Stone Opera House Stage Door: Where Ogarita Booth Henderson and her husband, Al, worked with the Floy Crowell troupe.

Editor’s Note: What follows is what will hopefully become a series of articles from Mr. J.T. Colfax, resident of Binghamton, New York.  In late 2006,  J.T. found an entrance to a tunnel in his backyard.  Since then, he has followed the path of the tunnel, from the top of Mt. Prospect, to the bowels of downtown Binghamton. The incredible stories tell about a place little-seen by Binghamton residents, but which includes a history of prohibition-era rum-running, mysterious deaths, and … as you will see in this article … the transplantation of an entire cemetery.  Think of this as an early Halloween treat. Enjoy.

Bubbling forth now is the story of two cemeteries. One, the Binghamton City Cemetery, obliterated by commerce over 100 years ago; the other, Glenwood Cemetery, with a history of neglect stretching equally as long. They were five miles apart, but in 1907, their stories joined together when 1,330 bodies were evicted from the City Cemetery and carted by a team of drays through the freezing winter streets of Binghamton to rest at Glenwood Cemetery.

Mixed within this grisly drama, we give a heavy spotlight to the story of Ogarita Booth Henderson, a resident of Glenwood Cemetery since 1892. Her story will be accorded and afforded the star power to out-shadow the stories of hallowed, forgotten, and neglected lands.

The cemetery stories will follow in more precision and in keeping with this site’s emphasis on LAND. She is an inmate in a beautiful hilltop cemetery on a low-key mountain named Prospect.

The Rita Booth material that follows will be short on words for this reason. There just isn’t enough good information available. Her story will be interpreted here in the merest of nutshells. You will be soon bombarded with photographic depictions of articles related to her death in Binghamton, and you will see that none of them allow you to fully settle in to an understanding of her claim to be the daughter of Lincoln’s “assassinator.”

For now, go into the digital world of factoid presentation. What follows, in a series of photographs of articles, probably constitutes the best collection online of items relating to her story — and that is a shame, for it is not through hyperbole that I make the claim “best collection”; rather, it is through endless hours of searching online, and on microfilm in the Binghamton Library that makes me aware that this collection is both MEAGER and the “best.” I fully hope that someone makes me eat the claim.

Descendants of Ogarita Booth Henderson can be found to this day online seeking more information to prove their point. One can find endless references to people possessing THIS or THAT, which proves some point, but although they have the ability to troll ancestry sites, they seem averse to using the internet to SHOW any documentation.

And, with that rap on the knuckles out of the way, let’s proceed to rove through her story in this photo-voluminous manner, in which you will interpret the story your own way. I point out one more time, though, that Rita Booth rests in Glenwood Cemetery, which received 1,330 bodies in a disruption from the “old” cemetery in 1907. The story of that follows her story, and it is, as Twain would say, “no slouch.”

Because Ogarita Booth Henderson’s story gurgles online in such a way as to truly be a waste of time at this point (Oct. ‘09), here is a lump sum nutshell of the story of Rita Booth.

Ogarita Booth Henderson claimed to be the product of a secret marriage between her mother and John Wilkes Booth. Below you will see death notices that include that claim, and also an article from 1885 which does not elaborate on its reason for existing, but includes a mention of her as John Wilkes Booth’s daughter.

Before the presentation of these materials it is expediant to provide a link to a wiki about the situation.

Click to Learn More

The above was not done out of sloth…but it provides the basic gist of her story and leaves us unencumbered to present the following unfiltered material, some of which probably contributed to that story.

Here is a small vault of information from its proper time:

A 1924 Binghamton Press article about Glenwood Cemetery’s history sums up her story like this:

“Mrs. Ogarita Henderson, daughter of John Wilkes Booth, assassinator of Abraham Lincoln was a pretty young actress when she visited Binghamton 35 years ago, while playing her first real character role with a show troupe. She suffered an attack of acute indigestion while here and died suddenly in the Crandall Hotel. She was hurriedly buried in Glenwood Cemetery and her show troupe moved on to the next stand. Her grave, marked only by a small pine tree has been almost forgotten.”

IN this way we can see that the three foot tombstone currently on her grave was not there for at least the first 32 years of her residency in Glenwood Cemetery. As for the remark that the acting troupe immediately moved on, I have found a notice in the April 6th, 1892  Binghamton Herald Republican that the troop actually extended their planned stay by one day, and at the discounted price of 10 cents per ticket. This extension appears in adverts and in a column mention.

Here is how the Binghamton Herald Republican presented the announcement of her April 12th 1892 death in their April 13th 1892 edition:

And here is how the New York Times presented it in their April 15th 1892 edition:

As for Ogarita Booth being shown to claim relation to John Wilkes Booth before her death, there is this, which is from seven years before her death in Binghamton. This is from the New York Times in 1885, and though the meaning of the thrust behind the article is not explained, this article does show that she was able to present herself without apparent question as the daughter of John Wilkes Booth to at least one New York Times reporter.

She was 26 years old at this time:

Below you will see an advertisement for the Floy Crowell troupe from April 5th 1892. Although Rita and her husband Al Henderson are not mentioned, they were among the 19 players in the production of revolving plays that promised, “NO DULL MOMENTS.”

And in every issue of the Binghamton Herald Republican during this period when the Floy Crowell troupe was in town, often only inches away from the show’s advert about their Opera House appearances, and including the issue that announced her death…there was also this advertisement for the cemetery that soon received her corpse. I have spent a lot of time on looking at Binghamton microfilm papers and I am not familiar with any other period in which the Glenwood Cemetery advertised so blatantly, expensively, or at all. The photo below is of an advert that was running daily during this period. This is shown at the end of the Rita Booth portion of this essay, but, those who intend to continue on to the coming information about the digging up of 1,330 bodies and their trek through town, should take note of the name HULBERT at the bottom of the advert. That is Hulbert SENIOR,..and we will meet his son at an elderly age when we take the bright lights off Miss Booth, and return to discussing both the missing and existing cemetery.

(Note: In the space of 24 hours hours we have received two new articles about Rita Booth.  Those and any subsquent materials will be added under the cemetery story below):

An article in the Binghamton Herald Republican (which is too obscured for photos) during the week of Rita’s troupe arrival in Binghamton details the Binghamton City Alderman attempting to pass legislation to abandon the City Cemetery and turn it into residential lots.

The City Cemetery was not only in disrepair, but was also in the way of progess. There were other graveyards, and all were cheaper than City Cemetery. But only Glenwood was taking out expensive advertisements at the time.

Eldredge street, where the "Old City Cemetery" was located.

The last sentence in Superintendant HULBERT’s advertisement for Glenwood Cemetery (above) is conspicous: “All orders for removing bodies will be promptly and carefully performed.” This is not in keeping with the usual mention of what undertaker took charge of a fresh body. Although it is in the realm of conjecture, this sentence is probably inserted into the advertisement to encourage those with means to transfer loved ones from that decaying cemetery with a threatened future to Glenwood Cemetery. Two of the most famous and prosperous families in town had already done so in previous decades (Whitney and Dickinson). Items up for discussion in town council meetings were often publicized well in advance…sometimes by bulletin board…and so it is assured by the large article (not shown), that it was well known the Binghamton City Cemetery was in a period of crisis; was probably not even accepting more burials; was under threat of condemnation; and was a long known place of disrepair. This was just plain “in the news” as Ogarita Booth Henderson, her husband Al, and the rest of the Floy Crowell troupe were in town.

