Armstrong, IL: Lost/IC/HR&E Depot

(Satellite, based on the aerial photo below)

HR&E = Havana, Rantoul & Eastern

Andy Zukowski posted
Illinois Central Railroad Depot in Armstrong, Illinois 1955

Larry Graham: PD&E?

Dennis DeBruler commented on Larry's comment
Havana, Rantoul & Eastern, https://www.facebook.com/groups/287556214707022/permalink/2278764788919478/

1940 Aerial Photo from ILHAP

The depot in the photo is very small. Because of the grain elevator, we are looking for two rectangles on opposite sides of the tracks. The only place that exists is east of Armstrong Road. Because the shadow of the white rectangle is smaller than the dark one, I think it was the depot.

Digitally Zoomed

Springfield, MO: US-66 1947 Red's Giant Hamburg & Gas Station, Motor Courts, Car Museum and Feed Mill

Red's original location: (Satellite)

Red's new location: (Satellite)

Rockwood Motor Court: (Satellite)

Rock Fountain Court Motel: (Satellite)

Car Museum: (Satellite)

Crescent Feed: (Satellite)

Hubcap Sculpture: (Satellite)

US-66 Overview

According to the video below, the font was bigger than he expected, so Red cut the "ER" off the bottom to fit under the power lines.

Route 66 Postcards posted
Route 66’s traffic volume encouraged early drive-through restaurants, including Red’s Giant Hamburg, often cited as the first drive-through in the world.

Kevin Moody: Red’s had a promising reboot; unfortunately, it opened the summer before “The toilet paper famine” and the “Summer of Love” in 2020. I think if its opening were not so close to those events, it would have had a fighting chance. Unfortunately, with an inability to maintain staff and maintain the building (due to a lack of staff), it slowly dwindled and, unfortunately, gained a negative reputation.

It was our favorite go-to place whenever we were visiting Springfield for doctor and Hospital visits, right up to about 6 months before it closed.

Here is a link to a video of our first impression of Red’s and a little Fast Food History.

https://youtu.be/zCA9FjcIY0U?si=Jb1VlcMQHIfs9aUY

This is the video referenced above. I skipped the foodie part. The history starts at 10:31.

Red started by purchasing this gas station and some motor court cabins. It looks like the price of gas is 18 cents. Note that this photo is old enough that they don't tack on the 0.9 cents.

14:40 video @ 14:40
Revealing the forgotten origin of the drive-through. Lost Route 66 Diner reborn.

Note the price for a room for a night. But at 11:02 is a photo with a $2.00 price.

@ 10:53

Eriene Estlund, Aug 2025

The above plaque stands next to this stand in the "Birthplace of Route 66 Roadside Park."

Terry May, Aug 2025

This is the modern version of Red's.

Street View, Aug 2023

Dustin Hatcher, Apr 2025

Kayla Thonesen, Nov 2024

Dustin Hatcher, Apr 2025

.

Motor Courts

These motor courts were the original style along national highways. I found some old motels in Grants, NM. But these two motor courts are a generation older.

Street View, Jun 2023

This sign is old enough that TV and air conditioning were recently developed. And Color TV is a long way off.

Photo, Apr 2024

Rock Fountain Court Motel

Street View, Jun 2023

Car Museum

Stacy Anderson, Nov 2020

Feed Mill

While looking on a satellite map for Route 66 stuff along College Street, I noticed this feed mill.

Street View, Jun 2022

Donna Wilson, Oct 2021

It looks like the grain elevator in the left background of the above view was a flour mill, and it is now a haunted house (Hotel of Terror). I included the feed mill in the left background of this view.

Street View, Jun 2022

What Google Maps labels as U.S. Bicycle Rte 66 is College Street. Red's was at "the intersection of College Street and West Chestnut Expy." That intersection has changed dramatically since 1959.

Mar 22, 1959 @ 18,000; AR1VXA000010013

Gap, PA: 1884-2011 Pennsy Depot and 21st Century Replica

Original: (Satellite)

Replica: (Satellite)

Metrotrails posted
Historic 1918 National Archives image of the Pennsylvania Railroad station in Gap, Pennsylvania. The station, constructed in 1884, endured for many years before its recent demolition due to its deteriorated condition. Situated on the westbound side along Pequea Avenue, the freight station was located nearby.

