Spring at the Old Mill

I have so many favorite places to see in the spring that it's hard to fit them all in, especially with the spring showers we've been having. Well, more than showers . . . downpours! A must see every spring is the Old Mill, but this year I had to dodge the rain and hope the blossoms had not been destroyed. 

A little history of the Old Mill. It is a historic re-creation of an 1880's water-powered grist mill. It's pretty famous. It was used in the opening credits of the 1939 movie "Gone With The Wind."

It's such a beautiful and relaxing place to take a stroll.

No matter what angle you view the mill from, It's breathtaking!

Friends of the Old Mill and the Pulaski County Master Gardeners do an excellent job of keeping it clean and pretty.

Sometimes the water is an icky reddish color, but with all the recent rains it was flowing clear and pretty.

If you look at the foreground of the picture below you can see a concrete bench created by Senor Dionico Rodriquez, a sculptor and artist of Mexico City. There are also concrete sculptures of toadstools, tree stumps, and tree branches entwined to form bridges.

There are some very pretty pathways to stroll along.

I was surprised to see something new at the mill. An unidentified carver had been at work carving an old tree trunk. He carved an amazing replica of the Old Mill and the letters N L R, which stands for North Little Rock where the mill is located in Arkansas.

The Mill has never failed to please in the springtime.

This year it was exceptional!

"The flowers appear on the earth;

the time of the singing of birds is come

and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land."

Song of Solomon 2:12

Abandoned

Abandoned. Sitting alone in the middle of a large lot in a not-so-good part of town, this beautiful antebellum home is slowly deteriorating. The home once filled with the laughter and sounds of eleven children is now quiet. Historic homes bring out my curious nature. I wonder about those who once crossed the threshold and entered the door.

I wonder who used their hands to form the hand-made bricks? Who designed the pretty woodwork above the windows?

I wonder who sat by the fireplaces; one in every room of the house. Who chopped the massive amount of wood that would have been necessary during the cold winter months? Slaves?

I wonder at the sound the boots of the Union Army officers must have made on the old wooden floor as they took possession of the home in 1863. How many officers lived here? How many soldiered died here while it was a military hospital?

When the family sold the house and property in 1891, why did the new owners decide to move the front door and porch from the south side to the north side, replacing the original doors with windows? Was the north side a cooler place to sit on hot summer days?

How hard was it to destroy the original beauty of this home in 1921 and create the Cottage Home For Girls with twelve bedrooms? Who were the first young, single women who boarded here while working in Little Rock? Who cooked and cleaned for 24 to 36 women? Did the women become good friends? Was the house filled with laughter, stories about their day, and a little gossip? Why was the name changed to The Colonial Club For Business Girls in 1930?

The pocket doors were moved in the renovation for apartments. Has water damage caused them to stick? Will they ever be used again?

I wonder what conversations could be heard through these literally paper thin walls?

Who chose the wallpaper for each bedroom? Was it the women? Was the wallpaper put up in the 20's or 30's?

Who decided to paper the room with snowmen? Were they like me and didn't like the hot summer days and hoped snowmen would cool them down?

I wonder what started the fire in 2005 that blackened the doorways and walls of one of the apartments. Why was the house then abandoned? Not enough money to repair? Bad location?

Will someone try to save this house? Will footsteps be once again heard on the old stairs?

Lots of questions and very few answers. There is a lot of Arkansas history in these walls, beginning with the first owner, William E. Woodruff. Woodruff was the publisher of the first newspaper in Arkansas, the Gazette. After living for several years in a small house in downtown, he decided he wanted to find a place in the country where he could have a small farm and where his eleven children could play. The Woodruff House was truly an urban farmstead, complete with an orchard, gardens, stables, servants’ houses, and open pasture. Of course that area is no longer in the country, but just a couple of blocks from a major interstate!

Efforts are being made to save the William E. Woodruff home, a piece of Arkansas' history. I do hope some way is found to restore it to it's original beauty. 

Marylake

My camera is sitting on a shelf collecting dust. I have no desire to pick it up and especially have no desire to be outside. With heat indicies over 100 I'd rather stay inside. I know, that you know, I DO NOT LIKE SUMMERTIME!! Enough said about that! Anyway I was scrolling through some old summertime blog posts trying to get a little inspiration when I discovered a post I'd begun, but never finished. So I thought, why not share it now? I can do that from the coolness of my living room and it's an amazing place with an interesting history!

Nestled in the woods beside a lovely spring-fed lake sits a castle-like rock building built in 1926 as the Shriner Country Club which included a golf course, clubhouse, and swimming beach. During the late 1920's, the country club was popular with wealthy Little Rock residents, who drove 15 miles down a dirt road to attend dances in the ballroom. Although the country club did well for a while, the Shriners struggled to make payments on their construction loan during The Great Depression and were forced to close it.

a postcard view of the side away from the lake

found at http://www.rrmerritt.com/mabelvale/MHS_Brinkley.htm

After the country club closed, the land and the building were sold. That's when the inhabitants of the building gets interesting.