Rita’s husband, Al Henderson, must be assumed to be the one to make the funeral decisions. All the early notices bear his name — and so do the articles about them signing together for various gigs. He would have probably seen the notices of the show, in the 4 days it was supposed to be in town, and also the suddenly added 5th day with a matinee and evening show. Some of these would have been interesting to him as a person involved in the show and how it was advertised. The advertisement for Glenwood Cemetery was always only a few inches away from any mention of the Floy Crowell show. If he and a non-ill Rita looked at the adverts as they arrived in town, they would have had within their vision adverts for Glenwood Cemetery, never knowing they would soon need the services of such. And if they followed the papers, they would also have seen the roots of the eventual abandonment of the City Cemetery, argued not for the first, nor the last time in print, but squarely in their time in Binghamton.

Lengthy articles can be found in Binghamton papers for a seventeen-year period showing much angst and controversy over the attempts to close the Old City Cemetery. Finally, on July 16th 1906, the council got their measure passed, and relatives or friends were told to have descendant bodies removed by December 1st. The city allowed the less-than-generous sum of ten dollars in expenses to families wishing to do this privately. Remaining bodies or bones would be removed to Glenwood Cemetery.

The enclosed photograph of an article about City Engineer Giles, and his task of staking out residential lots at the site is from January 1st 1907 (Binghamton Press).

Eight days later, F. B Hulbert, the supervisor of Glenwood Cemetery, and the son of the previous supervisor began the morbid task of moving 1,330 bodies across five densely populated miles — right through the business district.

Hulbert’s hired laborers had to cut through four feet of penetrating frost before the digging got easier. The remains were placed in pine boxes, and then stacked “with geometric precision” on carts drawn by a team of drays.

A January 29th, 1950 Press article depicts an elderly Mr. Hulbert standing over a collapsed tombstone recounting the story. The contract Mr. Hulbert signed with the City Of Binghamton stated that he was to be paid $8.50 per body. He was to remove the remains from the Old City Cemetery; place them in a three foot pine box; transport them to Glenwood; rebury them; and place a new marker if an old one didn’t exist.

Mr. Hulbert found that the Old City Cemetery had been “poorly administrated” [sic], and would end up seeing his work described the same way for decades. Records, “were missing and confused. Bodies were buried so indiscriminately that it became necessary to excavate almost the entire cemetery,” the Press reported. Later, when contractors began to build on the site, more bodies were found.

“Because of the inept method by which records were kept, hundreds of bodies were never identified,” the 1950 Press recounting says, “Graves were opened and bodies were found missing. Tombstones were found over empty graves.”

A city inspector named George A. Lincoln was assigned to oversee the exodus to Glenwood Cemetery. He kept a diary of the goings-on. His March 6th entry is peculiar:
“Partial body of adult. Remains were wrapped in a carpet and only about 18 inches below the surface. Reported to coroner and by him ordered to be interred as usual.” Mr. Hulbert recalled the incident 43 years later, remembering that a monkey wrench and a hatchet were found with the cut up body. Still, the coroner wanted this graveyard secret put back under the ground, albeit 5 miles away.

Eight days later, Mr. Lincoln wrote: “Body of adult–not identified (A clay pipe and rusty razor had been buried with this body.)”

Mr. Hulbert tells the story of finding 66 bodies in a common pit. These were determined to have been pulled from the Potter’s Field portion of the Old Cemetery years earlier to make way for Liberty Street to be built. For nearly two decades the City had been publicly debating the abandonment of the Cemetery, and yet, they had been quietly doing it all along.

Mr Hulbert told the Press that the City refused to pay the agreed upon $8.50 per corpse for these cases. He was finally instructed to place these remains three to a box, at the $8.50 rate. For the completed job, Mr. Hulbert was paid about $12,000 dollars.

Mr. Hulbert received many complaints for the state of Glenwood Cemetery. As part of his contract for the City Cemetery removals he was required to “set out in the corners of the lots trees and shrubs of value not less than $100.” Mr. Hulbert says this was done, but some of these plants were killed in a dry summer, and others were strangled by weeds.

“We’ve taken it standing up for many years,” Mr. Hulbert said of the complaints, “we don’t want to shirk any responsibility, but since the bodies were reburied the City of Binghamton never has paid a penny for their upkeep. For the price we received we hardly could be expected to maintain the plot.”

Mr. Hulbert, and many of his family members, including his father, who is probably the man who placed Ogarita Booth Henderson in her grave, are all buried on a steep ravine in Glenwood Cemetery. Their plots are a stones throw from her grave. Random pieces of tombstones can be seen dotting the ravine, some of them working their way into a brook, washing away into a storm drain.

(NOTE: Above are two articles sent in generously by Author Ron Franscell, “The Dark Night.” Click on the thumbnail to view the larger version).

The stage where Rita did her last performances.

Editors Note: Over time, newly found items about Ogarita Booth Henderson will be whispered in the comments below, where several updates already exist.

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Downtown Beirut is full of silent and boarded buildings, which stand between the featureless identical cement apartment blocks that make up the periphery. Most are pockmarked with bullet holes and — in places — red, Mediterranean-style ceramic tiles have fallen away, revealing the woodwork beneath. Still, these damaged, pre-civil war houses, mansions and apartment buildings manage to recall more than a little of the elegance that earned Beirut the title, “Paris of the Middle-East.” It’s a blatantly colonial term, given to the city by the French during their “administration” of the country from the end of the first world war until the end of the second. But the dirtied white facades of these buildings manage to catch the low-slanting light of sunset with a defiant brilliance their sterile replacements just can’t muster. They were designed to catch Mediterranean sunsets.

On Rue Spears, a couple of blocks past the Saneyeh park towards downtown, a prime example of Lebanese pre-war architecture sits mouldering behind a forbidding stone wall. I saw it on my first day of a 2008 winter break trip to Beirut to visit my father, a professor at the Lebanese American University. There is a certain prestige implicit with being the first explorer to hit an important building, and as far as I could tell there were no active explorers in all of Beirut. As such, I was out on the street every day at sunrise, hoping to make the best of my two weeks there.

This building is a standing, contradictory dichotomy — dark and gorgeous at the same time. The 10-foot high wall and chained, rusting gates create an atmosphere of something off-limits yet irresistible; its very demeanor from the outside implicitly suggests a world of secrets to discover.

On my first trip out I circled the block alone to find myself receiving suspicious stares from the urban-camouflaged Lebanese police. These eagle-eyed sentries stand near red and white striped guard houses glowering with their M-16s. Societally, cameras are looked upon with suspicion in Beirut. Tourists fare better than most, but any photographer walking around taking snapshots can expect to be questioned by a security or policeman.

This was especially so around the LAU campus, where I studied in 2003. The LAU campus sits adjacent to Saad Hariri’s palace, a gigantic structure built in the old pre-war Mediterranean style. Every time I walked in or out of the front gate with a giant Nikon hanging from my neck a security guard would run up to me repeating “No photo, no photo,” like a magic, protective mantra. I wonder if it ever occurred to them that a spy would probably use a smaller, less obtrusive camera than a D200. I mean, a DSLR doesn’t exactly fit into a belt buckle or a pack of cigarettes. I wonder how they would react if they knew the entire layout of the grounds is readily available on Google Earth. Still, they have good cause to be nervous.

In 2005 Saad’s father, former prime minister and billionaire Rafic Hariri was killed, along with 21 other people, by a massive car bomb in front of the St. George Hotel in Beirut. A Lebanese man I met told me that the hotel’s owner was one of Hariri’s opponents, and Saad has since blocked any attempts to rebuild the place. It sits vacant on the sea, another monument to violence. Since then, Saad has assumed leadership of the Sunni and Maronite anti-Syrian coalition — Hezbollah’s chief competition. These simmering tensions, amplified by the subsequent withdrawal of Syrian troops from the country and the 2006 war between Hezbollah and Israel, exploded in a mini-civil war in 2007, during which Hezbollah fighters occupied and burned FutureTV, owned by Saad, the mouthpiece of the anti-Hezbollah Future Movement.

