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In conjunction with his upcoming book, Here Is Where: In Search of America's Great Forgotten History, we've been following historian and Legacy Project founder Andrew Carroll as he drives, flies, walks, boats, buses, bikes, and hikes to seek out little-known historic sites in all 50 states. Today he shares his last blog post, at a site that inspired him to start the project. You can find all of his past posts here.

Pittsburgh is where I officially launched this 50-state journey last July, but in many ways the first stop of my journey was in New Orleans two years ago. The Big Easy was my "test" city back in the fall of 2007, and I hired a local guide named Rob Florence, considered the best in the business, to see how many unmarked history sites we could locate. I especially wanted to pinpoint spots that were unfamiliar to local residents--perhaps even to Rob himself.

Rob is exactly what you want in a guide: genuinely passionate, friendly, and, of course, knowledgeable about almost every nook of the city. He has also been instrumental in preserving the past. Rob helped place a new marker at the gravesite of Homer Plessey (of the infamous Plessey v. Ferguson Supreme Court decision) and has been involved in countless other activities to ensure that New Orleans' rich history is not lost.

In 2007 Rob and I found numerous forgotten history sites, including a secluded burial mound miles outside the French Quarter, a decrepit building at the corner of S. Rampart and Perdido where the "father of jazz" Buddy Bolton is said to have gotten his start, and, in a parking lot behind Houston's Restaurant on St. Charles Street, the scattered remains of the factory where Andrew Higgins built amphibious landing craft used in the 1944 D-Day landings (pictured, above). At the time, General Dwight D. Eisenhower credited Higgins and his boats with helping to win the war in Europe. After this first visit to New Orleans I decided that a larger, 50-state trip was in order.

I recently went back to see Rob, and I asked him to help me track down some additional forgotten history sites, especially one that, although not nationally significant, is personally meaningful to me.

In conjunction with his upcoming book, Here Is Where: In Search of America's Great Forgotten History, we're following historian and Legacy Project founder Andrew Carroll as he drives, flies, walks, boats, buses, bikes, and hikes to seek out little-known historic sites in all 50 states. Bookmark all of his posts here.

Several weeks ago I mentioned my aversion to staying in "historic" hotels--until I spent a great night in Denver's Brown Palace, a building rich in regional and national history. Now I seek these hotels out whenever possible.

Last week I had a phenomenal stay at the Omni Parker House in downtown Boston, at the corner of Tremont and School streets. Founded in 1855, the Parker House boasts being "America's longest continuously operating hotel" and has hosted countless prominent individuals: Alexander Graham Bell, both Edwin and John Wilkes Booth, Charles Dickens, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Ulysses S. Grant, Martin Luther King Jr., Mary Todd Lincoln, Eleanor Roosevelt, and, of course, Boston's own Ben Affleck.

What most interested me about the hotel, however, was not its illustrious guests, but the individuals who have served there on staff.

About twenty-five years ago a budding opera singer who was studying at the New England Conservatory of Music worked the night shift as a telephone operator. Her name is Denyce Graves, now one of the world's most famous mezzo-sopranos.

In conjunction with his upcoming book, Here Is Where: In Search of America's Great Forgotten History, we're following historian and Legacy Project founder Andrew Carroll as he drives, flies, walks, boats, buses, bikes, and hikes to seek out little-known historic sites in all 50 states. Bookmark all of his posts here.

"This is where the cavalry came in," my guide John Murray tells me, pointing toward the long, sloping hill that leads down to the Marias River. John and his wife, Carol, had met me in Shelby, Montana, and I could not have asked for two more gracious or knowledgeable guides; Carol is the tribal history director for the Blackfeet Indians, and John serves as the historical preservation officer.

Together they narrated for me what had happened at the Marias River 139 years ago:

Early on the morning of January 23, 1870, U.S. Army troops led by Brevet Lt. Col. Eugene Baker rode toward an encampment of Piegan Blackfeet Indians to conduct a retaliatory attack for the killing of a white man named Malcolm Clarke. General Philip Sheridan reportedly said before Baker mobilized his men: "If the lives and property of the citizens of Montana can best be protected by striking Mountain Chief's band, I want them struck. Tell Baker to strike them hard."