Metrotrails posted

Historic view of the Pennsylvania Railroad freight station in Gap Pennsylvania, from the Dan West collection. The station stood on the westbound (north side) beside Pequea Avenue.

Some sources say it was built in 1884, and some say it dates to the 1850s. Sadly, it was demolished in 2011 after some time being used for storage.

Metrotrails posted
Historic view of the Pennsylvania Railroad freight station in Gap Pennsylvania, from the Dan West collection. The station stood on the westbound (north side) beside Pequea Avenue, at the bend, until demolition in 2011.

Metrotrails posted

Historic 1930s Pennsylvania Railroad image by Robert Dudley Moore, from the John D Denney Jr collection, showing an eastbound locomotive on the main line in Gap, Pennsylvania. 

This was a very difficult area for the construction of the railroad, originally the Philadelphia and Columbia in 1834. They encountered deep mud and had issues so bad that they had to fill some of the cut. They built back in, and used stone to create stable ground. 

The original P&C took the turn at Gap wider than the PRR realignment.

By the early 1900s, the cut was able to be what deepened and improved. 

The bridge from which the historic photo was taken no longer exists. The one seen in the image is present day Strasbourg Road. We know this because a portion of the historic 1872 clock tower can be seen to the right, which was moved a little further up the hill when the highway was enlarged in 1953.

Normally, street view would have multiple dates for a metro area going back to 2008. But this street has just this view. The depot was up on the flat spot.

Street View, Apr 2025

I was surprised by how bad some of the images look. I think this is the best image.

Google Earth, Apr 2005

Replica

Metrotrails posted
This building, home to Principal Financial, does a rather good job of emulating the look of the historic Pennsylvania Railroad Station in Gap Pennsylvania. It does sit parallel with the tracks, so it's a bit confusing to those who don't know the area!
Metrotrails shared
Not the depot, but this building was built to look like it, around the time the nearby depot was destroyed, so that's cool... Gap, Pennsylvania

This building appears in a 2008 Street View and Google Earth image, but it does not appear in a 2005 Google Earth image.

Street View, Aug 2021

This topo map accurately marks the location of the depot.

1955/56 Gap Quad @ 24,000

Akron, OH: 1865 Excelsior Mower and Reaper Works, then IH "Motor Wagons" (Trucks)

(Satellite, the southeast quadrant of University Ave. and the tracks based on the 1882 map below.)

The company started in Doylestown, OH, and built the Akron plant in 1865. [the-daily-record]

Scott Brown posted two images with the comment: "From an 1874 Atlas.  Does anyone know where this was located?"

Rod Hower: I think my ancestors were involved with that! The Excelsior Mower and Reaper Works was an influential 19th-century farm machinery company in the Akron, Ohio area, co-founded by industrialist John Henry Hower in 1861. It was a significant early industry in the region and a precursor to the Quaker Oats Company and Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company.

History of the Excelsior Works and John Hower

Founding: John H. Hower partnered with the inventor John F. Seiberling to organize the Excelsior Mower and Reaper Works in Doylestown, Ohio, in 1861. The machine they manufactured was patented by Seiberling and called the "Excelsior".

Brian Vogus: One of these sites now E. J. Thomas Performing Arts [The 1882 map below shows it is south of University, Ave.] Hall. Competitors' plants Buckeye and Excelsior located adjacent to each other. Both consolidated into the massive International Harvester of America, which then began the manufacture of motor wagons, an early type of truck. Shut down and motor wagon business moved to Fort Wayne [c1923] and Springfield.

Vince Nicklin: Broadway @ State. [I'd say the southeast quadrant of University Ave. and the tracks.] #47 at this link

https://www.loc.gov/resource/g4084a.pm006770/?r=0.25,0.27,0.195,0.077,0 [Image below]

1

2

1882 Akron

A larger excerpt to provide context.

Within a decade, buildings were torn down and University Ave. was extended west of the tracks.

