in French to celebrate the spring. The congregation still teaches Calvinist doctrine, and its liturgical services are derived from those developed by Neufchâtel and Vallangin, from 1737 and 1772, respectively. The church is governed by a board of directors and board of elders.</p><br>
<p>The Joseph Manigault House is a historic house museum at 350 Meeting Street in Charleston, South Carolina that is owned and operated by the Charleston Museum. Built in 1803, it was designed by Gabriel Manigault to be the home of his brother, and is nationally significant as a well-executed and preserved example of Adam style architecture. It was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1973.</p><br>
<h2>Description and history</h2><br>
<p>The Manigault House is located near the center of the Charleston peninsula, at the corner of Meeting and John Streets. It is a three story brick structure, set on a raised brick foundation. The main facade has a two-story porch across the center three bays, with elaborate doorways on both floors featuring slender pilasters and sidelight windows. A semicircular stairwell projects from one sidewall, and a bowed porch from the other, giving the house the rough shape of a parallelogram. The interior features delicately refined woodwork in its fireplace mantels, door and window moulding, and cornices, reflective of the style promoted by Robert Adam, which differentiated the scale of these elements in domestic and civic architecture. The gatehouse standing near the property entrance is a architectural folly.</p><br>
<p>The house was built in 1803 for Joseph Manigault to a design by his brother Gabriel. Gabriel Manigault had studied architecture in London before the American Revolutionary War, and was familiar with Robert Adams&#39; design principles. This was the first major work of his to exhibit these principles, and was also one of the first houses in Charleston that was not obviously based on the standard "single house" and double house" models then commonly used. The house also includes a number of construction elements designed to minimize problems with pests.</p><br>
<p>Mr. Manigault&#39;s executor sold the house in 1852 to George N. Reynolds, Jr., before it was passed onto John S. Riggs in 1864.</p><br>
<p>In 1920, the house was threatened with demolition to make way for a gas station. In response, a group of Charlestonians organized a preservation group which would become the Preservation Society of Charleston.</p><br>
<p>St. John&#39;s Episcopal Church is an historic Episcopal church located at 1105 Quarrier Street in Charleston, West Virginia, in the United States. On November 2, 1989, it was added to the National Register of Historic Places. It was also listed as a contributing property in the Downtown Charleston Historic District in 2006.</p><br>
<h2>National Register listing</h2><br>
<p>St. John&#39;s Episcopal Church ** (added 1989 - Building - #89001782)</p><br>
<p>1105 Quarrier St., Charleston</p><br>
<p>Historic Significance: Person, Event, Architecture/Engineering</p><br>
<p>Architect, builder, or engineer: Pursell, Isaac, Warne, Tucker, Silling & Hutchison</p><br>
<p>Architectural Style: Late Gothic Revival</p><br>
<p>Historic Person: Laidley, Alexander T.</p><br>
<p>Significant Year: 1890, 1928, 1884</p><br>
<p>Area of Significance: Architecture, Religion</p><br>
<p>Period of Significance: 1875-1899, 1900–1924, 1925–1949</p><br>
<p>Owner: Private</p><br>
<p>Historic Function: Religion</p><br>
<p>Historic Sub-function: Religious Structure</p><br>
<p>Current Function: Religion, Social</p><br>
<p>Current Sub-function: Civic, Religious Structure</p><br>
<h2>Current status</h2><br>
<p>St. John&#39;s Episcopal Church is still an active parish in the Episcopal Diocese of West Virginia.</p><br>
<p>Middleburg Plantation is a historic colonial-era plantation on the Cooper River near Huger, South Carolina. The plantation house, built in 1699 by the French Huguenot Benjamin Simons in 1699, is probably the oldest standing wood-frame building in South Carolina, and is consequently an architecturally important example of period construction. It was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1970.</p><br>
<h2>Description and history</h2><br>
<p>Middleburg Plantation is located southwest of Huger, between Cainhoy Road and the Cooper River. The plantation occupies about 400 acre of lowlands fronting on the river. The main house is a two-story timber frame structure, measuring about 64 x. It is topped by a hip roof, and is three rooms wide and one deep, with single-story porches on both of its long sides. The walls are sheathed in wooden clapboards, and it has two chimneys. Its plan is a precursor to what became the typical Charleston "single house". Each floor has three rooms, with the stairwell on the north side of the central room, and a narrow hallway extending on the upper level&#39;s north side. Exterior walls are plastered, and floors are made of wide boards. Extending to the west is an ell that was added in the late 18th century, the last significant alteration to the building.</p><br>
<p>Middleburg was established in 1699 by Benjamin Simons, a French Huguenot refugee, and was, at the time of its designation as a National Historic Landmark in 1970, still in the hands of Simon&#39;s descendants. The plantation includes two later outbuildings: a 19th-century carriage house with fine jigsawn woodwork, and a brick commissary building that includes a slave jail in its rear.</p><br>
<p>The Robert Mills House, also known as Robert Mills Historic House and Park or the Ainsley Hall House, is a historic house museum at 1616 Blanding Street in Columbia, South Carolina. Built in 1823 to a design by Robert Mills, it was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1973 for its architectural significance. The Historic Columbia Foundation owns and operates the home, which has been furnished with decorative arts of the early 19th century, including American Federal, English Regency, and French Empire pieces.</p><br>
<h2>Description and history</h2><br>
<p>The Robert Mills House is located in a parklike 4 acre parcel that occupies an entire city block in central Columbia. It is a two-story masonry structure, built out of brick set on a high basement with arcaded walls. Its main facade faces north, with a Classical projecting portico that has four Ionic columns supporting a gabled pediment. The main entrance is topped by a fanlight window, and the windows in the flanking bays are set in round-arch openings, a Mills design hallmark. The building&#39;s entrance hall is symmetrical, with the stairwell concealed behind a doorway that is matched by a false doorway on the opposite wall. The hall has curved ends, as do the matching parlors, providing an illusion of increased space.</p><br>
<p>The house was designed by Mills and built in 1823 for Ainsley Hall, who died before it was finished. It was for many years part of the campus of the Columbia Theological Seminary, which moved out of Columbia in 1960. With the property threatened with development, it was acquired by Historic Columbia and restored, opening as a museum in 1967.</p><br>
<p>Red Shirt Table is a table mountain in Oglala Lakota County, South Dakota part of the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation of the Oglala Sioux Tribe. The table, named after Chief Red Shirt is approximately 10 mi long, generally extending in a north-south direction, and is located along the western boundary of Badlands National Parks Stronghold Unit. The parks highest point is located at the southern end of the table at 3,340 ft. The irregularly shaped southern portion of the table is connected to the more rectangular northern portion by a narrow section less than 800 ft wide; the northern portion is up to two miles  wide and is composed of two elongated lobes with a runoff channel between them. The top surface of the table slopes gently downhill as it extends northward, with the north edge being at about 2,800 in elevation. It drops off steeply from almost all sides, up to 300. French Creek flows to the northeast, and the intermittent Cedar Creek drains the entire east side of the table.</p><br>
<p>Red Shirt Table is one of many tables in the White River Badlands; others include Cuny Table, Sheep Mountain Table, and Heck Table.</p><br>
<p>The Oglala Lakota community of Red Shirt, located below the north end of the table (in the Cheyenne River valley), is the village of Pine Ridge Indian Reservation closest to Rapid City, South Dakota and has grown in recent years.</p><br>
<p>The Stabler-Leadbeater Apothecary Shop/Museum is a historic apothecary&#39;s shop in Alexandria, Virginia, USA, that has been preserved as a museum. During its working life, the drug company was owned by generations of a Quaker family. Eventually, a dramatic decline in sales during the Great Depression forced the shop to close its doors. Almost immediately, in 1939, it was reopened as a museum. Today, most of the artifacts inside the shop are authentic and date to its closing.</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<p>Edward Stabler came to Alexandria after apprenticing in the apothecary business with his brother in Leesburg, Virginia. A devout Quaker and savvy businessman, he rented space in 1792 at the corner of King and S. Fairfax to start his business and by 1796, he began renting 107 S. Fairfax. Nine years later, he took ownership of the building and turned it into a bustling apothecary business. By 1829, he had purchased 105 S. Fairfax and incorporated the building into his operation.</p><br>
<p>Edward Stabler sold to a variety of city and country residents – from Martha Washington to Robert E. Lee, the local doctor to the local farmer. The typical products Stabler sold included medicine, farm and garden equipment, surgical instruments, dental equipment, soap, perfume, Buffalo and Bedford mineral water, cigars, window glass, paint and varnish, artists’ supplies, combs and brushes. Much of the medicine he sold was created on-site, using plant and herb materials.</p><br>
<p>By 1806, Stabler began traveling extensively to Quaker church meetings throughout the region, leaving oldest son William to run the business in his absence. After his father’s death in 1831, the business passed to William. Keeping with the family-run tradition, William brought several of his brothers and also his brother-in-law, John Leadbeater, into the business between 1832 and his death in 1852. John Leadbeater, a trained apothecary and dentist, purchased the business from William’s wife, as the couple had no children, and changed the name of the business from William Stabler and Co. to John Leadbeater.</p><br>
<p>Once the Civil War erupted, Alexandria was quickly occupied by Union troops – a fact noted in the Leadbeater business’ daybook. After the First Battle of Manassas, Union troops poured into Alexandria and the Apothecary’s books reported that many soldiers stood in line to buy “Hot Drops”, a cough expectorant containing paprika and alcohol. The drops sold for a cent each and sold over $1,000 in one day!</p><br>
<p>In 1865, the business was operated by John’s son Edward and soon supplied to nearly 500 pharmacies throughout the Washington DC area. At its peak, the Leadbeaters employed 12 salesmen throughout Virginia, West Virginia, and North Carolina to promote their wholesale and mail order businesses. The company operated in 11 buildings in Alexandria, including the two main buildings on Fairfax Street, offices on King Street, warehouses on Lee and Prince Streets, and an office in Washington, D.C.</p><br>