Despite being told they were approaching the wrong camp, Baker and his men were hell bent on revenge. Heavy Runner, a tribal leader who had maintained friendly relations with both the Army and white settlers, came running out across the river to show Baker his good conduct papers and explain that his people had nothing to do with Clarke's murder. (Mountain Chief, Baker's real target, was camped miles away.) Heavy Runner was promptly shot, and Baker's troops descended on the camp, wildly firing into the lodgings of terrified Piegans. Those who attempted to escape were either killed or taken prisoner, and many of the casualties were women, children, and the elderly; the strongest men were out hunting.

In conjunction with his upcoming book, Here Is Where: In Search of America's Great Forgotten History, we're following historian and Legacy Project founder Andrew Carroll as he drives, flies, walks, boats, buses, bikes, and hikes to seek out little-known historic sites in all 50 states. Bookmark all of his posts here.

Bob Marley was...here??

Reggae probably isn't the first thing that comes to people's minds when they think of the state of Delaware. But thanks to my extraordinary young assistant this summer, Dima Kislovskiy, I just passed through Newark, Delaware, to photograph sites related to Bob Marley, who's done more than any other artist to popularize reggae music.

Marley's mother had been living in Wilmington since 1963 when Bob moved there in 1966, hoping to earn enough money to start his own record label. Under the alias Donald Marley, he worked as a DuPont lab assistant and at the Chrysler assembly plant just across the street from the University of Delaware campus.

The facility was opened in 1951 to build U.S. Army tanks, and then six years later it began manufacturing cars until management shut the whole place down last year. While the massive buildings don't appear to have deteriorated much, weeds now peek through cracks in the abandoned, football field-size parking lots and the lawns and grounds are showing the first hint of neglect.

Bob Marley returned to Jamaica with enough money to launch Wail'n Soul'm, but he didn't forget his time in Delaware; two songs, "It's Alright" (from the 1970 album Soul Rebels) and "Night Shift" (from Rastaman Vibration, released in 1976) allude to his experiences in America's first state.

Next week: The Marias River, Montana

In conjunction with his upcoming book, Here Is Where: In Search of America's Great Forgotten History, we're following historian and Legacy Project founder Andrew Carroll as he drives, flies, walks, boats, buses, bikes, and hikes to seek out little-known historic sites in all 50 states. Bookmark all of his posts here.

As a native Washingtonian raised in sweltering summers (which I've grown to love), I have nothing but admiration for those who can endure prolonged, thermometer-freezing winters. "It can get down to 40 below here in the winter," my Nome, Alaska, taxi driver told me during the short drive from the airport to the hotel. He also gave me an impromptu tour of some of his favorite sites. "There's one of the oldest bars in Alaska, some say the oldest," he said as we passed the Board of Trade Saloon.

The temperature was 50 degrees when I arrived, but it felt much colder in the drizzling rain. Most of the states I've visited so far have been in the 80s or 90s (Arizona was 110, South Dakota 70), and I didn't pack pants or long-sleeved shirts for this 50-state journey, just shorts and T-shirts.

I was prepared to stay warmly huddled in the hotel throughout my brief trip to Nome, which was really just a jumping off point to a remote Alaskan village I needed to visit. But I was starving by the time I finished packing, so I outlined a daring plan: I would race down Nome's main ("Front") street as quickly as possible, buy enough food at the local grocery store for both lunch and dinner, and then sprint back to the cozy safety of my hotel room.

Like many bold adventures, this one went quickly awry. Less than halfway to the grocery, I caught site of the town's local historical museum. Keep going, my freezing arms and legs pleaded. But I could not. This will only take a moment, I rationalized. It didn't. (It never does...)

After almost two hours of poring through binders full of old documents, photographs, maps, and property deeds, I had several intriguing little-known sites to find, most notably the boyhood home of James "Jimmy" Harold Doolittle.

In conjunction with his upcoming book, Here Is Where: In Search of America's Great Forgotten History, we're following historian and Legacy Project founder Andrew Carroll as he drives, flies, walks, boats, buses, bikes, and hikes to seek out little-known historic sites in all 50 states. Bookmark all of his posts here.

Before arriving in Atlanta, Georgia, I received a call from a local WSB-AM radio reporter named Jon Lewis who wanted to talk about my search for unmarked historic sites throughout the country. I confessed I only had two sites to check out in Atlanta--one of which was already marked, and the second one I had yet to locate on a map. So throughout the day it was Jon who guided me around the city pointing out one fascinating, little-known site after another.