• 1937 - Property was bought by the infamous Dr. John R. Brinkley  who was known as one of the greatest quacks of the 20th Century! He preformed surgical procedures transplanting animal organs into humans. He used the building as a convalescent home for his patients. Needless to say, he was run out of town!

• 1944 - Little Rock's Baptist Hospital bought the property for use as a convalescent home.

• 1947 - Property was sold to R. G. and Evelyn LeTourneau with the stipulation that it be used for "Christian purposes."  The couple opened an interdenominational camp called "Pine Lake Camp" for underprivileged boys.

• 1951 - The property was sold to Carmelite Friars. The clubhouse became Marylake Monastery which serves as the novitiate house of our Province of St. Therese. Here men undergo a year of intense prayer, discernment, and training in the Carmelite life.

Jesus was given honor when the property name "Pine Lake" was changed to "Marylake" after was His mother. The former country club ballroom was converted into a chapel.

This beautiful swinging bridge was built in 1963 by Father Herman Estuan prior at Marylake. Father Herman studied the Golden Gate Bridge to get the proportions correct, and then he designed this suspension bridge, that leads over to the cemetery which was formerly the 9th hole of the golf course.

Even though Marylake is on a fairly busy road, there is a feeling of peace as you stand looking over the fence.

I've been there several times and every time I've seen dragonflies land on the fence posts.

The still lake is perfect for reflections and . . . 

waterlilies!

I hope you enjoyed this little history lesson about the great rock castle in the country. I have this insatiable appetite for information about historical buildings. I want to know when it was built, who built it, and who occupied it. I find if I post the information on my blog, I can remember where it is and revisit it.

Hope you're having a great summer!

The Perfect Day

What does it take to have the perfect day? To me, it's being outside enjoying sunshine and nature. I had one of those perfect days this past weekend.

It began with a tour of Boxley Grist Mill which was built about 1869. It's basic function was grinding corn into meal. The mill which is now part of the Buffalo National River Area and is slowly being restored.

Also on the mill property was this old barn, which is just about to be taken over by weeds. Oh, I love barns! They make my heart sing. I saw several, but this was the only one I was able to get pictures of.

The perfect day also includes a perfect hike. What is included in my perfect hike? I'll be glad to tell you.

1. My perfect hike includes finding a good trail; not to strenuous as my knees seem to be aching more and more. In spite of those achy knees, I enjoy trails that have steps that are much easier to navigate than inclines covered with rocks and slick leaves.

2. My perfect hike includes water. Water was a little hard to find on this hike, we've been in a little drought season, but, find it I did. Water was seeping out of an opening in one of the rock formations.

3. My perfect hike includes color, any color; the color of rocks created by minerals in the water that seeps out of the cliffs, the color of the sky, and this time of year the color of autumn.

4. My perfect hike includes unusual trees.

5. My perfect hike includes unexpected surprises like lichen in the shape of a heart and

a face looking down from a huge cliff.

6. My perfect hike includes enough activity to accelerate my heart rate. Only this time it wasn't the hiking that got my heart pounding, it was watching my grandsons crawl all over the boulders and cliffs. Remember the water coming out of the cliff a few pictures up? That picture is a little deceiving. When I took the picture I was standing on a rock across a large rock valley. There's nothing for perspective, so you can't see how enormous this cliff really is. That's where these guys are, at the top of the water fall. Trust me, it's way up there! Boys are made for rock climbing, but Gramma's heart is not!

5. But, more than anything I listed above, my perfect hike includes family!

The perfect day always has to end.

My heart is full of joy!

I am blessed!

"From the moment I woke up,

I could tell that it was going to be

a good day."

~ Aly Johnson

The Good, The Random, The Fun - No. 4

Each month the Arkansas Historic Preservation Program offers tours of historical buildings in central Arkansas. The tour this month was of the Park Hill Fire Station and Water Company Complex. The buildings in the complex, all made of fieldstone, were constructed in 1938. My pictures for this weeks Good, Random, Fun were all taken during the tour.

The Good

The buildings are all surrounded by the prettiest gardens cared for by Arkansas Master Gardeners. I was delighted by these pretty purple petunias. I believe they are Mexican Petunias.

The Random

Rock buildings amaze me. I marvel at how each stone has been carefully placed to create wonderful patterns and shapes. I also love the details that were added to one of the buildings. The lion's head is a symbol of vigilance and strength.

The Fun

The Master Gardeners not only included beautiful plants, bushes, and flowers in the gardens, but they nestled cute decorated houses to add a touch of  whimsy.

Linking with