<p>By the turn of the century however, the family business was beginning to feel the effects of the growing commercial pharmacies and synthetic drug companies, as well as the downturn in the economy, and the business declared bankruptcy in 1933, just days before the death of its owner, Edward S. Leadbeater, Jr.</p><br>
<p>Spurred into action to save the historic collection for future generations, a plan was crafted by concerned Alexandria citizens and the American Pharmaceutical Association to purchase the collection and archives with private buyers. The majority of the contents and archives were purchased at auction on July 19, 1933, by L. Manuel Hendler, a Baltimore ice cream merchant with an affinity for the history of pharmacy. The following year, the newly formed Landmarks Society of Alexandria purchased the buildings at auction. Hendler then donated the contents and archives to the Landmarks Society.</p><br>
<p>With the buildings and collection secured, the structures were conjecturally returned to their 18th century appearance by noted restoration architect, Thomas Tileston Waterman. The museum was officially re-opened in 1939, free of charge thanks to the financial support of the American Pharmaceutical Association. After an extensive renovation adding a fire suppression system, and re-stabilizing the structure, the Landmarks Society donated the museum and its important contents to the City of Alexandria in November 2006.</p><br>
<h3>Edward Stabler</h3><br>
<p>Edward Stabler, apothecary, founded the shop in 1792 at the corner of King and Fairfax Streets. In 1796, he moved his operation to 107 S. Fairfax. Edward&#39;s son, William Stabler, took over the management of the shop in 1819. Stabler was a known anti-slavery proponent and often used his own money to buy slaves to free them.</p><br>
<h3>William Stabler</h3><br>
<p>William Stabler inherited the business upon the death of Edward in 1831.</p><br>
<h3>John Leadbeater</h3><br>
<p>John Leadbeater, William Stablers brother-in-law, took over the business in 1852 upon the death of Stabler. There is a legend that Robert E. Lee was in the store when he received the orders to put down John Browns raid in 1859. This is unlikely, though the owner of the pharmacy allowed a commemorative plaque to be installed in 1932 by the Sons of the Confederacy.</p><br>
<h3>E.S. Leadbeater</h3><br>
<p>Johns son Edward took over the shop when John died in 1860. The Union-supporting family nearly lost the enterprise to the Confederates. Shortly after the First Battle of Bull Run, exhausted Union soldiers sought comfort from the stores merchandise.</p><br>
<p>In the early 20th century, the drug store&#39;s business was good. Deliveries were made to several states, and there was a lucrative wholesale business.</p><br>
<h3>Preservation</h3><br>
<p>The tough times of the Great Depression put the Leadbeater Drug Co., then one of the oldest pharmacies in the United States, out of business, but the Alexandria locals, and Manuel Hendler of Baltimore, recognized the history of the establishment and purchased it at the foreclosure auction. It reopened as a museum in 1939, owned and operated by the Landmarks Society, the organization founded to run the museum. In 2004, the museum was closed for renovations. When it was reopened in 2006, it was donated to the City of Alexandria.</p><br>
<h2>Current museum</h2><br>
<p>The museum displays thousands of artifacts, precisely on the shelves where they were when the store closed. The store also still features antebellum gothic revival furnishing. After an in-depth restoration in 2006 by The City of Alexandria, the second floor is now included on tours of the museum. The second floor contains a former warehouse room currently used for events, and a manufacturing room, where medicines were made for retail and wholesale. Like the historic retail space on the main floor of the museum, the manufacturing room is practically untouched since 1933.</p><br>
<p>The museum offers daily tours for individuals and families, and group tours by appointment. Tours are not free, due to ongoing costs associated with maintaining and operating the museum. The museum&#39;s hours vary depending on the season, closing on Monday and Tuesday during the winter. The museum also runs various programs for the community. There is a Girl Scout workshop, various discussions on old medicine, and themed birthday parties available.</p><br>
<h2>Famous customers</h2><br>
<p>Elisha C. Dick, George Washingtons doctor, during Washingtons terminal illness</p><br>
<p>Martha Washington (1802)</p><br>
<p>James Monroe</p><br>
<p>Eleanor Parke Custis Lewis</p><br>
<p>Robert E. Lee (bought paint for the Arlington House)</p><br>
<p>Dammträsk  is a small man made lake within the Tyresån Lake System, located in Haninge Municipality, south of central Stockholm, Sweden.</p><br>
<p>The lake receives water from Övre and Nedre Rudasjön south of the lake and empties into Drevviken north of it. Located just south of the residential area Kvarntorp, and north of the densely populated central Haninge, the wetland lake receives considerable amount of nutritive salts.</p><br>
<h2>Environmental impact</h2><br>
<p>The lake and the surrounding wetlands, together with local forests, are regarded as a valuable local natural resource worth to protect. However, while the lake system as a whole is regarded as sensitive to further loads of surface runoff, Dammträsk is one of the lakes in Haninge already to contaminated to be regarded as vulnerable. It has been a conscious decision to redirect water from Rudasjön to Dammträsk, and, as much of the waste the lake receives is sedimented into the lake, Drevviken, the lake downstream is saved from contamination. The price to pay, has been the dense vegetation in the lake. Two abandoned facilities by the lake, a dry cleaner and a gas station, has contaminated the area surrounding the lake. In 2005, the area was restored and some 276 tons of earth containing chlorinated hydrocarbons and 595 tons containing petroleum was removed.</p><br>
<h2>Biodiversity</h2><br>
<p>An inventory of the local vegetation concluded there are 27 species of vascular plants around the lake, which makes it relatively biodiverse (3/5 on a scale where 1 means high biodiversity). One of the interesting species of aquatic plants in the lake is Common Mare&#39;s Tail. Grass Carp has been introduced in the lake.</p><br>
<p>The Temple Downtown,  is a historic former masonic building in Mobile, Alabama, United States. It was built to serve as the meeting place for the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry. The building was designed by George Bigelow Rogers, a local Mobile architect who was responsible for designing many of the city&#39;s buildings during this period. The cornerstone was laid on November 30, 1921, with the building completed in 1922. It is the only intact example of the Egyptian Revival style in Mobile. It was placed on the National Register of Historic Places on January 5, 1984.</p><br>
<h2>Architecture</h2><br>
<p>The Scottish Rite Temple was inspired by Ancient Egyptian architectural forms, although combined in a unique way. The building facades on the east and north sides are in the form of Egyptian pylons. An ancient Egyptian pylon was made up of two battered (tapered) monumental towers, each topped by a cornice, and joined together by a less elevated section containing a central gateway leading into a temple. A battered wall is wider at the base than it is at the top, with an upwardly receding slope. The south facade of the Scottish Rite Temple abuts the adjacent property. It and the rear facade are plain masonry and are not battered. The two entrance doorways, on the elaborate east and north facades, were inspired by the Bab el’Adb Gate, also known as the Gateway of Ptolemy III and Ptolemy IV, at the Karnak Temple Complex. The east entrance is flanked by a pair of sphinxes by the sculptor Allen W. Barr. The roof is surmounted by two protruding obelisks that originally functioned as chimneys.</p><br>
<p>Llyn y Fan Fach  is a lake of approximately 10 hectares on the northern margin of the Black Mountain in Carmarthenshire, South Wales and lying within the Brecon Beacons National Park. The lake lies at an altitude of approximately 1,660 ft, immediately to the north of the ridge of the Carmarthen Fans. It is the smaller of two lakes within this mountain massif: the slightly larger Llyn y Fan Fawr is about 2 mi to the east.</p><br>
<h2>Geology</h2><br>
<p>The lake is overlooked by several prominent mountain peaks, especially Picws Du and Waun Leffrith. Waun Lefrith is formed from the sandstones and mudstones of the Brownstones Formation of the Old Red Sandstone laid down during the Devonian period. Its southern slopes are formed from the hard-wearing sandstones of the overlying Plateau Beds Formation which are of upper/late Devonian age. It is those rocks which form vertical crags along the top edge of the scarp. The northern face of Waun Lefrith was home to a glacier during the ice ages which gouged out the cwm in which Llyn y Fan Fach now sits. This empties via the Afon Sawdde into the River Towy. The southern slopes drain via the Twrch Fechan, the Nant Menyn and Nant Lluestau into the Afon Twrch and so into the River Tawe.</p><br>
<p>Large moraines occur to the east of the summit at the base of the scarp, and below the prominent peak of Picws Du as well as those damming the Lake.</p><br>
<h2>Legend of Llyn y Fan Fach</h2><br>
<p>A folklore legend is connected with the lake, known as the Lady of the Lake. In the folk tale, a local young man, son of a widow from Blaen Sawdde (near Llanddeusant) agreed to marry a beautiful girl who arose from the lake, with the condition that he would not hit her three times. He complied easily because the girl was so beautiful, and they were happy for years putting up a house in Esgair Llaethdy near Myddfai, and bringing up a family there. The girl had very special cattle, traditionally still kept at Dinefwr, Llandeilo, and other animals. But over time the man did hit his wife three times, as gentle admonishments. Reasons for why he hit her vary, from the wife laughing at a funeral or crying at a wedding. Regardless, she had to go back to the lake according to the promise, taking the cattle with her. But the mother came back to them to help and instruct her sons, and in particular one called Rhiwallon (in some versions Rhiwallon is the name of the young man who marries the fairy girl). In due course Rhiwallon and the other sons went to the court of Rhys Gryg of Deheubarth, where they became famous doctors who are known today as the Physicians of Myddfai. A number of their medical formulae remain in the Welsh manuscripts.</p><br>
<h2>Access</h2><br>
<p>The lake can be reached on foot via the water board road to the small dam on the lake. There is a car park at the bottom of the single track road reached by a poorly signposted road from Llanddeusant village. The track passes filter beds and associated buildings about halfway up the hill, and there is an unlocked windowless rescue shelter or bothy by the wall of the dam. The shelter is normally unlocked, and although there is a fireplace, there is no fuel visible nearby. There are no windows, so the stranded walker will have to rely on his own illumination. A path continues to the west up the slope to the escarpment, and wooden barriers have been erected here to move the path to one side and allow damaged turf to recuperate. The path follows the edge of the cliff, reaching the summits of Waun Lefrith and then Picws Du, both of which overlook the lake. There are many deep gullies leading down from the cliff top, and numerous rock outcrops near the top. The Beacons Way follows the ridge down from the summits above the lake, and forms an alternative route onto or off the mountain to the dam road. It arrives in Llanddeusant village more directly, and gives access to the Youth Hostel in the village.</p><br>
