“Winchester – A Frontier Town…With a Dash of the Wild West” Presentation on YouTube

John Flood John Flood’s PHW Lunch and Learn Lecture from April 7 is now available to watch on YouTube. This recording contains most of the live presentation as it was performed last Thursday with two minor exceptions. We have removed the showing of Patsy Cline’s live “San Antonio Rose” video – John’s commentary during the showing was inaudible. To get the full experience, you may wish to pause our presentation at the Pasty Cline Intermission and watch the video at https://youtu.be/lk2AyjY7d1s. There was also an audience question taken during the switch between laptops for the Pasty Cline video. That question was moved to the Q&A session at the end of the video.

John Flood mentioned a number of websites during his presentation. The URLs are available in the presentation, but for ease of access we have replicated them here:
John Flood’s Facebook
Big Legends Facebook
Big Legends website
Focus on the Valley Photography Facebook
Focus on the Valley Photography website
Winchester Frontier Days Facebook
Wild West Magazine
Celebrating Patsy Cline
Winchester-Frederick County Historical Society (including the Stewart Bell, Jr. Archives at Handley Library)

We also utilized royalty-free music in preparing this video. If you are ever in need of music for a project, consider visiting incompetech.com to search the extensive selection of music in all manner of styles and genres. For this video specifically, we utilized:

Opening Jingle – Cowboy Sting Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Presentation Beginning Cue – Work is Work Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Patsy Cline Intermission – Drankin Song Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Credits Roll – Olde Timey Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Friday Photos: Student Survey of Winchester

This week, we continued transferring images from Picasa with the 100 photos from the Student Survey of Winchester. Judging by the dates stamped on the 35 mm slides, this survey/presentation was produced sometime after 1978 but before the construction of the Joint Judicial Center (circa 1984). The goal of the presentation seems to have been to improve the walking mall, entrance corridors, and vistas of Winchester. Most of the images are from Winchester, but a few examples of good ideas from other cities were included. See just how far we’ve come in our downtown since then!

Rouss City Hall, from East Lane (looking west across the modern location of the Joint Judicial Center).

National Preservation Month Activities

May is creeping ever closer, and that means National Preservation Month activities are in planning. Here is a selection of events we know about coming in May:

Preservation Month

May 4: Handley Regional Library is celebrating with an exciting presentation about a plantation in our district. The program, Preservation Issues and Pleasures at a Working Mid-18th Century Plantation Site in Clarke County, will take place on May 4, 2016 at 7:00 p.m. in the Handley Library Auditorium, 100 W. Piccadilly St. This presentation is being sponsored by Friends of Handley Regional Library and The Clermont Foundation and will be led by Robert Steig, CEO of The Clermont Foundation. There will be a reception following the presentation.

The Clermont Foundation funds and manages Clermont Farm, a 360-acre research and training site in history, historic preservation, and agriculture, owned by the Department of Historic Resources of the Commonwealth of Virginia. The farm and the foundation were a gift to the people of Virginia by Elizabeth Rust Williams in 2004.

Robert Steig as CEO of The Clermont Foundation, has been integral in the success of recent programs such as the rehabilitation of the farm’s slave quarters and a partnership to help kids raise pigs. Mr. Steig is also very active in the Berryville community, leading the fight to properly represent the first free African-American land owners on Josephine St.

For more information contact Barbara Dickinson at 540-662-9041 ext. 31 or reach her by email at friends@handleyregional.org.

May 14: Kidzfest returns to the downtown walking mall in Winchester in 2016. As you may remember, for the past two years PHW ran separate Preservation Month activities on the day of Kidzfest. This year, PHW has applied for a space at the event to provide a fun, free, and educational activity with an architectural slant. We will provide coloring activity sheets covering a variety of architectural styles, suitable for the entire family to explore buildings, history, and color together. Historic color information will be available if you want to try an accurate paint scheme, or you can let your imagination run wild and color a house however you would like. More details will be available closer to the event.

May 14: Fort Loudoun Day returns at the site of Washington’s Well at 419 N. Loudoun Street from 10:00 am – 3:00 pm. The French and Indian War Foundation commemorates this period in our country’s history each year at the site of the original Fort Loudoun. The event includes interpreters of the history of the era and gives visitors an opportunity to learn about the history of the frontier, the people who settled the Shenandoah Valley and the conditions in which they lived. Visit their website at FIWF.org to learn more.

Throughout the Month:
Experience Old Town Winchester with three Historical Springtime Scavenger Hunts. They start April 9, so you can get a jump on exploring Old Town!

Cemetery Tours are offered on a recurring basis by Northern Virginia Tours. The tours begin at Winchester National Cemetery and continue at Stonewall Cemetery. You have the option of touring one or both cemeteries. $8.00 per person for one tour, $15.00 for both tours.

A Savory Taste of Winchester: Culinary Food and Wine Tours are currently ongoing, but Preservation Month is the perfect excuse to visit popular Old Town restaurants. In between the tastings at six locations, learn about Old Town Winchester’s history dating back to the 1600s. Reservations are required by 8 p.m. the day prior to the tour.

Last but not least, PHW is accepting nominations for our local preservation awards. If you know of a person or project worthy of recognition, why not send in a nomination form? It is free and it helps to get the word out to the community about projects that are making a difference in our streetscapes and knowledge of architecture and history.

Reminder: Winchester – a Frontier Town…with a Dash of the Wild West!