I recall speaking to my father on the phone then, me in rural Illinois working my first newspaper job, he in his campus apartment — the roar of gunfire from the street below competed with his voice for my attention. I recall not only the expected, intense worry for his safety, but how disconcerted I was by his own apparent lack of it. He was more upset by the fact that the cable was out than by the rocket propelled grenades aimed at Hariri’s Palace, a couple of hundred feet away.

My father’s relative indifference could have stemmed from a regional adjustment to conflict. The waves of violence in Beirut hit like the seasonal flooding of an undammed river. The waters pull back, the silt settles and the shop keepers on Hamra sweep the dust off their doorways, no longer surprised by much of anything.

The decaying mansion I set out to explore sits across the street from the new FutureTV office, and the guards, manning a checkpoint a block way, stare in that way that always strikes the few American tourists who come to Beirut. It’s simply not considered rude to lock eyes with strangers for extended periods of time. And when the person staring at you is holding a loaded machine gun it sets your nerves on edge. So, after two trips around the block trying to find a way in, I decided to head home rather than have to again explain to a policeman why I had a camera; what I was taking pictures of; why I wanted to take pictures, etc. At first, the only glimpse I got was through a hole in the back gate. I saw an overgrown courtyard, full of trees and bushes that obscured the quiet and vacant mansion.

It wasn’t until a few days later that I went back, this time with Michel, a friend who works in computers downtown. It was his first time exploring; I don’t speak Arabic and figured a translator would be handy if I encountered anyone in the building.

We walked around to the front courtyard and bought local energy drinks from the corner shop that occupies the lower part of what was once the mansion’s guard house. Down the street is a small car repair shop, and we ducked behind it, seeking a secluded place to scale the wall. Walking down the alley between the courtyard wall and what appeared to be another abandoned building to the right, I was reminded of why exploring abandoned buildings in Beirut is a tricky business – you have to be considerate of the people who live in them.

The truth is, despite being home to a great many abandoned buildings, Beirut has very few vacant ones. Look beyond the pristine beauty of the rebuilt downtown area or the ritzy, exclusive dance clubs around Monot street — packed with rich kids going to school at LAU or AUB — and you’ll find a grossly unequal distribution of wealth in Lebanon.

About a kilometer from the giant and gorgeous blue-domed mosque built by Rafic, Syrian day laborers loiter around a filthy, vacant lot hoping for a day’s work. Many of these people choose to live rent-free in the many abandoned buildings of the city, often stealing power and even photo service from nearby lines. Look up in some places around the city and the huge number of pirated electric and phone lines forms a kind of multi-colored spiderweb, intricate and impressive.

This abandoned building, adjacent to the mansion we sought to explore, had a similar life support system jacked in from the city’s power grid. Laundry hung out on balconies and potted plants added a bit of color. Baskets hung on ropes that reached from top floor balconies to the alley below. It’s a general rule — if a building can provide shelter for someone, chances are it does.

We scaled the wall, one at a time; Michel provided me with a boost and I pulled him up in turn. The courtyard of the mansion must have been gorgeous. Giant, old trees of that strange type in Lebanon that throws down roots from the limbs into the ground, creating a miniature forest, dotted the landscape. Garbage was everywhere — old luggage, tires, children’s toys and literally thousands of empty plastic bottles. A dead white rabbit lay in a tree, balanced on a piece of carpet. I have no idea who put it there or why; it might have been one of the army of stray cats that live short, desperate lives in orbit around the city’s dumpsters. I quickly took its picture.

I wasn’t surprised when we saw a power line leading into the side of the building, as well as a garden hose. The doors on this side entrance were nailed shut from the inside, and the hose and power lines were threaded through holes drilled in the wood. Someone was living there, that was certain. I expected Michel to want to turn back, but he’d received an adrenaline jolt from hopping the wall and wanted to find a window to climb through. Fair enough, I said, conscious that I just agreed to go inside of someone’s home. Walking around to the front, I looked back at the side entrance and was really struck by how wealthy the former tenants must have been. Even though it was only the side door, it was flanked by tall, elegantly carved columns. It was an entrance worthy of any mansion, yet before the war it was probably used by house workers to bring in food and take out garbage.

We moved around to the front. Identical sets of white marble steps flanked an empty fountain and buttressed the arched and ornate French doors. It was then, as I turned facing the cobbled entrance road, that I imagined black European luxury cars stopping to disgorge impossibly well-coiffured party guests. We jimmied the door using a long piece of cut marble fallen off the steps to push aside the board that someone had jammed into the door. Michel had a big grin on his face, finding out what more experienced explorers already know and what keeps us coming back: the need to see the forbidden and off-limits is ingrained in our DNA as humans.

The barricade fell with a clatter and we entered the grand hall, silent and accepting. There were no footprints in the deep dust that covered the floor; we walked in a silent, reverent fashion that the building seemed to demand of us. Our footsteps were light and silent; our voices half-whispers.

What immediately caught my eye was the giant pile of papers at the end of the hall. Upon closer inspection many of the papers turned out to be black and white photographs — hundreds of them, all of the same elderly man in a tall, flat-topped Fez-style hat, at what appeared to be political events. In some of the photos the walls were covered in campaign posters bearing his image. Always: Around him were supporters, cheering and clapping. The other documents, Michel told me, were voter registration lists – hundreds of names, addresses and phone numbers. There were also various memos and letters. He didn’t know who the man in the photo was.

Michel went upstairs and I took out my tripod to shoot the photos in the low light. My camera’s timer, a soft beep, beep, beep seemed to echo in the dead, cold hall. It was after the third or fourth shot that I heard the footsteps behind me, crunching the broken glass of a long-shattered window. I turned, expecting to see Michel. Instead I encountered the scowl of a very large and very humorless Syrian man in heavy boots. His shoulders were gigantic, the product of years of manual labor. His eyes had no smile lines.

“I…I’m just taking pictures,” I offered, impotently, not expecting him to understand.

“It’s not open,” He replied, in what my memory holds to have been a deep growl.

“I…noticed.” And we just kind of stared at each other.

I was saved by Michel, who came down to tell me of a desk he found upstairs. A short exchange ensued which Michel later translated to me as:

Syrian: “You’re not allowed to come in here.”

Michel: “Well, we already are.”

Michel’s kind of gutsy like that. Especially considering the man could have easily kicked our teeth in. As it was, he agreed to give us 20 minutes after realizing we weren’t cops. We moved upstairs quickly, deciding to forsake the south wing of the house where we assumed the squatters lived. The clatter of our break-in must have echoed throughout the house.

Upstairs we found more clues as to the political nature of the home. A bookshelf, full of rotting books, sat in a room no longer protected by a roof. They were all political texts, some in French, some in Arabic. A book by Francois Mitterrand; another entitled, “for Lebanon” — books ruined by years of rainy Beirut winters.

In the next room was large wooden desk, of the sort befitting a president or CEO, Michel remarked. It sat next to pointed, arched windows and a balcony with a view of the courtyard and street below. I looked out and saw two bored Lebanese policeman smoking cigarettes and watching the passing cars. One of my favorite parts of exploring is looking out of windows on upper floors and watching cars, cyclists and joggers who pass and don’t look up where I am — a place I can’t help but notice.