<h2>Wildlife</h2><br>
<p>There are numerous different species of bird in the area, and they include the red kite, common buzzard, kestrel, carrion crow, common raven and skylark to name a few of the most obvious residents. The former birds can often be found soaring on the updrafts near the cliffs as well as on thermals from the valley below. The red kite was previously restricted to this and adjoining areas in South Wales such as Mynydd Mallaen, mainly as a result of persecution by farmers and gamekeepers, but attitudes have now changed. It was thought that the bird preyed on game birds such as the red grouse, although the evidence showed that they survive mainly on carrion, like many other birds of prey. The kestrel and buzzard are widely distributed, but the raven is restricted to the higher mountains.</p><br>
<p>There is a wide distribution of mammals such as field voles, foxes and badgers as well as many songbirds. The skylark is plentiful due to the extensive rough pasture present below the main peaks which allows ground nesting of the species. Pied wagtails are common near the streams and torrents running from the hill tops.</p><br>
<h2>Further reading</h2><br>
<p>There are a few versions of the legend of the Lady of the lake in Welsh and English.</p><br>
<p>T. Gwynn Jones, Welsh Folklore and Folk-custom (1930; new edition 1979). Tt. 61-4. Background and a lot of interesting details.</p><br>
<p>The Playmakers Theatre, originally Smith Hall, is a historic academic building on the campus of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Built in 1850, it was designated a National Historic Landmark for its architecture, as an important example of Greek Revival architecture by Alexander Jackson Davis. It is now a secondary venue of the performing company, which is principally located at the Paul Green Theatre.</p><br>
<h2>Description and history</h2><br>
<p>The Playmakers Theatre building is located in the northern portion of the UNC campus, on the south side of East Cameron Avenue next to the College of Arts and Sciences, and across Cameron from Old East, also a National Historic Landmark. The building has the form of a Greek temple, built out brick with a stuccoed exterior. At its eastern end is a gabled portico, supported by fluted columns that have Corinthian capitals modified to include ears of corn and leaves of tobacco, two important North Carolina crops. The gable is fully pedimented, with modillioned eave and rake edge. The walls of the building have pilastered bays, the pilasters supporting a simple entablature.</p><br>
<p>Smith Hall was built in 1850, as part of a campus improvement plan begun in the 1830s. Andrew Jackson Davis had been retained to oversee alterations to Old East and Old West, and develop an overall plan for the campus. Its original purposes was as a social venue. After also being used as a laboratory, bath house, and law school, it became a theater in 1923. The Theatre is the perpetual home of the Carolina Playmakers, although as their successor, the Playmakers Repertory Company uses Paul Green Theatre as their primary venue.</p><br>
<p>Ward Hunt Island is a small, uninhabited island in the Arctic Ocean, off the north coast of Ellesmere Island. Its northern cape is one of the northernmost elements of land in Canada. Only a 17 km stretch of northern coast of Ellesmere Island around Cape Columbia is more northerly. The island is 6.5 km long, east to west, and 3.3 km wide. The first known sighting was in 1876 by Pelham Aldrich, a lieutenant with the George Nares expedition, and named for George Ward Hunt, First Lord of the Admiralty at the time .</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<p>Ward Hunt Island was briefly used as a weather station during the International Geophysical Year of 1957-58, and since then it has been used as the starting point for a number of attempts to reach the North Pole, beginning with Ralph Plaisted in 1968. There is an airstrip,and a building on the north shore of the island.</p><br>
<p>On July 29, 2008, a giant chunk of ice broke away from the shelf on Ward Hunt Island. The new ice island had an area of 35.9 km&sup2;. It was the largest fracture of its kind since the nearby Ayles Ice Shelf—which measured 66 km&sup2;—broke away in 2005.</p><br>
<p>In 1959, an American geologist, Paul T. Walker, put a note in a bottle and built a cairn over it near a glacier 800 km north of Grise Fiord, Nunavut. The note stated that the cairn was 1.2 m in front of a glacier, and left instructions to measure the distance again when the note was found. Researchers from Laval University found it in the summer of 2013. The distance by then was 101.5 m. At the time, few scientists were expecting glaciers to retreat.</p><br>
<p>In July 2016, a team of scientists with the Canadian Armed Forces while conducting a site visit of Eureka, Tanquary Fiord, and Ward Hunt Island found a cairn erected in 1975 by then Prime Minister, Pierre Trudeau, who had been accompanied by two of his sons, Justin Trudeau and Alexandre Trudeau. A picture of the plaque was presented to current Prime Minister Justin Trudeau by Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan on behalf of the Canadian Armed Forces.</p><br>
<p>Nissi Beach is a well-known beach in the resort of Ayia Napa, Cyprus.</p><br>
<p>The beach stretches for 500 metres and the water is clean enough for the beach to have been awarded blue flag designation. The beach, which runs the length of its own cove, takes its name from the small islet of Nissi (Greek: Νησί) located close to the coast. The uninhabited islet can be easily reached on foot through the shallow waters and its location provides a good shelter for the rest of the beach. The islet is covered with low-level local vegetation.</p><br>
<p>Nissi Beach has become a popular destination for clubbers following live programs transmitted through BBC&#39;s Radio 1 Roadshow during the summer tourist season since 2002. Nissi Bay Beach Bar is very popular with locals and tourists alike, playing music throughout the day and organizing events such as foam parties and catwalks with guest DJs. Water sports such as water-skiing and windsurfing are available. There are also two beach volleyball courts open to the public.</p><br>
<p>In 2005, archaeological excavations along the western borders of the bay revealed evidence of fire-lighting equipment dating back 12,000 years, indicating that the area could have been settled by the first humans on the island.</p><br>
<p>Lake Carmi is a small and relatively shallow lake located in the town of Franklin, in the northwest corner of Vermont, United States. It is the fourth largest lake, and has a 1,375 acre surface area, an average depth of 20 ft and a maximum depth of 33 ft.</p><br>
<p>Lake Carmi supports many species of fish, including northern pike and walleye. The lake drains northwards into the Pike River in Quebec. Lake Carmi was once much larger. In the thousands of years since the last ice age, the southern end of the original lake has silted in, creating wetland forests and the third largest peat bog in Vermont</p><br>
<p>At the southern end of the lake, Lake Carmi State Park offers camping facilities. Vermont Route 120 runs along the northern shoreline.</p><br>
<p>Crater Lake Lodge was built in 1915 to provide overnight accommodations for visitors to Crater Lake National Park in southern Oregon, USA. The lodge is located on the southwest rim of the Crater Lake caldera overlooking the lake 1,000 ft below. The lodge is owned by the National Park Service, and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.</p><br>
<h2>Local history</h2><br>
<p>Crater Lake lies inside a caldera created 7,700 years ago when the 12,000 ft-high Mount Mazama collapsed following a large volcanic eruption. Over the following millennium, the caldera was filled with rain water forming today&#39;s lake. The Klamath Indians revered Crater Lake for its deep blue waters. In 1853, three gold miners found the lake. They named it Deep Blue Lake, but because the lake was so high in the Cascade Range the discovery was soon forgotten.</p><br>
<p>In 1886, Captain Clarence Dutton led a United States Geological Survey party to Crater Lake. Duttons team carried a half-ton survey boat, the Cleetwood, up the steep mountain slope and lowered it 2,000 ft into the lake. From the Cleetwood, Dutton used piano wire to measure the depth of the lake at 168 different points. The survey team determined the lake was 1,996 ft deep. This is surprisingly close to the modern sonar-based readings made in 1959 that established the lakes deepest point at 1,932 ft.</p><br>
<p>William Gladstone Steel accompanied the Dutton party in 1886. He named many of the lakes landmarks including Wizard Island, Llao Rock, and Skell Head, and participated in lake surveys that provided scientific evidence of the lakes uniqueness. After he returned, Steel began advocating that Crater Lake be established as a national park. On 22 May 1902, President Theodore Roosevelt signed a bill making Crater Lake the United States&#39; sixth national park. The idea of building a guest lodge at Crater Lake was first raised by Steel shortly after the park was established.</p><br>
<h2>Construction</h2><br>
<p>In 1909, Steel finally convinced a Portland developer, Alfred Parkhurst, to build a lodge on the rim above Crater Lake. The average winter snowfall at Crater Lake is 533 in.</p><br>
<h2>Early development</h2><br>
<p>When Crater Lake Lodge opened in 1915, it drew many visitors despite the lack of amenities. The magnificent view of Crater Lake and the surrounding peaks of the Cascade Mountains kept a steady flow of visitor coming to the lodge.</p><br>
<p>In 1922, a two-year facility upgrade project was begun. The project doubled the number of guest rooms, and added private bathrooms in the lodge&#39;s new wing. However, lack of money left many of the new rooms unfinished. The number of visitors to the park decreased during the Great Depression, and the lodge suffered financially from the decline in visitation. As a result, very little was spent on facility maintenance. However, the guest rooms on the second and third floors were finished in the mid-1930s.</p><br>
<p>Over the years, cars had destroyed most of the vegetation around the lodge. During the 1930s, the Civilian Conservation Corps built Rim Village adjacent to the lodge. Their work included landscaping around the lodge, something the privately operated lodge could not afford to do on its own. The new landscape included hundreds of indigenous trees and shrubs that helped blend the lodge structure into its surroundings environment. In addition, the National Park Service paved the lodge parking areas and adjacent walkways. This significantly reduced the dust and erosion problems around the building.</p><br>
<p>During World War II, both Crater Lake National Park and the Crater Lake Lodge were closed to the public. After the war, park visitation increased dramatically and the lodge benefited from the increase in tourism. The National Park Service continually pushed the lodge operator to upgrade the facility, but little was done to maintain the structure beyond basic utilities maintenance and required fire safety measures. Eventually, cables had to be stretched between the north and south walls to keep them from bowing.</p><br>
<h2>National Park Service ownership</h2><br>
