Reservoir Park

The story yesterday was actually a true story. The building is located in Reservoir Park in Milwaukee, WI. It is very old, I would suspect it predates the park itself which was created just around 10 years ago.

About two years ago, this building, which used to house bathrooms, was put up on blocks. It was moved months later to a lonely corner of the park where people only go if they want privacy. It has been boarded up since before being moved, and constantly has liquor bottles and beer cans littering the area around it. There is some evidence animals or people have tried to burrow into the old painted bricks to store things.

Photos were taken in July, 2015.

Farm Junk

This week was not actual architecture, I know. But I found a cool pile of junk on a 3 mile walk to the grocery store. It's some sort of farm equipment.

Gardens of Yongzhou

The image from this week's post is of my foot in a garden in Yongzhou, China. I saw a lot of gardens there in 2012. I'll post a few pictures, but know that I have dozens of blurry and poorly lit images I am saving you from. My favorite is the bat tiling.

Kimball Art Center

I neglected to post the building history on last week's post. Mostly, this was because I did not want to. The Kimball Art Center was originally a livery, then a garage. Today, it is an art gallery. Here is a picture of the building from the side:

High West Distillery

This week's flash fiction was inspired by the corner building of the High West Distillery. The Distillery (& Saloon) is actually made up of two buildings\. I'm focusing on the old stable and not the house, as I may still use that structure for another piece of fiction. Both have long an storied histories.

High West is an interesting distillery for a lot of reasons, and if you happen to be in Park City, Utah at any point, you should most definitely check them out. I suggest the peach vodka and Rendezvous Rye. But let's focus on the building: The inspiration for this week's post was actually a livery stable when it was first built, and was later converted into the National Garage (a gas station and mechanic's shop).

Park City began its life as a silver camp. That's not to say people were not in the area before the miners came, but Park City itself basically started when silver was discovered in the 1860s. This building was not built until 1907 by Ellsworth J. Beggs, and was at least the second livery in town. Beggs' & Buckley's serviced the horses used to pull ore carts under ground.

After that it was transitioned into a garage and changed hands several times. Each time a new owner bought the garage, new lettering was painted over the old. In 1981, the offices of the Silver King Mines Coalition across the street burned down, melting the paint off the facade above the garage door. When High West bought the building around 2007, they decided to maintain the historically unique look of its upper planks. High West is the first distillery to operate legally in the state of Utah since 1870.

McPolin Farm Shelter

Evidence of Fire was inspired by a trip to a mysterious structure along the highway. I believe it's an animal shelter associated with McPolin Farm nearby. While the farm's barn and nearby buildings have been well restored, rebuilt, and even moved, this building has been badly neglected. It is on the wrong side of the highway.

View of McPolin Farm proper across the highway from its forgotten structure.

Construction on the McPolin farmstead began in 1886, under the McLane family. The McPolins bought the property around 1900. The buildings on the land were not constructed from new materials: the couple built the famous barn from salvaged timber. Amazingly, the support for the barn was built without nails. It was a dairy farm until 1948.

I truly don't have much to say about the McPolin farmstead. I am much more interested in this forgotten building that is in plain view of the highway into Park City, Utah. But really, it's much better if you explore the structure yourself. It is very small, with a swamp-like puddle forming semi permanently inside and bird's nests in the rafters. The impression is of a dark little eco system.