There were Bedrooms, too. They were covered in an inch of red sand and colorful, flowered wallpaper. A few televisions, newspapers, some empty cigarette packets. The kitchen had been used by squatters at one point — an unopened can of peaches sported a 1988 expiration date. And they had left behind half-full barrels of cooking oil and a large bag of rice. Photos of female Lebanese pop stars torn from magazines decorated some of the walls.

There were bullet holes in the wall opposite the windows. Someone who had spent his or her mornings making spare breakfasts likely sought an antidote against those bullet holes; they saw in the perfect teeth of a pop star, the rim light and soft-focus photography, something better than the monotonous clattering of gunfire that drifted in like a cold front from the Green Line.

We only explored part of the mansion, content that something was better than nothing. With our presence known and no doubt communicated to whoever else was living there, we decided that overstaying our already cold welcome would be foolhardy, especially if they found out how we’d entered.

“He asked us how we managed to get in,” Michel laughed. “I told him we climbed in through an open window”

“What if he looks at the door and finds we kicked it in?”

“I dont’ think he’d be happy.”

On our way out we grabbed as many of the photos as we could. It seemed wrong to let them slowly decay, falling prey to piss and rainwater. As we re-crossed the courtyard I looked back and saw three windows on the third floor of the south wing filled with men staring at us, these strange intruders. I waved. They did not wave back.

A few days later I dropped in on Bassam Lahoud, photography professor at the Lebanese American University. A man for all seasons, Bassam is an architect, writer and dance instructor. He’s from Amchit, a small, charming mountain village near Byblos, the longest continually inhabited city on the planet. Bassam taught me how to use a camera, a Canon 35mm A1 from the 1970s. He runs a foundation with the modest aim of collecting every single photo ever taken of Lebanon. Any photo. Of anything. I handed him the warped stack of black and white photos from the mansion.

“Takkieddin el-Solh” he said. “He was a prime minister.”

We had broken into the former prime minister’s home. Evidently he had abandoned it when Beirut began to tear itself to shreds in 1975. His time in office had ended a year before. In 1980 he was asked by the president to form a government but was unable to find consensus in a country at war with itself. He died in 1988 in Paris.

“Can I keep one of these? For my foundation?” Bassam asked.

Of course. Of course. I gave him all of the photos, and copied 8 gigs of .jpg files onto his desktop. I wanted to feel like I was contributing something.

He looked at my photos of the mansion, the ones you’re looking at now. “Perhaps we could do an exhibition some time, at my house in Amchit, where we took the field trip.” He had taken his entire class to his home for a day to practice architectural photography. His house is gorgeous, a mansion too, built before the civil war yet free of scars. Yes, of course you can do an exhibition, Bassam. When I put them up on Flickr I set the license to Creative Commons.

I said my goodbyes to Bassam and went downstairs. Outside, there was a campus demonstration against the Israeli air assault in Gaza. Students chanted and burned Israeli flags. In a brief moment of unity, yellow Hezbollah flags waved next to the red and white Lebanese. “The enemy of my enemy is my friend,” and for the moment they had found in war a reason to come together. It’s not sustainable, I thought. I raised my camera and took their picture. Smoke billowed from burning flags, and painted faces cheered, chanted.

Further Reference

• Full Set of Photos from the Mansion
• New York Timse Obituary for Takieddin Solh
  

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We live in a post-industrial world, and our connection to the modes of production, our infrastructure, and the cogs of society is becoming more and more disembodied from day-to-day life. This guide is meant to be an introduction to one of the fastest growing hobbies our modern time: Urban Exploration.

Why?

The definition of Urban Exploration may be different for every adherent, but most urban explorers call themselves modern historians, discoverers, archivers, documentarians, and architecture buffs. Some explore for simple aesthetic reasons because they find the crumbling edifices of society to be perfect artistic subjects. Others find a certain level of adventure and excitement in exploring off-limits areas or skirting the law to reach places that most people can’t see. Still others have a purely historical interest in a specific building or complex.

Whatever the reason, Urban Exploration is something that can be traced back hundreds of years, even back to 1793, when an oft-cited “explorer,” Parisian cataphile Philibert Aspairt, became famous for his untimely death in the Catacombs under Paris. To this day, the Paris Catacombs attracts a subculture that descends underground for regular socializing and fraternizing.

How?

The methods of urban exploration, much like the motivations of its adherents, vary. Extensive research is essential for any “virgin” finds. This may often require visits to your local library or archive. Topographic and historical maps, especially Sanborn maps, provide a perfect starting point. Google Earth, Wikipedia, and Wikimapia are vital tools if you wish to get a more up-to-date snapshot of your target location.

Some Urban Explorers have a penchant for Google Alerts; by setting up an alert on Google Alerts for specific keywords, an urban explorer is continually aware of new abandonments. Geotargeted key phrases matched with the word, “abandoned,” or “vacant” also work especially well in researching new “finds.”

The best way to start exploring is to pair up with a buddy.  Much like scuba diving, urban explorers are safest if they explore in small groups. Established communities online, including uer.ca, Infiltration, and Deggi5 allow you to become acquainted with like-minded explorers, some who can provide you with a valuable list of new locations to explore.

Above all, the late Jeff Chapman (who passed away in 2006 after a battle with cancer) published a posthumous book that has become the de-facto Bible of Urban Exploration. Chapman’s book, Access All Areas, provides a full summary of the basics of “Building Hacking.”

The Gear

The hobby is known for its extremely low barriers to entry.  All one
needs is a flashlight, some water, and a passion to discover. Of
course, if you prefer to photograph your finds, a camera always helps,
but the lighter you travel, the better off you are. Certain treks may require more extensive gear-packs – see the Health & Safety Section for more on that.

The Methods

Image by forklift

Methods of entry are important to decide prior to entering your target. Consult with other members in the group.  Lay down ground rules as to how much climbing, crawling, and razor-wire you wish to encounter. Some groups may turn back at the first sight of a fence. Others may jump at the opportunity to try their hand at nine-foot razor-wire. Be absolutely sure of the risks you’re taking and the laws you may potentially be breaking.

Health & Safety

Urban exploration is a dangerous hobby, and it should be treated as such.  Some of the more common hazards include:

• Falling from, or within, multi-story buildings.
• Inhaling dangerous fumes, gases, or particles.
• Stepping on or accidentally touching hypodermic needles from illicit drug use.
• Encroaching on the territory of gangs, drug-users, or hostile vagrants.
• Cuts, scrapes, and bruises — ensure that Tetanus shots are up-to-date.
• In the case of draining, flash floods, or even small amounts of rain could prove deadly if one is confined in a storm system.

Specialized Gear for Health & Safety

Unwritten Codes of Conduct

There are a few unwritten rules in Urban Exploration, and one should be cognizant of the protocol in order to be fully accepted and trusted as a new member of the sub-culture.

The most common and oft-quoted rule follows the mantra of the Sierra Club: “Take only photographs, leave only footprints.” Though not all urban explorers follow this directive, the vast majority do. Many abandonments possess a treasure trove of esoteric objects, unique contraptions, rare industrial components, or special antique items that could sell for a handsome profit on eBay. Despite all this, the community has decided to officially condem taking any object from a building.

Graffiti and vandalism are generally condemned, but there are exceptions. It should be noted that urban explorers are a diverse group of tens of thousands, potentially hundreds of thousands. The diversity of opinions falls in both extremes, but the moderate and mean consensus generally follows the rule of law except for the very notable exception of Trespass.

As of now, there is no officially sanctioned urban exploration moral codex. In fact, “following the rules” would run counter to the central principle of exploring. For this reason, urban explorers have a general understanding of the community’s moral compass and make of it what they will.