<p>In 1967, the National Park Service acquired the Crater Lake Lodge. The lodge was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1981. However, the building continued to deteriorate due to lack of funds. Despite being listed on the National Register of Historic Places, the National Park Service felt restoring the old building was too costly so it was scheduled to be demolished. The decision was later reversed due to public opposition. In 1988, the National Park Service approved a plan to rebuild the lodge as part of the comprehensive Rim Village redevelopment program.</p><br>
<p>In the spring of 1989, just before the lodge was to open for its summer season, structural engineers advised the National Park Service that the Great Hall was unsafe. It was so unstable they feared it might collapse from its own weight, bringing down the rest of the lodge with it. This forced the National Park Service to close the lodge pending renovation. After two years of planning, construction began in 1991. Some original materials were salvaged for reuse, but most of the original building had deteriorated to the point it could not be saved or reused. However, the Great Hall was carefully dismantled. The rest of the building was gutted and a steel support structure, modern utilities and fire suppression system were installed, and guest rooms were upgraded to modern hotel standards. The renovation was completed in the fall of 1994 at a cost of $15 million. On 20 May 1995, Crater Lake Lodge reopened to the public.</p><br>
<p>Today, visitors to Crater Lake Lodge enjoy modern accommodations in a rustic atmosphere reminiscent of the original 1920-era lodge. The lodge has 71 rooms. Each room provides modern comfort and privacy. The Great Hall has been completely restored. The dining room overlooks the lake and serves northwest regional cuisine. An exhibit room just off the lobby provides information about the history of the lodge, Crater Lake, and the park. The lodge is open from late-May to mid-October.</p><br>
<p>Mobile City Hospital, also known as Old Mobile General Hospital, is a historic Greek Revival hospital building in Mobile, Alabama, United States. It was built in 1830 by Thomas S. James and served as a hospital for the city of Mobile from 1831 until 1966. It was administered for the city by the Sisters of Charity throughout a large part of its history. Residents of the city were treated here during epidemics of yellow fever and during the American Civil War. It was converted to office space after 1966. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places on February 26, 1970. The building is adjacent to the old USA Marine Hospital, which is also on the National Register.</p><br>
<h2>Description</h2><br>
<p>The building is stuccoed brick, with two stories over a raised basement. It features a long colonnaded front facade with a central projecting hexastyle portico supported by full-height Doric columns carrying a full entablature and parapet across the front of the building. The rooms open onto two levels of galleries behind the colonnade.</p><br>
<p>Salem First United Methodist Church is a Methodist congregation and historic church in Salem, Oregon, United States. The church was listed on the National Register of Historic Places under its original name, First Methodist Episcopal Church of Salem, in 1983. First United is the oldest Methodist church west of the Rocky Mountains, and is a designated United Methodist Heritage Landmark. It is one of Oregon&#39;s few high-style Gothic Revival churches outside of Portland, and has one of the rare tall spires left standing in the state.</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<p>The Methodist Episcopal Church of Salem was established in 1841 when the Methodist Mission moved its headquarters to Salem. Jason Lee was one of the 13 charter members of the church, and David Leslie was the first pastor. Local architect Wilbur F. Boothby supervised the construction.</p><br>
<p>Additions to the building in 1935 and 1967 were designed to harmonize with the original building&#39;s Gothic style. The original 185-foot wooden spire, which makes the church the tallest building in Salem, was replaced in 1984. The sanctuary was remodeled in 1953 to add an Aeolian-Skinner pipe organ, a chancel rose window, new altar, pulpit, and pews. Additional renovations to the interior occurred in 1981 and 1988. In 2000, the organ acquired its full rank of pipes.</p><br>
<p>First United purchased the historic Salem Elks building adjacent to the church in 1992 and renamed it MICAH (Methodist Inner-city Community Activities House). The building houses a youth center, the United Methodist Archives for the Oregon-Idaho Conference, an area for informal worship services, and several community outreach organizations.</p><br>
<p>The Château de Rully is a castle in the commune of Rully in the Saône-et-Loire département of France. Located on the side of a hill, the castle dominates the whole region, facing the plain leading to the Saône. To the west, it commands the valley towards Nantoux and Chassey-le-Camp.</p><br>
<h2>Description</h2><br>
<p>At the end of the 14th century, the castle consisted of a square keep, three round corner towers and one flanking tower. All the elements are connected by curtain walls with a covered round walk, and crenelated at the top. There was a and protective broad, deep moat surrounding the base, as well as a single drawbridge, the location of which is still visible on the southern face. In the 15th century, the Saint-Leger family added, on the east, north and west of the interior courtyard, a succession of buildings with splendid oak woodwork, supporting the corbelling of the round walk which was covered with flat Burgundian tiles. At the end of the 19th century, alterations concealed certain aspects of the mediaeval structure. For example the moat was filled in, the drawbridge and the large, protective, courtyard doors were removed, and a neo-Gothic building with machicolation inside the courtyard at the foot of the keep was constructed.</p><br>
<p>The ground floor rooms of the towers are arched and the bedrooms and the corridors are covered with ceilings with exposed beams and joists.</p><br>
<p>Lava roofed farm buildings, the remainders of the old lower courtyard, surround the large external courtyard and serve as an avenue of honour in front of the gate.</p><br>
<p>The castle is privately owned, but is open to visitors. It is listed as a monument historique on the supplementary inventory of the French Ministry of Culture.</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<p>851: Earliest mention</p><br>
<p>920: Rully was made part of the holdings of the powerful house of Vergy.</p><br>
<p>1194: The castle belonged to Hugues de Rully.</p><br>
<p>14th century: After the Rully family, the Duke of Burgundy gave the land to a knight returning from the Crusades, Robert de Saint-Léger, who married Isabelle de Rully.</p><br>
<p>15th century: The Saint-Léger family made the castle habitable.</p><br>
<p>1619: By inheritance, the castle went to the Montessus family, whose descendants are still owners.</p><br>
<p>Revolutionary era: A certificate of the commune of Rully, in connection with the marquise of Montessus, held for some time in the prison of Chalon, attests that "les malheureux ont toujours trouvé en elle une mère, l&#39;opprimé un soutien" ("the unhappy always found in it a mother, the oppressed support").</p><br>
<p>Modern era: Property of the comte d&#39;Aviau de Ternay, descendant of the Montessus.</p><br>
<h2>Kirkman House Museum</h2><br>
<p>The Kirkman House is an authentic example of the luxurious 1880s, a period of extensive growth for Walla Walla in downtown business buildings and in fine homes. The Kirkman house is one of the Northwest’s most outstanding Victorian structures. It was built by William Kirkman, who left Bolton, England in the middle of the 19th century and made money in cattle in the West. The family moved into the home in 1880, and it was home to three generations of Kirkmans before the family gave it to Whitman College in 1919.</p><br>
<h2>William and Isabella Kirkman</h2><br>
<p>William Kirkman came to Boston from Lancashire County, England as a young man in the 1850s. His goal was to sell textiles, but he was lured to California by the Gold Rush. His quest for wealth via prospecting led him also to British Columbia, Australia and Idaho. He also invested in cattle in California and drove them to Boise and in 1866 he drove a pack train of miners&#39; supplies from Walla Walla, Washington to Montana.</p><br>
<p>William met Isabella Potts in San Francisco and they married in 1867. They moved to Idaho where William continued his interest in the cattle business. After a brief return to California, they moved to Walla Walla and made it their permanent home. William Kirkman formed a partnership in cattle with John Dooley, which was a successful one despite a heavy loss of livestock during the severe winter of 1881. William also became involved in wheat farming as well as cattle, and operated two farms.</p><br>
<p>Although he had left his family back in England, William was a regular correspondent. He sent not only letters, but sometimes gold dust to his father and stepmother. In time he was able to convince two of his brothers, James and John, to immigrate to the United States. John Kirkman involved himself in William&#39;s businesses and became active in community affairs.</p><br>
<p>William Kirkman was a generous and civic-minded man. He was a Walla Walla City officer and on the board at the Penitentiary. He and Isabella were strong supporters of education and William served on the Board of Education for the public schools. All four of the Kirkman children attended Whitman College, and William was a member of their Board of Trustees. He was involved in politics, too, and in 1892 was elected a delegate to the Republican National Convention in Minneapolis.</p><br>
<p>It was that same year that William, Isabella, Fanny Ann and William Henry traveled to Ireland, England and the Continent to see Isabellas parents and Williams relatives, and to shop for wedding clothes for Fanny Ann&#39;s upcoming marriage. However, on the way home William Kirkman died on the train while traveling through Wisconsin. When the news of his death reached Walla Walla, the flag at the city hall was hung at half-mast. The newspaper described his funeral: "The house was crowded with sorrowing friends, as was also the yard and streets surrounding the residence."</p><br>
<h2>The Restoration of Kirkman House</h2><br>
<p>By the late 20th century the home was in great disrepair and Walla Walla was in danger of losing it to deterioration. In 1977, the home was purchased by the Historical Architecture Development Corporation (H.A.D.). They were a group of concerned citizens of Walla Walla who came together to save the historic sites and buildings of this area. The organization used Kirkman House as an office, eventually purchasing it and restoring the home into a period house museum. In 1982, H.A.D. received an award for outstanding work in historic preservation from the Washington State Trust for Historic Preservation. Today the home is privately owned and operates as a non-profit organization under the management of a revolving Board of Directors.</p><br>
<p>The Kirkman House has been listed on the American National Register of Historic Places since December 1974.</p><br>