1903/61 Akron Quad @ 62,500

One of the big deals concerning the reaper was the paddle reel.

iastate, p2, Credit: Iowa State University. Special Collections and University Archives
This is a 24 page description of the reaper.

WoosterHistory
"This sketch from Caldwell's Atlas of 1873 features a mower from Excelsior Mower and Reaper Works of Cline, Seiberling and Co., in Doylestown, Ohio. The piece of innovative farm technology was sold in the mid-Nineteenth century to cut lodged and tangled grain in 3 1/2 inch sections."

WhoosterHistory
"This piece of innovative technology from the mid-Nineteenth century was captured in a sketch by the Caldwell Atlas of 1873. It features a man cutting lodged and tangled grain with a mower from Cline, Seiberling and Co., of Doylestown, Ohio."

In the background is a couple of the mowers. The foreground mower shows how it folds up for transport down a road.

huntington
Excelsior Mower and Reaper.
This is from an advertisement.

John F. Seiberling sons, Frank and Charles, helped transform Akron from a hot bed of farm machinery manufacture to a hot bed of rubber manufacture. [FarmCollector]

Boonville, NY: Black River Canal Museum

Museum: (Satellite)

Boonville was the summit of the Black River Canal.

The museum has a full sized replica of a 70-ton canal boat. I presume this is the replica. The canal is on the other side, and the railroad that probably helped make it obsolete is in the left foreground.

Street View, Jun 2025

Lock #71 is supposed to be buried here. "Five separate buildings contain exhibits with artifacts, hundreds of pictures, and a number of dioramas. An original 1850 mule barn houses an interactive kids’ room with a working mini canal, a pulley wall, a derrick for loading and unloading boats, and a tiller in front of a backdrop suitable for pictures." [AdirondackExplorer]

There was a cabin in the stern for the family to live in and a cabin up front that housed four mules. The mules were switched every six hours. Boonville had a shipyard to build canal boats.

BlackRiverCanalMuseum

Unfortunately, they don't identify the location of these locks.

BlackRiverCanalMuseum

Cincinnati, OH: 1878-1960s Eden Park Reservoir and Pump Station #7

Western Basin: (Satellite)

Eastern Basin: (Satellite)

Pump Station #7: (Satellite)

The structure in the middle was a wall that separated the reservoir into an East and West Basin.

𝗥𝗲𝗺𝗲𝗺𝗯𝗲𝗿 𝗪𝗵𝗲𝗻: 𝗣𝗲𝗻𝗻𝘀𝘆𝗹𝘃𝗮𝗻𝗶𝗮 and Ohio posted
Eden Park Reservoir ~ Bakers Pass ~ Cincinnati Ohio circa 1911!

Carol Underwood: The first pic I've seen with water in the reservoir.

Mike Beresford: Carol Underwood Really!?

Actually (now) it’s just a “mirror” covering the actual reservoir.

The covering was placed to protect the water from a threat of possible poison.

(I don’t remember if it was WWI or WWII)

SeeingTheWoods, Image courtesy of The New York Public Library.
Nicholas Longworth used the hilltop for a vineyard, and he was "the first commercially successful winemaker in the United States, and thus the “Father of American Wine.”" The city bought the land to create a water reservoir.

Some of the East Basin wall is still visible.

Street View, Jun 2024

The smokestack near the right of the above view is how I found the pump station.

Joshua & Sarah Lee, May 2025

4:23 video @ 1:17
Suicide Victims to Wrecked Cars Found in Historic Eden Park Reservoir, Cincinnati, Ohio

 Google's AI results claim that this standpipe remains, but I could not find it.

@ 1:28

Each year, one of the two basins would be emptied and cleaned. After a cleaning, the basin would be used for a while as an arena of orchestra performances. [HistoryInYourOwnBackyard]

wcpo

Twin Lakes used to be a limestone quarry. [SeeingTheWoods]

Satellite

Is that the smokestack of the pump station to the right of the church steeple on the left?

Northern Kentucky News posted
Cincinnati riverfront in early 1900s. Note the absence of trees on Mount Adams.

René Micheo commented on the above post