Documentation

Most urban explorers consider the documentation of the structure or location to be their prime concern. The most notable method of documentation is by still photograph. Video, sound, and architectural sketches or rough maps are recorded to a lesser degree.

Most explorers are astute photographers, and the artistic liberty taken inside of an abandonment results in a dramatic collection of architectural photography that has only recently been possible. To most, this is the central purpose and goal of their hobby – and they hold it as a very sacred duty in order to record pieces that are often lost within months or years due to the wrecking ball.

The Law

Urban explorers are breaking the law, but it’s generally assumed that such laws are antiquated or unjust. The most notable law that is broken by an explorer is trespass, but others may come into play as well, including:

• Invasion of privacy
• Either purposeful or inadvertent destruction of property
• Certain broadly interpreted anti-terrorism laws
• Liability for the injury of others in your group

In general urban explorers are liable to be prosecuted for criminal and civil judgements for trespassing, but publishing the photographs themselves is considered a separate issue. The only exception is invasion of privacy. If an explorer publishes photos that infringe on the likeness of someone, or put them in a negative light, then he or she may be held liable for that action in civil court.

Conclusion

Urban exploration is, by nature, a very dangerous and illegal activity. At the same time, it can be a very rewarding and engaging pursuit. This guide was meant to inform you of all the safety and legal concerns so you can make an informed decision whether or not urban exploration is right for you.

Resources

The Urban Exploration Resource (Forum)

Author’s Site: Photos and Stories of Historic Architecture

Related posts:

1. Bethlehem Steel, Wartime Labor, and San Francisco
2. World War I and Bethlehem’s Labor Force
3. Treatise on Trespassing

In 1892, an entire city arose from the swamps of Chicago to host the greatest mass of people ever assembled in the United States. On the heels of the Paris World Exposition, America wanted to display its new industrial might and cultural refinement. The Chicago World’s Fair drew a crowd of 27 million. At the time, essentially half of America’s population attended.

Surrounded by a country mired in the depression of the early 1890s, Chicago seemed to be in a world of its own – completely oblivious to simple economics.

This exhibition was for the American Cereal Company – the famous purveyors of Quaker Oats

It was here that Shredded Wheat made its first foray into the American iconosphere (which was described by fair-goers as “shredded doormat” “sawdust” or “cardboard,” despite its later success). Juicy Fruit captivated fair-goers, men had their first swig of Pabst Blue Ribbon. And perhaps the fair’s greatest achievement was the invention of the Ferris Wheel. No other element of the landscape has had such a profound effect on our milieu of outdoor leisure.

This was no simple fair. It was the “World’s” fair – the Gilded Age equivalent of the Epcot center, but on a much larger scale. And it was all built in less than a year.

In 1892, Chicago was home to scores of stockyards and slaughterhouses. Everywhere, was the smell of blood and death. The homicide rate in the city was among the highest in the country. All around were the signs of a soon-to-be great city that needed something to set it apart. The fair’s symbol was the Phoenix – perhaps the most appropriate symbol ever chosen for any event in the history of mankind, because in less than two decades, Chicago had arisen from the ashes of the Great Fire and housed the greatest architects and architecture of its time.

This painting by William Hunter Crane, depicts the debaucherous “carnival” adjacent to the World’s Fair, the Midway Plaisance. Note the Phoenix engraved at bottom left, the world fair’s official symbol.

In Chicago, Frank Lloyd Wright got his start. It was Daniel Burnham, the man who designed the Flatiron building and D.C.’s Union Station, who planned the fair’s architectural environment. The grounds were meticulously laid out by Frederick Law Olmstead, landscape designer of Central Park, and the country’s premiere Landscape Architect.

Here, the world’s largest building – said to have the capacity for the entire Russian Army – was built in months. It was the first large-scale use of electricity. Generators, incandescent bulbs, alternating currents, and electric boats were everywhere. The vast majority of visitors to the fair had never seen these things in their life.

If there’s one book any aspiring architect or landscape aficionado should read, it’s Erik Larson’s The Devil in the White City. It’s a true account of the events, the men, and the tragedy that resulted from the fair. Larson paints a portrait of an America that had ambition – something which seems a spectre in today’s modern mode of stasis.

In the coming months, you’ll be treated to a smorgasboard of buildings — all exclusively garnered from a recent acquisition of Bearings. We’ve hand-picked these sketches from a rare 1893 book. Above is the Manufactures and Liberal Arts Building – the world’s largest building. Others will be presented soon, and thank you for reading Bearings.

Related posts:

1. Cold Storage Building: World’s Fair at Chicago
2. Frank Lloyd Wright and His Forgotten Larkin Building
3. End of World War I and the RCA Monopoly

The Inside of the Lost Mission of Satevo. See the previous entry for more on Satevo.

I had the privilege of touring with a Tarahumaran guide. The Tarahumara, as a people, are fascinating. They are the most resilient and self-sufficient people I’ve met. Their sandals are made from the rubber of old tires. They use the sandals to race in world renowned races. Tarahumara men, because of the elevation, the heat, the extreme length of their travels – are able to run hundreds of miles without a stop. They are some of the world’s best natural marathon runners. And I was hiking with one!

A video of a Tarahumara showing us how to tie the patented Tarahumara Huarachi Sandals

Awaking at six, with a liter of water in hand and some granola bars in the camera bag, I walked out of the streets with Modesto. He’s a short and friendly man with a tinge of gray hair. In fact, he looks like an extremely well-tanned Mel Gibson. Modesto knows the Native Tarahumaran tongue, and I was lucky enough to hear him speak it when he ran into a friend on the trail.

Walking along Rio Batopilas

We walked along the crystal clear waters of Batopilas River. It was a gorgeous, but hot, hike. All along the trail, I adamantly tried to strike up conversation with Modesto. Naturally, my Spanish would serve its purpose, I thought. But most Tarahumara don’t know Spanish, or very little, if they do. And, I’m sure understanding my mediocre Spanish is about as difficult as me trying to understand his Native Tarahumara dialect.

On the trail, there were abanoned buildings and the occasional Mexican cowboy (make no mistake: These are real cowboys – the types of cowboys that existed even before pilgrims landed in the U.S.). There was a small school in the middle of nowhere, and it seemed to be empty. I probably saw about fifty burros on the way. Rio Batopilas is a beautiful river that somehow manages to remain cool in 95-degree weather. halfway along the trail my water was down to 1/4 of a liter. It was empty by the time we reached Cerro Colorado. The outside temperature had topped 100 degrees Fahrenheit.

Pueblo de Cerro Colorado

The tiny pueblo of Cerro Colorado (”cerro” means silver in Spanish) is comprised of one truck, and about ten houses. It is a derelict mining boomtown. Three-hundred years ago, the houses of Cerro Colorado probably contained Spanish criollos who supervised the back-breaking work of mining silver. Undoubtedly, Modesto’s ancestors were probably slaves in the silver mines at one time.

We sat down on a bench before returning to Batopilas (which seemed like a metropolis compared to this town) and Modesto chatted it up with a guy sharpening his knife on a rock. An old woman, who had to be at least 95, and had likely lived deep in these canyons for the whole duration, caned her way to the gate to see who was sitting on the bench. Apparently, a pale-faced gringo is the last thing she expected to see!

I gave Modesto a granola bar; he couldn’t figure out how to open it, so I gave it a good tear. I hadn’t realized that we walked 10 kilometers by this time. That would mean the return trip would be a seven mile trek in 100-degree weather (and shade was nowhere to be seen). Upon returning, the only thing in my sights was the river full of water and the aquedect next to me (constructed for the mines in the 1700s, but still in full use!) My clean water was gone! I couldn’t drink for the seven mile trip back.