<p>Lake Bonney Riverland  is a freshwater lake located in the Riverland region of South Australia. The lake is fed and drained by the River Murray. The town of Barmera is located on its shores.</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<p>The lake was discovered by Europeans on 12 March 1838, when encountered by the overlanding party of Joseph Hawdon and Charles Bonney, who were the first to drove livestock from New South Wales to Adelaide. Hawdon named the lake that day after Bonney, while recording that the local indigenous people named it Nookampka. At that time it was a fine sheet of water, but was dried out and muddy three years later in 1841 when the police expedition led by Thomas O&#39;Halloran passed by on its way to rescue other overlanders at the Rufus River.</p><br>
<p>When Charles Sturt passed by in 1844 on his expedition into the interior of Australia, he surveyed Lake Bonney for the first time, as well as the creek connecting it to the River Murray. James Collins Hawker, then residing at Moorundie, assisted Sturt’s surveyor Poole. In appreciation, on 2 September 1844 Sturt named the creek Hawkers Creek, but it was never officially adopted and is known as Chambers Creek.</p><br>
<p>Pioneering settlers sometimes cropped the dry lake bed in times of low river flows. In 2007, to conserve water in the Murray system, a regulator was installed. The regulator cut the lake from the river system and the lakes&#39; level dropped to its lowest level since 1914 and salinity increased markedly with loss of wildlife and also recreational water activities. The regulator was removed in December 2010 and this, with wet summer and winter rains restored it to normal levels by April 2011.</p><br>
<h2>Naming</h2><br>
<p>The lake was named Lake Bonney by Joseph Hawdon after his friend, Charles Bonney in 1838. The name was changed to Lake Barmera, River Murray in 1908 and was changed back to Lake Bonney in 1913. A subsequent proposal to rename the lake as Lake Barmera did not proceed.</p><br>
<p>A lake located in the south east of the state near the continental coastline in what is now the gazetted locality of Canunda was also named as Lake Bonney after the same Charles Bonney in 1844 by George Grey, the then Governor of South Australia.</p><br>
<p>In both 1972 and 1981, the District Council of Barmera wrote to the South Australian government requesting that the lake in the south east of the state be renamed with its native name, i.e. ‘Canunda’ or ‘Coonunda’, in order to avoid being confused with the lake in the Riverland. In response to the request sent in 1981, the Geographical Names Board renamed both lakes as ‘Lake Bonney, Riverland’ and ‘Lake Bonney SE’ in order “to differentiate between the lakes.”</p><br>
<p>In 2014, the South Australian government declared the lake to have the dual names of Lake Bonney Riverland / Barmera in response to a request from a group known as the ‘First Peoples of the River Murray and Mallee Region’.</p><br>
<h2>Recreation</h2><br>
<p>Since the 1950s the lake has been a popular venue for holidaymakers, being used for a wide range of water sports, particularly sailing and water-skiing.</p><br>
<p>Llandegfedd Reservoir  is a large 174 hectare water supply reservoir and is eight miles  north of Newport in south Wales. The reservoir is very close to Pontypool, Cwmbran and Usk, with the boundary between Monmouthshire and Torfaen running through it.</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<p>It was opened by Newport Corporation in May 1965. The reservoir itself covers an area of 434 acre and is managed by Welsh Water&#39;s leisure and conservation company – Hamdden.</p><br>
<p>It is located near Coed-y-paen village.</p><br>
<h2>Management and use</h2><br>
<p>The reservoir is managed in accordance with the Llandegfedd Reservoir – Recreation and Conservation Management Plan and in consultation with the Llandegfedd Reservoir User Liaison Group. The scheme includes:</p><br>
<p>Spatial zoning based on the reservoir&#39;s physical characteristics and sports and conservation requirements compromise:</p><br>
<p>Conservation areas – shallow northern waters and shores, which are the principal wildfowl over-wintering, feeding and nesting areas.</p><br>
<p>Sailing and windsurfing area – all water except conservation and diving zones.</p><br>
<p>Diving area – deeper waters near the water outlet.</p><br>
<p>Canoeing area – southern section of the Reservoir.</p><br>
<p>Boat fly-fishing areas – all except the conservation and diving zones.</p><br>
<p>Bank fishing areas – selected shores, which avoid other users and dangerous banks.</p><br>
<p>Seasonal restrictions:</p><br>
<p>Sailing seasons – March to October, and 4 hours on Sundays during winter.</p><br>
<p>Fly-fishing season – March to October.</p><br>
<p>Diving – primarily a winter activity (poor visibility in summer).</p><br>
<p>Zoning and other restriction leaflets are available from the on-site ranger service.</p><br>
<h2>Leisure activities</h2><br>
<p>The reservoir is run as a country park and supports a R.Y.A-recognised sailing and windsurfing school that operates from Easter to October. Dinghies, windsurfers and canoes can be hired and fishing is another common activity on and around the lake.</p><br>
<p>Season tickets and day tickets can be purchased for water sports.</p><br>
<h2>Fishing</h2><br>
<p>The reservoir supports several varieties of fish – rainbow trout, bream, roach, pike and perch. The reservoir is well known for large pike catches. The Pike Anglers&#39; Club of Great Britain lists the heaviest pike caught coming from the reservoir – a 46 lb 13oz fish caught on a lure in October 1992 by Roy Lewis.</p><br>
<h2>Birds</h2><br>
<p>Wintering wildfowl include large numbers of wigeon, teal and pochard, as well as goldeneye and ruddy duck, and Bewick&#39;s swan and goosander regularly use the reservoir as a roost, the swans feeding by day on Olway Meadows and the goosanders probably coming from the River Usk. Divers and rarer grebes are occasional visitors, as are sea duck (notably long-tailed duck). Numbers of common gull, herring gull and black-headed gulls roost, and siskin and redpoll occur in the waterside trees. Residents include great crested grebe, sparrowhawk and buzzard, while cormorant and grey heron are regular visitors, and merlin, peregrine and goshawk have been recorded.</p><br>
<p>A variety of waders pass through, with ringed plover and little ringed plover, oystercatcher and common sandpiper and green sandpipers being among the more likely. Other migrants have included osprey and hobby. Breeding summer visitors include yellow wagtail.</p><br>
<p>Alfoxton House, also known as Alfoxton Park, was built as an 18th-century country house in Holford, Somerset, England, within the Quantock Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. The present house was rebuilt in 1710 after the previous building was destroyed in a fire.</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<p>The poet William Wordsworth and his sister Dorothy lived at Alfoxton House between July 1797 and June 1798, during the time of their friendship with Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Dorothy began her journals here in January 1798 but discontinued them 2 months later to recommence when the couple moved to the Lake District. These were posthumously published as The Alfoxden Journal, 1798 and The Grasmere Journals, 1800-1803.</p><br>
<p>The building was refenestrated and re-roofed in the 19th century. It has been changed and extended significantly since the time of the Wordsworths to turn it into a country hotel. It has been designated by English Heritage as a grade II listed building. During World War II it housed evacuees from Wellington House School Westgate on Sea in Kent.</p><br>
<h2>Building</h2><br>
<p>Alfoxton House was built in the 18th century of rendered rubble stone, the main block being on a double-pile plan, i.e. two main rooms on each side of a central corridor. The house is two storeys high, with an attic that includes dormer windows. The frontage includes a central porch with columns, frieze and cornice in a Doric style. There is an extension to the left, originally an orangery, with a steep roof over a verandah. The wall includes the coat of arms of the St. Albyn family who owed the house for many years.</p><br>
<p>The Château de Brandon is a castle in the commune of Saint-Pierre-de-Varennes in the Saône-et-Loire département of France.</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<p>The castle was built on the site of Gallo-Roman camp. Although it undoubtedly existed before, there is no documentary evidence before the 13th century when a charter shows it as a purely defensive site under the Duchy of Burgundy, which it remained until the 15th century.</p><br>
<p>It is an excellent example of military architecture with upper and lower walled courtyards, 12th century round walk and a 13th-century drawbridge tower. The main building was modified during the reign of King Louis XIII where the fortress was turned into a 17th-century residence.</p><br>
<h2>Description</h2><br>
<p>The castle stands on top of a hill. The buildings are distributed around an irregular shaped enceinte divided into two by a wall separating the farmyard of the lower courtyard from the residential court. The latter, of lengthened rectangular form, is flanked in the north-western and north-eastern corners by square towers. A wing at right angles occupies the east side; it is connected by a section of wall to a third square tower. The courtyard is completed by the agricultural buildings and a stable. A gate tower located at the south-western corner gives access to this area.</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<p>Sources:</p><br>
<p>Ancient Rome: military post at junction of routes.</p><br>
<p>13th century :probable existence of a strengthened tower owned successively by the lords of Brandon then by captains who hold it in the name of the dukes of Burgundy.</p><br>
<p>1365: the tower is entrusted to Robert d&#39; Essertenne who becomes its hereditary lord.</p><br>
<p>14th century: the duke Philippe II of Burgundy raises the stronghold to a barony to the advantage of Philippe de la Roche, grandson of the preceding.</p><br>
<p>1453: castle sold.</p><br>
<p>1528: after complex successions within the Lugny family, the castle is acquired by Hugues-Bernard de Montessus</p><br>
<p>1633: property seized by Charles de Montessus, great-grandson of the preceding.</p><br>
<p>1638: sold to Alphonse de Chaumelis.</p><br>
<p>1653: death of Alphonse de Chaumelis who leaves two daughters – Jeanne et Huguette – under the supervision of their uncle, Jean-Baptiste de Chaumelis.</p><br>
<p>1670: Huguette de Chaumelis, daughter of Alphonse, marries Claude de la Coste, inherits Brandon at the conclusion of a fight against her uncle who had tried to despoil it.</p><br>
<p>1729: attack on the castle by the local population organised by Eugene, son of Huguette, who seeks to dispossess his mother.</p><br>
<p>1729: Jean-Baptiste, Huguette&#39;s other son, inherits the property at the death of his mother.</p><br>
<p>18th century: childless, Jean-Baptiste bequeaths the castle to Jeanne-Huguette de la Coste, his niece, wife of the marquis Jacques de Beaurepaire; the main building, probably built by Chaumelis, is abandoned to the farmers.</p><br>
<p>End of the 18th century: a Beaurepaire daughter marries Louis Furrier de Cléry who, because of a spendthrift life, has to sell Brandon.</p><br>
<p>1826: the property passes to Nicolas Tripier, a lawyer, deputy, and peer of France.</p><br>
<p>19th century: through the daughter of the preceding, Antoine Mala becomes owner of the castle.</p><br>
<p>Around 1900: important restoration works carried out by the granddaughter of Nicolas Tripier, widow of Ferdinand de Jouvencel.</p><br>
