Monday, October 11, 2010

History


Yesterday I had a cool assignment at work. The county I cover had a special weekend celebration of local history, opening up 26 historic sites for free tours, demonstrations and more. I made a story out of it and took some photos for an online gallery.

I'd hoped to visit five or six sites in different parts of the county, but I discovered that each one took more time than I expected. By the time I got the tour and interviewed a couple of people, I'd usually been there an hour. So I wound up visiting only three, but it was still enough to get a sense of what was available.

The photo above is the city hall in one of the towns I cover. It was originally a private home and only became a municipal building in 1959 or so.

This area is crazy with historic sites. George Washington literally slept here, all over the place. (George got around, apparently, despite the wooden teeth.)

3 comments:

Barbara said...

Sounds like a great assignment. What I don't like so much are the ads that pop up when I link to your story. I suppose that's just one way the newspaper is making money, but they are annoying!

I'm still trying to piece together the history of my mother's family that arrived near Piscataway sometime in the early 1700's and somehow ended up in Western Pennsylvania by the early 1800's. NJ historical institutions have not come through for me yet.

Reya Mellicker said...

They weren't really wooden you know. Didn't click your link.

Hey this is cool!! Your new job sounds great - so much better than monitoring websites. Yes? Hope so.

The Bug said...

That sounds like fun - but yes, 5 sites was probably a bit ambitious, if you're really paying attention.

That building is really cool - wonder what it would have been like to LIVE in it!