Modesto told me earlier that the water in the aqueduct is very “sucio” (dirty), so I refrained. But, to my surprise, less than a mile out of Batopilas, he dipped his hands into the aqueduct and began drinking prodigiously. I’m sure his stomach was fully aware of the microbes that existed in the water – his DNA contains a natural resistance to burro dung, perhaps?

Modesto laughed when I saw him drinking. Laughing at me was a normal occurrence for Modesto, so I shrugged it off and smiled. Upon return, Monse fixed me water with lime juice from the trees in her garden.

Monse is an avid gardener and leads a gardening group in Batopilas. The lime water was the most satiating substance I’ve imbibed in my life. After about three litres of this nectar of the gods, I crashed on the hammock. It was a state of half-sleep and half-awareness, as the weather was unbearably hot, but somehow the hammock and a leak in one of her garden irrigators made everything better.

I am now recouped. just took my bath in the river (there are no baths in the bathroom, ironically; just a toilet). This is a paradise – if only it was a bit cooler, everything would be perfect.

Related posts:

1. Day 3: Batopilas – Paradise in Copper Canyon
2. Steam Power in Colorado’s Sugar Factories
3. Chihuahua to Creel – Day 2 in Mexico

Plaza Central de Chihuahua

What I’ve seen today rivals what I saw in San Francisco, the first time I had seen a city. The U.S. calls itself a melting pot, but they can’t lay claim to what Mexico can be proud of. In the space of one block, I saw middle-class Mexican mestizos, upper-class criollos (pure-bred Spanish), Tarahumara (Chihuahua’s native indeginous people who wear colorful dresses and still live in caves – the men wear loin cloths, believe it or not). I saw Mennonites (they’re not only in Pennsylvania, apparently)

These colorful boots in Chihuahua are a reflection of Mexican culture as a whole. America doesn’t even compare to the melting pot of Mexico.

And the cattleman – they put American cattlemen to shame. They actually use their horses for utilitarian reasons around here. I was just driving down the road about an hour ago and I saw a kid who didn’t look older than nine who was riding as if he was on Seabiscuit, jumping fences and canyons, putting my truck to shame.

Everything in Mexico has to dazzle the eyes – even this dust devil the size of a tornado.

Talking Over Tecate in Creel

I rolled into Creel about 5 p.m. to encounter Americans. This made me sad. I thought it would become my special Mexican town that nobody else knew about. Creel is a tiny little pueblo. There are a few banks and restaurants. I think it boasts a population of about 6,000. As I changed my money in a casa de cambio, I crossed the street and found a little restaurant/bar.

A unique view of mountain biking in Creel, Mexico

Nobody was in there, but I asked for Tecate, and it was readily produced. The woman who I met was very talkative and easygoing. She had a small daughter with her who was nine years of age. I told her where I was from. Funny, every Mexican I’ve talked to so far always talk about the bridge. Even in the small pueblo of Creel, 300 miles south of the border, this woman knew about the Golden Gate Bridge.

We exchanged the normal conversation starters – thank god I can understand and somewhat respond to most of them. Her daughter was a bit shy at first, but she opened up to me and brought out her textbook from school. She wanted me to show her on the map where San Francisco was. She told me she spoke English and sang to me “Frere Jacques” in English. I helped teach her the word for “honga” in English (hongas are mushrooms and the woman said that there were many in the surrouding hills). I’m now sitting at the top of the Sierra Madres.

The Espactaculo in Creel

The people here are friendly, and I’ve never felt safer anywhere. It’s odd. Even though they are poor, they never ask for anything directly – they are always open to chatting. At my camping spot, I heard music playing from a tent down the block. The circus, or “espactaculo” was in town. There are only two actors in the troupe. It’s not a freak show. The best way to describe it is to say it’s a lot like the talent shows we had as kids in Elementary School. There is a magic show, lip syncing of popular songs, and the ever-so-popular ass jiggling (I’m not joking). There were to main actors and one assistant. the two actors played all of the parts. The kids in the audience loved the show, and there was the occassional young couple, old couple, random cowboy with wranglers and cowboy hat in the tent.

What struck me were the overtly sexual jokes when the majority of the audience were children.The kids seemed to laugh the most at them, too. For twenty pesos, it was a steal. I watched the people watching the circus, more than I watched the circus itself.

There are ravenous dogs around my campground. I had to barricade myself in the back of the pickup truck. Otherwise, I still feel safe, and the crescent moon is low in the horizon, a chilly breeze with a tinge of pine scent carried from the mountains sweeps by, and the sound of Ranchera music in the background. There was no feeling lonely in the company of stars at 6,000 feet in the Sierra Madre.

Related posts:

1. Casa Grande, AZ to Chihuahua, Mexico
2. Day 3: Batopilas – Paradise in Copper Canyon
3. Chacahua: Untouched, Mystical Mexico

These Detroit Rotograte Stokers work great at continuously discharging ash from the burning of coal. These stokers at the Great Western’s Longmont refinery were part of a much larger system of boilers that fed steam power for the entire factory (photo copyright Jon Haeber).

Editor’s Note: This is the final section of the series, “Sugar Refineries in Colorado.” See part 1 here and part 2 here. It’s recommended that you read part 1 and part 2 before beginning with this section.

Sugar refineries in Colorado were powered by steam. The most popular steam boiler of choice for these factories were the Babcock and Wilcox water-tube boilers — revolutionary and efficient steam creators for their time. The power house of the factories featured a monumental array of ten massive boilers — all of which required incredibly coordinated logistical fueling using a continuous supply of coal. This was not done by manpower– everything was mechanized. Railroad cars delivered the coal, it was crushed into one-inch chunks, brought in by conveyence to mechanical stokers, burned, discarded through flumes, and finally exited as ash.

Men stand near the cossette slicing machine at Eaton, Colorado ca. 1910 (courtesy Denver Public Library).

This incredible steam power was utilized throughout the factories’ multiple rooms and corridors through a complex system of drive-shafts. workers could engage or disengage shafts through a series of levers and belt-transfer guides. Despite its incredible, 3,000 horsepower system of steam strength, these factories still employed 300-500 workers of various tasks — even their own chemistry and assay departments to measure the sugar content of incoming beets.

This box shaped contraption at the Longmont sugar refinery perplexed me, but I could only assume that it was pressurized, as indicated by the rivets and portholes (photo copyright Jon Haeber).

Corporate Consolidation of Sugar: A Massive Industry

Indeed, sugar in the eastern foothills of the Rockies was far from a small-town cottage industry. William May, who wrote The Great Western Sugarlands, claims that Colorado’s sugar industry produced more revenue than mining in the state. Combine the rich sugar content of Colorado’s beets with government-provided bounty for domestic producers of sugar — add the lynchpin of it all, the Dingley Act of 1897 (which levied a heavy tax on foreign sugar) — and you’ve got the perfect storm for a boom in beet production.

The factory at Eaton, CO. Notice the effluence coming from the smokestack. This is the lime kiln. The boiler house is outside of view from the image (photo courtesy Denver Public Library).

It was a perfect storm that was ripe for H.O. Havemeyer’s picking. Havemeyer did this as tactfully as any robber-baron could: through an extremely complicated system of acquisitions and alliances using his American Sugar Company Trust. As Eric Twitty in Silver Wedge so aply puts it, the trust “converted the Colorado sugar industry into a coordinated sugar-manufacturing machine, which it loosely balanced with its sugar sources elsewhere in the United States,” among which included half of Spreckels stake in sugar from Hawaii and California.

The Great Western Sugar Company fell victim to the growth of artificial sweeteners, foreign imports, and the dissolution of government subsidies. Only a few select sugar refineries in Colorado remain in operation (Photo copyright Jon Haeber).