<p>1922: on the death of Mme de Jouvencel, the vicomte de Masin, her grandson, inherits the estate. The castle still belongs to this family.</p><br>
<h2>Today</h2><br>
<p>The castle is privately owned. It has been listed since 1975 as a monument historique on the supplementary inventory of the French Ministry of Culture. It is a family home and open to the public in July and August.</p><br>
<p>Mount Race, 2,365 ft, is a prominent peak in the south Taconic Mountains of Massachusetts. The mountain is known for its waterfalls, steep, eastern ridgeline cliff face and expansive views of the Housatonic River valley and Berkshires to the east and of fellow Taconics to the south, west and north and Catskills and Hudson River valley to the west, for the traverse of the said cliffline and the summit grounds by the Appalachian Trail and for its old growth pitch pine and scrub oak summit ecosystem.</p><br>
<h2>Details</h2><br>
<p>Race Brook Falls, a popular waterfall, cascades from a common ledge between Mount Race and Mount Everett to the north. Another waterfall, Bear Rock Falls is located on the southeast side of the mountain along the Appalachian Trail. A primitive campsite is located near Race Brook Falls on the Race Brook Falls Trail.</p><br>
<p>The summit and west side of Mount Race is located in the town of Mount Washington; the east slopes are located in Sheffield, Massachusetts. Much of the upper areas of the mountain are located within the Mount Washington State Forest; other parcels are part of conservation easements.</p><br>
<p>The east side of the mountain drains into Race Brook and Bear Rock Brook, thence into Schenob Brook, the Hubbard Brook, the Housatonic River, and Long Island Sound; the south side drains into Plantain Pond, thence into Bear Rock Brook. The west side drains into City Brook, thence into Bash Bish Brook, the Roeliff Jansen Kill, the Hudson River, and New York Bay of the Atlantic Ocean.</p><br>
<p>Norton Camp is a Bronze Age hill fort at Norton Fitzwarren near Taunton in Somerset, England.</p><br>
<h2>Background</h2><br>
<p>Hill forts developed in the Late Bronze and Early Iron Age, roughly the start of the 1st millennium BC. The reason for their emergence in Britain, and their purpose, has been a subject of debate. It has been argued that they could have been military sites constructed in response to invasion from continental Europe, sites built by invaders, or a military reaction to social tensions caused by an increasing population and consequent pressure on agriculture. The dominant view since the 1960s has been that the increasing use of iron led to social changes in Britain. Deposits of iron ore were located in different places to the tin and copper ore necessary to make bronze, and as a result trading patterns shifted and the old elites lost their economic and social status. Power passed into the hands of a new group of people. Archaeologist Barry Cunliffe believes that population increase still played a role and has stated " provided defensive possibilities for the community at those times when the stress burst out into open warfare. But I wouldn&#39;t see them as having been built because there was a state of war. They would be functional as defensive strongholds when there were tensions and undoubtedly some of them were attacked and destroyed, but this was not the only, or even the most significant, factor in their construction".</p><br>
<h2>Description</h2><br>
<p>The earthwork consists of a single circular rampart (univallate) up to 3 m high, with three holloway entrances dominated by linear banks extending out from the main perimeter. The ring has a diameter of about 250 m, enclosing an area of 5 hectare. The fort is at the top of low hill (50 m) about 1 km north of the River Tone.</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<p>The site was excavated by Mr. H. St. George Gray in July 1908. The original ditch was shown to be 2.75 m deep. Pottery shards dated from the Bronze Age and the Roman period, but no evidence of occupation from other periods.</p><br>
<p>Further excavations in 1968–1971 by Nancy and Philip Langmaid found flints from the mesolithic and neolithic, as well as extensive hoards of bronze metalwork, 9 bracelets, an axe-head and sword moulds from the Bronze Age (700 BC). They also found evidence of refortifiction in the Iron Age, from the period before Roman occupation (around 43 AD).</p><br>
<p>In 1981, a neolithic axe-head made from greensand chert was found. There is further evidence from aerial photographs of cropmarks and post holes, possibly from roundhouses.</p><br>
<p>The site is next to Norton Manor Camp, home of 40 Commando, Royal Marines.</p><br>
<p>The Ancient Monument is included on the Heritage at Risk register due to its vulnerability to arable ploughing.</p><br>
<p>Don Pedro Island is a barrier island in southwest Florida, in Charlotte County. It is just north of Little Gasparilla Island, separated by a thin strip of beach and mangrove swamp. It lies west of the census-designated place of Rotonda West, separated by a narrow channel. Don Pedro Island is part of the archipelago of islands which include Little Gasparilla Island, Knight Island and Thornton Key. These islands were originally separated by narrow inlets that ran from the gulf to the intracoastal channel, which separates them from the mainland. As a result of beach replenishment projects, these inlets have been closed off with the formation of a continuous beach that now connects them. This archipelago which now resembles one island is separated from Stump Pass Beach State Recreation Area by Stump Pass to the north. It borders the Gulf of Mexico to the west.</p><br>
<p>There is no bridge to the island, only by boat or car ferry. There are many private residences on the island.much of the Island is taken up by the Palm Island Resort. There is only one restaurant on Don Pedro, located on the north end of the Island. The name of the restaurant is "Rum Bay". The only small general store on the island is located on the first floor directly below the Rum Bay restaurant.</p><br>
<p>While there is a steady increase in private development, the island continues to have an abundance of wildlife and natural beauty. There are a number of indigenous gopher turtles, snakes and rabbits. There is also quite a variety of birds including osprey, pelicans, great blue herons, frigate birds, woodpeckers and owls (to name a few).</p><br>
<p>The beaches are well known for their abundance of sharks teeth and shells.</p><br>
<p>Don Pedro Island State Park is located on the north side of the island.</p><br>
<p>The 29 Diner is a diner in Fairfax, Virginia, located near the intersection of Route 29  and Virginia State Route 123.</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<p>The 29 Diner opened on July 20, 1947. It was built by the Mountain View Diners Company of Singac, New Jersey. D.T. "Bill" Glascock (deceased) purchased the diner and had it shipped to a strip of land that he owned in Fairfax, Virginia. Glascock and his wife, Elvira "Curly," ran the diner for the first several years, and thereafter leased the building to a succession of business owners.</p><br>
<p>In 1973, the Tastee Diner company bought the location and it became the Tastee 29 Diner.</p><br>
<p>In 1992, the diner was declared to be a historic site. Marc Christian Wagner, an architectural historian from the Charlottesville-based Preservation Associates of Virginia organization wrote the statement of significance. The opening of the statement declares:</p><br>
<p>Thus, in 1992 the Tastee 29 Diner was added to the list of National Register of Historic Places.</p><br>
<p>In the late-1990s, Fredy and Ginger Guevara (Ginger being a former waitress at the 29 Diner in the mid-1960s) bought the location and restored its original name of 29 Diner.</p><br>
<p>For years the diner was-open twenty four hours a day, seven days a week, with the exception being Christmas Day. In January 2009, the diner began closing on Monday nights due to the recession facing the United States, however in 2014 it was restored back to being open 24 hours a day.</p><br>
<p>In May, 2014, the 29 Diner went out of business under the operations of Fredy and Ginger Guevara, but the property lease was quickly picked up by Fairfax native John Wood, who planned to reopen it in the summer of 2014. After some delays, the diner reopened to the public at 12:01am on September 11, 2014. It is open 24 hours Tuesday through Sunday and closed on Monday.</p><br>
<h2>Culture</h2><br>
<p>Fairfax, Virginia, mayor Robert Lederer has made a recent annual tradition of dining at the 29 Diner on Thanksgiving.</p><br>
<p>John Walsh, host of America&#39;s Most Wanted, made a visit to the diner in 1999 with two bodyguards.</p><br>
<p>Bill Griffith featured 29 Diner in the, and, installments of Zippy the Pinhead.</p><br>
<p>The Pope House Museum, built in 1901, is a restored home once owned by Dr. M.T. Pope, a prominent African-American citizen of Raleigh, North Carolina. The Pope House is listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1999, and was also an official project of the Save America’s Treasures Program. Since then, the city of Raleigh has taken over management of the Pope House Museum and opened it for tours for the first time.</p><br>
<p>Since the early 19th century, the area where the Pope House is located has gone through many transformations. When the original governor’s mansion was built at the end of Fayetteville Street on the site of the present Memorial Auditorium, it was thought that fashionable residences would be built nearby. Although a few substantial homes were constructed by white families, when Reverend Henry Tupper moved Shaw University to the neighborhood in 1870, many new African-American residents drawn to Raleigh after the Civil War settled in the area. Pope attended Leonard Medical Center at Shaw University before beginning his medical practice.</p><br>
<p>Black professionals began to build homes in the area known as the Third Ward, which included the 500 block of South Wilmington Street. In 1901, Pope decided to build his house in this area. Pope’s neighbors included other prominent African Americans, including another doctor and a pharmacist. His home was located near his office on East Hargett Street, which at the time was the heart of the black business district.</p><br>
<p>Pope installed the latest technology in his home, including combination gas and electric fixtures, a kitchen with running water, a full bathroom on the second floor, coal burning heating stoves, and a telephone. He also installed a call bell system, with buttons in each room and an annunciator in the back hall. Pope began to see patients in the house during the 1920s and 1930s, when his health began to fail. The small area at the rear of the back hall, adjacent to the kitchen, was configured to include a small hand sink and built-in cabinet for instruments.</p><br>
<p>After Pope married Delia Haywood Phillips in 1907, the couple added a garage and wired the home for electricity. In the 1920s, the original front porch was removed, and the current sleeping porch constructed on brick piers. In the 1940s, the northern half of the first floor space below the porch was enclosed with brick, as it remains today. They eventually had two children, Evelyn and Ruth. After the deaths of their parents, Evelyn and Ruth maintained the family home, though they lived in Durham and Chapel Hill respectively.</p><br>