Lectures John Flood, director of Big Legends and a PHW board member, will soon regale us with unusual and lesser-known tales of bygone days in this spotlight of Winchester’s historic places, people, and events. Don’t miss this PHW Lunch and Learn Lecture – it is sure to be fascinating!

Date: Thursday, April 7, 2016
Time: Noon-1 PM
Place: June E. Jeffrey Education Center at OakCrest Companies, 126 N. Kent Street, Winchester, VA. The Education Center is at the upper parking lot, in the addition closest to the Winchester Star building.
Cost: Free!
RSVPs: Appreciated but not required.

Parking: There is no off-street parking available at OakCrest. On-street parking is limited and metered. We recommend utilizing the George Washington Autopark at 131 N. Kent St.

Questions? phwi@verizon.net or 540-667-3577

Around the Internet: Historic Exterior Paint Colors

Around the Internet ‘Tis the season to think about exterior repainting. While working on some upcoming PHW event activities, we came across the following online sources to see authentic paint chips and sample color schemes from the late Victorian era through the 1960s. Take a look and get inspired!

1. The Daily Bungalow Flickr account has not only advertising samples from kit house manufacturers, but also a few paint chip sample pages from the same catalogs. Be sure to check out their album tab to find the booklets of particular interest to your home’s age and style.

2. Retro Renovation has a blog post dedicated specifically to a Dupont flyer for painting your 1960s house. Check out the rest of their blog for other Midcentury Modern style restoration stories and product resources.

3. Ed Ferris posted on My Old House Online a link to a Lowe Brothers paint catalog (dated circa 1910). Be sure to read through the comments on his post at My Old House Online to see more discussion and links about the history of historic colors.

4. In the same vein is the collection of paint catalogs from the Building Technology Heritage Library at the Internet Archive. One in particular caught our eye: Practical Suggestions on Exterior Decoration published by John Lucas & Co. in 1898. There are currently over 300 pamphlets in this collection, all available for viewing online.

(But before you rush out to paint your house a new old color scheme, make sure you are not subject to exterior color approval in the Historic Winchester zoning overlay. Most color change applications can be handled through the Planning and Zoning Office by administrative approval. Find more information online or call the City at 667-1815 and ask for Planning and Zoning if you have questions.)

Friday Photos: Reruns from 1976

About 100 images have been added to the 1976 Architectural Inventory album at Flickr this week, including Sharp, Pall Mall, Peyton, Piccadilly, West Monmouth, West Leicester, North Kent, and West Germain Streets, Indian Alley, and West Fairfax Lane. Some are new, while most are transfers from the Picasa album of the same name. This addition puts us at about the halfway mark for the 1976 survey images. As usual, the new additions can be found at the end of the albums. Happy viewing!

118 Fairfax Lane

Around the Internet: A Quintet of Articles

Around the InternetEvery now and then we like to share links to articles and blogs that we’ve come across while keeping up with history and preservation news. This week, we’ve picked five interesting stories or topics that crossed our path to share with you.

1. First, Jessica Leigh Hester brings us the story of archeology in Victorian-era trash sites in England with Excavating Stories From Victorian-Era Trash Dumps from CityLab. From the article:

“By digging up part of a doll’s porcelain face, or a medicine bottle, [Tom Licence] can imagine how daughters spent their days, or what ailments afflicted the patriarch. ‘You can work out what sorts of illnesses they had, what sorts of luxuries they enjoyed,’ he tells CityLab. ‘You can match the objects to the people.'”

2. If you are traveling this weekend and you’d like to see some sights along the way, check out Eight Scenic Drives for Virginia History from Virginia’s Travel Blog.

3. Alicia Puglionesi investigates the fanciful faux histories and the role of the railroad in the proliferation of the peculiar Virginia attraction of “show caves” in The 19th Century ‘Show Caves’ That Became America’s First Tourist Traps at The Atlas. From the article:

“The discovery of these subterranean wonders in the 1800s spawned a genre of local lore and popular fiction–call it ‘the romance of the cave’–in which crystal caverns became theaters for passion and politics.”

4. Did you know the Metropolitan Museum of Art has made many of their publications free to read online or download? Visit their website metmuseum.org to search their publications by title, author, keyword, thematic category, and/or reading format.

5. Why does historic preservation matter? Emily Wynn interviews Christina Butler, Professor of Historic Preservation at the College of Charleston, about the hows and whys people become interested in – and passionate about – saving our buildings and our stories for future generations. From the article Preserving History May Be Our Biggest Asset at Odyssey:

“If we erase the palpable part of our history, the buildings that we have spent our lives in, we lose more than just materials and money. We lose tradition, culture, and a road map that our ancestors followed to get to where we are today and, in turn, we lose where we are going and why.”

Coming Soon: Two Historic Lectures on Winchester History

LecturesIf you were able to attend the Mount Hebron Cemetery App introduction, you may have already marked your calendar for Saturday, April 2, 2 PM at the Handley Library, 100 W. Piccadilly St., for the Winchester-Frederick County Historical Society’s Annual Meeting. Tim Youmans will speak about the development and history of the streets in Winchester, including the origins of their names. His research expanded Dr. Quarles’ earlier history to include over 500 named streets.

PHW will follow shortly after with our next Lunch and Lecture of 2016, “Winchester – a Frontier Town…with a Dash of the Wild West!” Presented by John Flood, Director of Big Legends, the lecture will cover five segments of unusual and lesser-known tales of bygone days in this spotlight of Winchester’s historic places, people, and events. The lecture will be held April 7, noon-1 PM at OakCrest Companies, 126 N. Kent St.