Eventually, however, even corporate consolidation and efficiencies couldn’t mean the continued survival of an outdated commodity source. One by one, the factories across Colorado closed down. Corporate neglect may have partly been the reason, but it ultimately became simple geography. Once artificial sweeteners, sugarcane, and corn syrup took their stranglehold on the American sweetening industry sugar beets became a thing of the past. By 1985, all but one of Colorado’s grand sugar refineries had shuttered.

The workshop at Eaton Refinery. If you want esoterica, look no further than this workshop at Eaton’s sugar refinery. Here, were a number of whos-its and whats-its galore. One could only wonder what the worker in this workshop did in a typical day. No doubt there are plenty of opportunities for idle tinkering (Photo copyright Jon Haeber).

Further Reading on the Sugar Factories of Colorado

Silver Wedge: The Sugar Beet Industry in Fort Collins
http://www.ci.fort-collins.co.us/historicpreservation/pdf/sugar-beet-industry-doc.pdf

Historic Markers of Colorado — History of Sugar Beets in the State
http://www.coloradohistory.org/ripsigns/show_markertext.asp?id=825

Suspicious Monopolistic Agreement Between Great Western and H.O. Hevemeyer
http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=9507EED9153CE633A25757C0A9609C946396D6CF

Related posts:

1. Kualoa Sugar Mill Ruins, Hawaii
2. Day 5: Batopilas to Cerro Colorado… and Back
3. Cartier-Bresson and the Philosophy of American Decay

This is the historic Longmont Refinery today. Captured from the ground floor, this large format image shows exactly how many pipes, catwalks, and tanks occupy a typical refinery. Walking through a sugar refinery fills your mind with conjecture, shock, amazement, and curiosity — all at once (photo copyright Jon Haeber)

Editor’s Note: From the founding of the Greeley Colony after the Homestead Act, rough and determined Coloradans were in a desperate search for the perfect cash crop. By 1900, their savior had come in the form of sugar beets. Before they transformed this sweet crop into a cornucopia of cash, however, they needed investment. In Part I, we saw how Colorado was the perfect geographical location for sugar beets. Now we’ll see why factories required massive up-front capital investment. In part III (coming soon), you’ll see how steam power transformed the typical sugar refinery; you’ll find out how corporate consolidation led Colorado agriculture into its days of glory; and you’ll find out why only two remaining refineries out of dozens are still active in Colorado.

Inside these factories are massive machines — their own steel and brick monuments to a once-burgeoning industry. In order to understand the vastness of these factories, one must first understand the complicated process of sugar refining. For beets, this process multifarious and extremely energy-intensive. It required the importation of exorbitant amounts of coal and lime.

A map of the Longmont Sugar Refinery. Note the Steffens House (where MSG would later be made from beets), the incredibly large coal pits (this will be described more in Part III), and the extremely efficient train track layout.

Beet Washing and Flume Transport

First beets were both washed and transported through a series of flumes, but in order for them to be processed they needed to be brought to the top floor of the factory through a series of hoppers. Time was of the essence. As soon as the beets came in contact with water, they’d begin to diffuse their sugar.

Sugar beets needed to be carried to the top floor for the first step in processing. This required the use of an elaborate system of belts and flumes. Pictured above is an inclined conveyer that likely brought the beets up to a higher level. This conveyer is located at Eaton, Colorado (photo copyright Jon Haeber).

Cutting into Cossettes, Sublimation, and Lime Injection

Once on top, the beets went through a series of cutting machines, which sliced the beets into thin v-shaped pieces known as cossettes. The cossettes were fed into vast diffusion chambers, which were held under pressure, fed with boiling water, and allowed to steep for some time in order to sublimate the sugar from the cossettes. The spent cossettes were discarded, the steeped water was further brought into a soup of lime in order to purify the liquid-like sugar substance; then through a series of framed kelly filters; after which the filtered liquid was sent to a set of heat exchangers to keep it liquefied.

When one is in a sugar refinery, the sensory overload becomes overwhelming. These machines, like many in the refinery, perplexed me. However, I could reasonably deduce that — since they were on a lower story of the building, they were not the cutting (or cossette) cylinders. My educated guess says they are cylinders for griding lime rock. The pipe maze protruding from the cylinders probably sent the liquefied slurry of lime to be mixed with the sublimated sugar (photo copyright Jon Haeber).

Carbonation for Precipitation, Filtration, and Sulfur Station

Even after this process, the liquid, though containing no solids, remained a base due to the lime process. In order to solve this problem, the liquid was sent through carbonation tanks, where carbonic acid bubbled up through the juice, balancing the pH level and removing the lime. From there, it was sent to another set of filters, more heat exchangers, and on to the sulfur station.

These are the filter presses used to further purify the liquid sugar. In addition to filtering, the liquid had to go through both a lime and carbonation process before it became what is known as “standard liquor.”

It was at the sulfur station that the pH was further balanced and the sugar’s color was bleached white. Filtered one last time, it had finally became what the industry termed as “standard liquor,” containing a sugar content of 50-60%, but still in liquid form.

Workers stand in front of the famed lime kiln at the Eaton Refinery. Lime was an essential aspect of the refining process; it was useful in precipitating impurities in the beets.

Evaporation and Centrifuge Drying

In order to crystalize the liquid, the super-saturated liquid was sent through a series of evaporators, then to some centrifuges, and finally off to the market.

Drums of chemicals and grease are, not surprisingly, common in any sugar refinery. A typical refinery often leaves an indelible ecological footprint on the landscape (photo copyright Jon Haeber).

And that’s the simplified version! For the complete step-by-step process, visit this PDF document on Fort Collins sugar beet history.

Editor’s Addendum for Part II:As you see, a sugar factory was not only a multfarious process, it was also capital intensive. The Coloradans had a bounty, surely, but without the help of big money and intensive politicial lobbying, these factories would have never arisen from the Great Western Plains. In our third and final installment we’ll look at how the steam engine transformed the refineries in Colorado, along with corporate consolidation by Big Sugar headed by H.O. Havemeyer.

Related posts:

1. Steam Power in Colorado’s Sugar Factories
2. Kualoa Sugar Mill Ruins, Hawaii
3. Cartier-Bresson and the Philosophy of American Decay

Editor’s Note: Yes readers! Once again, I’m bringing you a special series. This one’s about the sugar industry in Eastern Colorado. There are three parts. This is part one. Stay tuned for parts two and three. Enjoy!

In Colorado there is a linear north-south collection of abandoned skeletons following the railroads outside of Denver. These brick edifices are decaying reminders of Colorado’s agricultural renaissance. Bricks collapse from four-story parapets and railroads are buried in weeds and detritus, but behind the decay and overgrowth is the history of the greatest sugar magnate in American history: The Great Western Sugar Company.

This is a ledger book from the Great Western Sugar Co. Eaton factory. Eaton is named after the tenth governor of Colorado, Benjamin Eaton, who was instrumental in getting the irrigation infrastructure set up that would later serve the beet industry well (photo copyright Jon Haeber).

These massive brick buildings are like nothing I’ve seen in my life. Early in Colorado’s history, the vast expanse of barren land was considered a desert. Famous New York Times Editor, Horace Greeley, described the Colorado plains as a “land of starvation.” This didn’t stop Greeley from endeavoring to establish a utopian colony there. His plan funded the beginnings of place of high moral standards and temperance. Never one to shy away from self-promotion, the utopian colony was named “Greeley.” After the Land Grant Act of 1862, thousands of families flocked to the Colorado plains in search of land worth subduing (in a biblical sense).