<p>Although the Pope House remains in the neighborhood, the area around it has dramatically changed. Older homes and businesses were replaced with office buildings, parking lots and newer homes. The most evident change was the construction of the Raleigh Convention Center directly across the street from the house. Today, the house is in the shadows of skyscrapers that were built in the 1980s and 1990s.</p><br>
<p>The Pope House was officially listed on the National Register of Historic Places on November 22, 1999. The following month the trustees of the Pope Charitable Foundation decided to begin the process of turning the house into a museum. One month later, The Pope House Museum Foundation was incorporated as a non-profit organization. The extensive family papers were sorted and catalogued, and donated to the Southern Historical Collection at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. In 2011 due to financial concerns, the Pope House Museum approached the city of Raleigh about purchasing the Pope House Museum to ensure its survival. Since the purchase, the Pope House Museum has been managed by Raleigh Parks and Recreation which has opened the Pope House Museum for regular tours for the first time.</p><br>
<p>The South Carolina State Hospital is a publicly-funded state-run psychiatric hospital in Columbia, South Carolina. Founded in 1821 as the South Carolina Lunatic Asylum, it was one of the first public mental hospitals established in the United States. The Mills Building, its first building, was designed by early American architect Robert Mills, and is a National Historic Landmark. The hospital had more than 1,000 patients in 1900, but with the transition of mental health facilities to community settings, it is now much smaller, occupying a small portion of its campus, with other parts housing offices and facilities of the state&#39;s Department of Mental Health.</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<p>The South Carolina Lunatic Asylum was authorized by state legislation in 1821, and was the second such state hospital (after Virginia&#39;s) to be authorized. Its original building, designed by Robert Mills and featuring the latest innovations in fire resistance and patient security, was built between 1822 and 1827. The hospital was at first only open to paying patients, with indigent patient costs billed to the government of the region from which they came. Admission was for the most part limited to whites, although some African-Americans (including slaves) were admitted before 1848, when their admission was formally authorized.</p><br>
<p>The hospital&#39;s facilities were enlarged, in part by expansion of the Mills building, and in part by the construction of new buildings on the campus. In 1892, the hospital opened a nursing school (which closed in 1950), and in 1896 it changed its name to the South Carolina State Hospital for the Insane. Its campus at capacity in 1910 (and like many such facilities nationwide, underfunded, understaffed, and its patients not well cared-for), a second campus was opened for African-Americans north of Columbia. Known first as the Palmetto State Hospital then later named Crafts-Farrow Hospital, its campus served for many years as a geriatric care facility, and now houses multiple divisions of the Department of Mental Health, including Public Safety, Training and Research, Information Technology, Food Services, Print Shop, etc.</p><br>
<p>Ongoing issues with staffing, funding, and patient conditions persisted in the 20th century, and the state began transitioning mental health care into community settings in 1920. Legal action surrounding patient care and funding in its hospital facilities in the 1980s resulted in a more focused effort to reduce the hospital population. In 1996, the two campuses were consolidated, with 410 beds. Buildings no longer used for patient care, for a time housed offices of the state Department of Mental Health. The historic Mills building housed the Department of Health & Environmental Control.</p><br>
<p>While the Department of Health and Environmental Control still occupies the Mills-Jarrett complex, the remainder of the campus has been sold or is in the process of sale to a private developer. The Department of Mental Health ended its use of the site in December of 2015, when the William S. Hall Children&#39;s institute relocated to another campus.</p><br>
<p>Pompion  Hill Chapel is small "back parish" church near Huger, South Carolina. Built in 1763, it is a virtually unaltered example of a brick Georgian parish church, retaining interior and exterior finishes. It was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1970.</p><br>
<h2>Description and history</h2><br>
<p>The Pompion Hill Chapel is located in a rural area, overlooking the Cooper River a few miles southwest of the hamlet of Huger. It is a rectangular brick building, with a clipped-gable roof, measuring 35 x. The brick is laid in Flemish bond, and the roof is original slate. It has matching entrances on the long sides, at the center of the five-bay facades. The doors and windows are all set in openings with rounded arch tops, the windows topped by fanlights. A small chancel area projects from the building&#39;s eastern end, topped by a gable roof, and with a Palladian window in its eastern wall.</p><br>
<p>The interior has a brick floor, laid in a herringbone pattern, with crossing aisles laid in red tile placed diagonally. The walls are plaster, rising to a cove ceiling. The interior woodwork and furnishings, including pews and pulpit are all original. The only significant alteration to the building is the reconstruction of the vestry at its western end, which was done using the original bricks.</p><br>
<p>The chapel was built in 1763-65, and was the second church to stand on the site. When the Province of South Carolina became officially Anglican (Episcopalian) in 1706, the church built here was the seat of St. Thomas&#39; Parish, one of nine into which the province was divided. This church replaced the original wooden church, and was built by mason William Axson, with bricks provided by Zachariah Villepontoux from the nearby Parnassus Plantation.</p><br>
<p>Mulberry Plantation is a historic plantation property in rural Berkeley County, South Carolina. Located between Moncks Corner and Charleston, this property was developed in 1714 by Thomas Broughton, who became the Royal governor of South Carolina, and is one of the oldest plantation homes in the United States. Its rice fields, dikes and canals were well-preserved into the 20th century. The plantation house and ten surrounding acres were declared a National Historic Landmark in 1963.</p><br>
<h2>Description and history</h2><br>
<p>Mulberry Plantation is set on the southern shore of the Cooper River, between it and Old United States Route 52. The main house is a two story brick building, with a gambrel roof. At each corner of the main block stand engaged single-story square pavilions, topped by pyramidal roofs. The main entrance is sheltered by a gabled portico.</p><br>
<p>The plantation was probably established around 1714, but may not have been founded until 1725, and was built in what was at the time a frontier area on the site of a fortification for defense against Native American attack. This plantation was used as a defensive site during the Yamasee War (1715–17). The plantation house is a rare little-altered example of high-style early Georgian architecture in the nation.</p><br>
<p>Lawrence A. Walker of Summerville, South Carolina, bought the property in 1946 from Clarence E. Chapman of New York, and G. Everett Hoyt of Fairfield, Connecticut paid $175,000 for the house, including 1,027 acres, along with personal property in 1953. A later owner, Charles A. Atkins, was indicted in federal court over bogus tax schemes, and he transferred the house to his wife. Atkins had himself acquired the house from Fannie H. Brawley and William J. Iselin for $2,300,565. The Historic Foundation of Charleston bought the 800-acre plantation in August 1987 to prevent its possible development. The Foundation paid $2,800,000, and resold the property for $2,550,000 in August 1988 to S. Parker Gilbert, a New York City investment banker, and his wife. The Foundation expanded its pre-existing easements on the property to prevent any subdivisions of the property, protect a two-mile entry road, and preserve the interior of the house.</p><br>
<p>The River Ghela, is a river that runs through the town of Gadhada in the Indian state of Gujarat.Ghelo river originates from Jasdan hills  & meets in Arabian sea. Its length is 118 km. & 622 km. catchment area. Ghelo Somnath & Ghelo Itaria dams are situated on this river having 60 km. & 104 km. catchment area respectively.</p><br>
<p>It is a significant place of pilgrimage for the followers of Swaminarayan as it is said that Swaminarayan himself had taken a bath in this river several times.</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<p>The great sage Mandavya Muni started intense penance in the Fulzar forest located near Ghela Somnath. After some years of meditation, Mandavya muni called holy Ganges to appear before him so that he can take bath to finish penance. But Ganges didnt appear before him immediately. In the fit of revenge, Mandavya muni started intense penance to Vamana.Vamana appeared before the great sage and kicked the earth with force to call Ganges. The Ganges appeared deliriously (Unmat) and thats why Ghelo river is also called Unmat Ganga.</p><br>
<p>The Robert Smalls House is a historic house at 511 Prince Street in Beaufort, South Carolina. Built in 1843 and altered several times, the house was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1974 for its association with Robert Smalls . Smalls, born into slavery, achieved notice for commandeering the CSS Planter and sailing her to freedom during the American Civil War. After the war he represented South Carolina in the United States House of Representatives during Reconstruction.</p><br>
<h2>Description and history</h2><br>
<p>The Robert Smalls House is located in central Beaufort, at the northeast corner of Prince and New Streets. It is a two story wood frame structure, with a side gable roof and a two-story porch extending across its (south-facing) front facade. A two-story ell extends to the rear, giving the house a basic T shape. The house was built in 1843, originally with a single-story porch and ell, which were expanded to two stories in 1850 and 1870.</p><br>
<p>Robert Smalls was born into slavery in 1839, and spent most of his early years in this house, where his master was John McKee. Around 1851 he was hired out by McKee to work in Charleston, where he worked on the docks, and eventually learned to sail. In 1862, during the American Civil War, he successfully commandeered the Planter, sailing her to the blockading Union fleet. He later served in the Union Navy, and became involved in South Carolina politics after the war. His bravery was made a key argument in favor of the Union Army&#39;s enlistment of African-American soldiers.</p><br>
<p>Mitchell Recreation Area is a small picnic area located in the Fremont-Winema National Forests, Lake County, Oregon, near the unincorporated community of Bly. It is also known as Mitchell Monument. It is the only location in the contiguous United States where Americans were killed during World War II as a direct result of enemy action. The deaths were caused by a Japanese balloon bomb. The site is maintained by the United States Forest Service and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<p>On May 5, 1945, Reverend Archie Mitchell took his pregnant wife and five Sunday school children, from the Christian and Missionary Alliance church where he was minister, on a picnic and fishing trip. The group found the logging road they followed blocked, so they stopped next to Leonard Creek, eight miles (13 km) east of Bly near Gearhart Mountain. While Mitchell was unloading the food, he heard one of the children say, "Look what I found!" His wife and the children ran to see what had been found. Moments later, there was an explosion. Mrs. Mitchell and all five children were killed instantly.</p><br>
<p>The children had found the remains of a Japanese balloon bomb, one of approximately 9,000 balloon bombs launched from Honshū, Japan between November 1944 and April 1945. The balloons drifted across the Pacific Ocean to North America via the jet stream in about three days. The hydrogen-filled balloons were 33 ft in diameter and carried five bombs, four incendiaries and one anti-personnel high explosive. It is believed that as many as 1,000 balloons may have reached the United States and Canada. However, there were only 285 confirmed sightings on the west coast, and two balloons were later found in Michigan. Except for Elyse (aka Elsie) Mitchell and the five children killed near Bly, the bombs caused no injuries. These six individuals were the only Americans killed in the contiguous United States during World War II as a direct result of enemy action.</p><br>
<p>In 1976, Sakyo Adachi, a Japanese scientist who helped plan the balloon offense, visited the site and laid a wreath at the monument. He later sent a letter of apologies to the Patzke family for the loss of their two children.</p><br>
<p>In 1995, Japanese students sent 1,000 paper cranes, a Japanese symbol of peace and healing, to the families of the victims. Six cherry trees were also delivered to Bly to be planted at the site. One of the cherry trees was planted just north of the fenced monument site. The remaining trees were planted inside the fenced area. Later that year, over 500 people attended the 50th anniversary re-dedication ceremony at the Mitchell Monument site.</p><br>
<p>The Mitchell Monument site was originally owned by Weyerhaeuser Corporation. In 1996, Weyerhaeuser donated land around the monument to the Fremont National Forest (now the Fremont-Winema National Forests). Additional property was added to the site in 1997. A small picnic area was developed around the monument.</p><br>
<h2>Monument</h2><br>
<p>The Mitchell Monument was erected by Weyerhaeuser in 1950. It was designed by Tom Orr, a Weyerhaeuser forester. The stone structure was built by Robert H. Anderson, a local monument builder and stonemason. It is constructed of native stone and displays a bronze plaque with the names and ages of the victims of the balloon bomb explosion. It commemorates the "only place on the American continent where death resulted from enemy action during World War II". Approximately 500 people attended the monument’s dedication on 20 August 1950. Oregon’s governor Douglas McKay spoke at the ceremony.</p><br>
<p>Here are the words from the monument plaque:</p><br>
<p>Because it commemorates an important wartime event that occurred at the site, the monument is of significant historical value. Therefore, the Mitchell Monument site was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on 20 February 2003.</p><br>
<h2>Recreation area</h2><br>
<p>Today, the Bly Ranger District maintains Mitchell Recreation Area as a day-use picnic area. The site covers 22.7 acre. It is adjacent to Leonard Creek and is sheltered by large ponderosa pines. In addition to the monument, the site offers fishing, hiking, and wildlife viewing opportunities. The site is normally open from mid-May until the end of October. Adjacent to the monument is the "shrapnel tree", a ponderosa pine still bearing scars from the explosion. In 2005, the State of Oregon designated shrapnel tree at the Mitchell Monument site as an Oregon Heritage Tree.</p><br>
<p>To reach the Mitchell Monument site from Bly, travel east on Oregon Route 140 for 1.5 mi and turn left onto County Road 1259. After.5 mi on the county road, turn right onto Forest Service Road 34. Follow the forest road for approximately 8 miles. The monument parking area is on the right side of the road.</p><br>
<p>The Battle House Hotel, now known as The Battle House Renaissance Mobile Hotel, is a historic hotel building in Mobile, Alabama. The current building was built in 1908 and is the second hotel to stand in this location, replacing an earlier Battle House that was built in 1852 and burned down in 1905. It is one of the earliest steel frame structures in Alabama.</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<p>The first Battle House Hotel was opened by James Battle and his two half-nephews John and Samuel on November 13, 1852 on the site of a former military headquarters set up by Andrew Jackson during the War of 1812. The Battle brothers&#39; new hotel was a four-story brick building, with a two-story gallery of cast iron. The site had been home to two other hotels in the years between Andrew Jackson and the Battle brothers, the Franklin Hotel and the Waverly Hotel. Both of these earlier structures had burned.</p><br>
<p>A particularly notable event for the hotel occurred when Stephen A. Douglas was a guest of the hotel the night that he lost the presidency to Abraham Lincoln.</p><br>
<p>The first Battle House also had such notable guests as Henry Clay, Jefferson Davis, Millard Fillmore, Oscar Wilde and Winfield Scott. A National Weather Service station was established at the Battle House in 1880 and electric lighting was added in 1884. The hotel was renovated in 1900. Then, after more than 50 years in service, the hotel burned to the ground on February 12, 1905.</p><br>
<p>After the fire, the proprietors hired Frank M. Andrews of New York City to design a new structure and it was built out of steel and concrete. The new hotel reopened for business in 1908. The hotel remained a prominent fixture of Mobile through the first and second World Wars. Woodrow Wilson stayed at the Battle House in 1913. It was while he was at the Battle House that he made his famous statement that "the United States will never again seek one additional foot of territory by conquest". The hotel was renovated in 1916 and again in 1949, with air-conditioning added in all guest rooms and public spaces at that time.</p><br>
<p>Sheraton Hotels bought the Battle House in 1958 and it operated as the Sheraton-Battle House until it was sold to Gotham Hotels in 1968, when the hotel returned to its original name. In May 1973, it was bought by local citizens, who renamed it the Battle House Royale and planned a complete renovation. However, the hotel was unsuccessful and closed its doors in 1974, and remained closed for the next 30 years. The empty Battle House Royale building was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1975. By 1980 it was the only building left completely intact in its city block. In 2003, Retirement Systems of Alabama began restoration of the hotel, along with the construction of an adjoining skyscraper, the RSA Battle House Tower. Both projects were completed in 2007.</p><br>
<p>Battle House Renaissance Mobile Hotel & Spa is a member of Historic Hotels of America, the official program of the National Trust for Historic Preservation.</p><br>
<h2>Description</h2><br>
<p>The eight-story building is steel frame with marble and brick facings. At street level it features a projecting one-story portico with paired Tuscan columns; the level above the portico has recessed Tuscan loggias with individual window balustrades. A wide third-story molded entablature is surmounted by cast iron balconies. The window openings over the entire facade have articulated keystones and the openings on the seventh level also feature cast iron balconies. The roof level features a molded projecting cornice with scroll brackets.</p><br>
<p>The hotel lobby features a domed skylight, dating back to 1908. The ceiling and walls feature elaborate plasterwork and are also painted using the trompe-l&#39;œil technique. The walls are painted with portraits of Louis XIV of France, George III of the United Kingdom, Ferdinand V of Castile, and George Washington.</p><br>
<p>The Trellis Room, located on the lobby floor, currently houses a restaurant with a four-diamond rating. The restaurant serves Northern Italian cuisine. The restaurant seats 90 and features a full-view kitchen so patrons can watch the chefs prepare their meals. The Trellis Room ceiling is barrel vaulted with a Tiffany glass skylight.</p><br>
<p>The lobby floor also hosts the Crystal Ballroom, which is known as "Mobiles First Harvest". At one time it was the hotels restaurant. The room has been restored to vintage colors, as it was in 1908. It features ornate plasterwork with an agricultural theme. The Battle House was a favorite place for southern planters to get away to once their crops were planted. The Crystal Ballroom is now used for social events such as weddings, meetings, and Mardi Gras balls. The first Mardi Gras ball to be held at the Battle House was The Strikers Ball in 1852. At that time the balls were part of the New Year celebration.</p><br>
<p>Lake Piso, also known as Lake Pisu and Fishermans Lake, is an oblong tidal lagoon in Grand Cape Mount County in western Liberia, near the town of Robertsport. At an area of 103 km&sup2, Its name originates from a local term meaning "pigeons hole" – a reference to the flocks of pigeons that once came to Lake Piso for water.</p><br>
<h2>Hydrology and geology</h2><br>
<p>The brackish water lake borders the Cape Mount peninsula, and is connected to the Atlantic Ocean by a narrow inlet Various rivers empty into Lake Piso, including Mole Creek and Mafa River, which discharges at the bar mouth. There are a number of islands in the lake, including Massatin Island, which offered a haven for monkeys and birds species, it also served as temporary refuge for some Liberians during the Liberian Civil War.</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<p>During World War II, Lake Piso functioned as a military base for Allied seaplanes.</p><br>
<p>Lake Piso overflowed its banks at least twice in 1998, causing heavy flooding in Garwular District. Flooding in August 1998 occurred due to a blockage of the narrow inlet connecting the lake to the Atlantic Ocean, damaging some homes.</p><br>
<p>Additional flooding in September and October, brought about by heavy rains, affected over twenty settlements, causing at least ten deaths, leaving thousands homeless, and forcing others to leave their homes.</p><br>
<p>The floods led the government of Liberia to declare the area a "disaster zone".</p><br>
<p>On December 13–14, 2002, the Papa Friends 2000 capsized in Lake Piso, at the confluence of the lake and Mafa River. The overcrowded wooden ferry was transporting approximately 200 passengers, most returning from the funeral of a local footballer. Only 15 people were rescued; the rest drowned and were recovered or presumed dead.</p><br>
<p>A nature reserve was designated near Lake Piso in 1999 and, as of 2004, the Lake Piso wetlands, covering an area of 76,091 hectare, were Liberia&#39;s only designated wetland of international importance.</p><br>
<h2>Human activity</h2><br>
<p>The area near the lagoon is the homeland of the Vai people.</p><br>
<p>Human activity in Lake Piso includes fishing and water sports such as swimming, canoeing and water skiing. Prior to the outbreak of the First Liberian Civil War, the lagoon was a popular travel destination for tourists.</p><br>
<p>High-quality diamonds have been mined from the rivers that discharge into Lake Piso where "igneous intrusions provide potentially rich structural traps".</p><br>