At first, wheat was the cash crop, but disaster stuck in the 1890s when the price of wheat plummeted and this bread basket of America needed a new boon basket — beets would be Colorado’s salvation. By 1900, there were brick buildings arising to process the growing influx of beet from the fields. The citadels of these towns had become tall, brick smokestacks spewing steam and spitting out refined sugar.

The Ecology of Growing Sugar Beets

There are only a few places in the world perfectly suited for the sugar beet horticulture. Sugar beets require a specific balance of light, minerals, and water in order to produce a minimum of 12% sugar content by mass — and this balance must follow a specific seasonal schedule. The plains along the Front Range of Colorado had this balance unlike anywhere else in the world. In fact, the balance was so perfect that some areas featured an alarming 17% sugar content by mass.

A young man sits near a truck bed stacked with sugar beets from Northern Colorado, ca. 1915 (courtesy Denver Public Library)

All the Front Range needed was water. That’s where Benjamin Eaton had come in. As a massive landowner, he served as one of Greeley’s first officers of the utopian Greeley colony. Eventually, though, the utopian vision was thrown out the window and dollar signs began appearing in the eyes of the capitalists.

The American Sugar Refining Company headed by robber baron H.O. Havemeyer had incorporated in 1891. Local growers of the utopian proclivity began to accept the capitalist emergence. So says the Jan 15, 1903 New York Times: “It is believed in Colorado that the American Sugar Refining Company has acquired such a large interest in the beet sugar business, either directly or indirectly, that it controls it.”

By 1903, the capitalists had thoroughly gained their ground, and thus the vast amount of money necessary to build the factories flowed in. The factory in Longmont was designed and built by the Kilby Manufacturing Company of Cleveland, Ohio. The bricks for it were provided by contractors Edward Seerie and Frank Hill of Hill & Seerie — who also provided the bricks for Denver’s Sough High School. Longmont Sugar cost one million dollars to construct — an astronomical sum for any project in the early 1900s.

Construction of the Longmont Sugar Refinery, ca. 1910 (courtesy Denver Public Library)

Only two years after construction, the newly formed Great Western Sugar Company had taken over the Longmont factory. In a few years time, the company had retained control of 15 factories along the Front Range. By 1920, Sugar was Colorado’s mainstay — the value of its harvest had multiplied to 20 times its 1900 level.

Please continue following Bearings, or subscribe to its RSS in order to continue following the incredible story of sugar in Colorado. Stay tuned for parts two and three.

Related posts:

1. Steam Power in Colorado’s Sugar Factories
2. Kualoa Sugar Mill Ruins, Hawaii
3. Art Moderne and Glass Bricks

The interior of the Kahuku Marconi Wireless building remains very much like it was during its 1914 inauguration, except now — instead of high-power transformers, wireless transmission keys, and antennae apparatus — you have above-ground pool-like structures containing shrimp krill.

Editors Note: This is part 3 in a three-part series on Marconi Wireless and government takeover over vital communications networks during times of war. I highly suggest taking a look at Part I here and Part II here before continuing. I hope you enjoy the narrative! There will be more special series’ arriving in the future!

What came from the war was a vast network of powerful communication hubs. During the war, these hubs were under the control of governments like never before. Unique to the U.S., when compared with other allies, was its insistence on holding on to influence over these radio holdings. Wireless had gone from a “mere adjunct to visual signaling” to a vital factor upon which armies, navies, and air forces had relied (Baker 177).

And government reliance had come at a cost so long as Marconi retained control of the patents. As General Electric was about to ship off a huge order of strategically important high-frequency alternators to British Marconi, Admiral Bullard and Captain Hooper, at the behest of President Wilson, stepped in and offered a lucrative government contract to GE. In exchange, GE would purchase American Marconi outright. In October 1919, the sale was completed and spawned the Radio Corporation of America (Harbord 60).

Guided into being by the President’s top Navy advisors, RCA provided integral services to the U.S. military — free from foreign investments or patent disputes. It also provided another outlet that was yet to be realized, but would soon have an indelible effect on American perception and ideology. In 1926, the giants of GE, Westinghouse, and RCA took their boldest step of all: they joined forces to form NBC — the first major broadcasting network.

Government and Corporate Alphabet Soups Blend (1926-1943)
As a private enterprise, NBC had some rather undeniable statist roots — after all, its parent company was GE (who most recently filed the largest tax return in history). It took over nearly a decade after FCC assumed oversight over radio corporations before it begin investigating the network’s practices. By that time, NBC had split into its “red” and “blue” holdings. Congressional hearings in 1941 only led to a perceived slackening of the anti-trust rules against NBC.

If it weren’t for the Department of Justice, NBC would have likely retained its control of the Blue Network. As it turns out, in 1943, it was forced to divest from its Blue holdings (selling them to the entrepreneur behind Life Savers and former commerce underscretary, Edward J. Noble). Still, though the ties between Blue and Red remained. Noble took the networks he had acquired from NBC and formed ABC.

At the cusp of the television revolution, the Second World War had begun, but not before three corporations — ABC, NBC, and CBS had claimed the lion’s share of communications in the country. In these three networks the ties to government were undeniable. And at the outbreak of World War II, this would prove invaluable. From CBS, CEO William S. Paley served as a colonel in the psychological warfare branch in the Office of War Information; from NBC, came the stalwart ties from its past inception as a Navy-formed corporation; and at CBS, a former undersecretary of commerce and confidante of NBC at the helm.

Administration Building of the original Marconi Building (later RCA)

These three corporations began the new era of television with a new type of psychological control over ideas and thoughts — and one more more potent than even radio had been during Marconi’s time.

Editor’s Note: This is the final part of a three part entry on wireless radio from the Imperial Age to World War II. It was inspired by my visit to an abandoned radio station in Hawaii, but the station itself is an illustration of a much larger effort by government and corporations to form ties and to sow the seeds of the military-industrial complex.

Further Note: After the publication of this piece, it came to the attention of the writer: the newspaper that reported the opening of the wireless station at Kahuku (with much fanfare, suffice to say [quoted in part II]) was owned by conservative sugar magnate Claus Spreckels. Spreckels was widely regarded extremely conservative and colonial in his political proclivities, so the stance of the article carries its own eerie bow of recognition to the theories postulated within this series.

Please find Part I here and Part II here.

Further Research

Coe, Douglas. Marconi: Pioneer of Radio. New York: Julian Messner, Inc. 1943.

Baker, W.J. A History of the Marconi Company. New York: St. Martin’s Press. 1971.

Harbord, J.G. “The Commercial Uses of Radio.” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science. Vol. 142, Supplement: Radio. Mar., 1929. pp. 57-63.

Headrick, Daniel R. The Invisible Weapon: Telecommunications and International Politics 1851-1945. New York: Oxford University Press. 1991.

Headrick, Daniel R. and Pascal Griset. “Submarine Telegraph Cables: Business and Politics, 1838-1939.” The Business History Review. Vol. 75, No. 3. 2001. pp. 543-578.

“Marconi Wireless is Formally Opened by Governor Pinkham.” Pacific Commercial Advertiser. 25 Sep. 1914. pp A1, A9

“Patents. Infringement. Use by Government.” Harvard Law Review. Vol. 29, No. 3. Jan. 1916. p. 339.

Reich, Leonard S. “Research, Patents, and the Struggle to Control Radio.” The Business History Review. Vol. 51, No. 2. 1977. pp. 208-235.

Related posts:

1. Radio’s Rise During World War I
2. Marconi, America, and the Monroe Doctrine
3. Kahuku Marconi Wireless Station, O’ahu, Hawaii