A few highlights:

To date, the worst hotel fire in the United States occurred in what was once the Winecoff Hotel on 176 Peachtree Street, and is now the Ellis Hotel. One hundred and nineteen people were killed on December 7, 1946, in what was supposedly a "fireproof" building--despite the fact it had no sprinklers or fire escapes. (The tragedy prompted cities across the country to enact stronger fire safety measures.) A young graduate student named Arnold Hardy won the Pulitzer Prize--and he was the first amateur to do so--for a picture he took of a woman falling from the eleventh floor. Miraculously, she survived. The building was put on the National Register of Historic Places only earlier this year.

In conjunction with his upcoming book, Here Is Where: In Search of America's Great Forgotten History, we're following historian and Legacy Project founder Andrew Carroll as he drives, flies, walks, boats, buses, bikes, and hikes to seek out little-known historic sites in all 50 states. Bookmark all of his posts here.

While heading to southwest Minnesota to research a little-known Sioux Indian site, I made a short detour to photograph a story related to a historic flight over St. Paul.

During the Civil War, military personnel from other nations came to the U.S. to observe combat operations. One of these visitors was a 25-year-old Prussian officer who was fascinated by the Union Army's Balloon Corps, which conducted reconnaissance missions over Confederate territory.

"Just now I ascended with Prof. [John] Steiner, the famous aeronaut, to an altitude of six or seven hundred feet," the young Prussian wrote from St. Paul to his father back in Wurttemberg on August 19, 1863. "Should one want to harass with artillery fire [opposing] troops...the battery could be informed by telegraphic signals where their projectiles hit. The above technique has at times been used with great success by this country's armies. No method is better suited to viewing quickly the terrain of an unknown, enemy-occupied region."

The experience had a dramatic impact; "While I was above St. Paul I had my first idea of aerial navigation strongly impressed upon me," he would later say. "[A]nd it was there that the first idea of my Zeppelins came to me." His full name was Ferdinand Adolf Heinrich August Graf von Zeppelin, who went on to manufacture the eponymous airship. By World War I the Germans were utilizing almost 70 Zeppelins both for bombing raids and intelligence gathering against the Allies--including American troops.

Next up: Atlanta, GA

All photos and text © Andrew Carroll

In conjunction with his upcoming book, Here Is Where: In Search of America's Great Forgotten History, we're following historian and Legacy Project founder Andrew Carroll as he drives, flies, walks, boats, buses, bikes, and hikes to seek out little-known historic sites in all 50 states. Bookmark all of his posts here.

After leaving Palestine, Texas, to pursue an extraordinary story I'd heard concerning the Columbia Space Shuttle explosion in 2003, I needed to photograph a site in Dallas related to one of the nation's greatest Blues singers.

I told the hotel concierge where I wanted to go, and, after noticing my camera and video equipment, he warned me: "Be careful." Be careful? "The building you're going to is near a homeless shelter, and it's a pretty rough area."

I appreciated the head's up but wasn't terribly concerned. Yes, when I got there I definitely encountered some scowls as I began setting up my tripod in the middle of the street to photograph 508 Park Ave. By the time I looked up from the viewfinder there were about half a dozen guys around me.

"Hey man, what's going on?" one of them asked--not in a threatening way, but his tone wasn't entirely welcoming either.

"I'm traveling across the country to find little known historic sites," I explained, "and that building is the last place where Robert Johnson recorded his music before he died."

"That's right, that's right," another guy said.

"Not just Robert Johnson, Eric Clapton recorded there too," an older gentleman added. I didn't know that.

In conjunction with his upcoming book, Here Is Where: In Search of America's Great Forgotten History, we're following historian and Legacy Project founder Andrew Carroll as he drives, flies, walks, boats, buses, bikes, and hikes to seek out little-known historic sites in all 50 states. Bookmark all of his posts here.


While researching hotels in Denver, however, I came across the Brown Palace Hotel & Spa in a terrific hotel guide put out by the National Trust for Historic Preservation (it was also featured in National Geographic Traveler's annual Stay List in 2008). Built by Henry Brown in the last 1800s, the name jumped out at me and I immediately made a reservation.

When I began preparing for this trip more than a year ago I did extensive reading on the Underground Railroad, and while its existence is hardly unknown--I think most of us have at least a vague awareness of its significance in our nation's past--the specific stories have been mostly forgotten.

One of the most extraordinary involves a crate shipped from Richmond, Virginia, to 131 Arch Street, Philadelphia, at 4:00 am on March 29, 1849. When the wooden box arrived at 6:00 am at the Pennsylvania Anti-Slavery Society more than a day later, members of the abolitionist Vigilance Committee were there to receive it but, knowing its supposed contents, dreaded opening it for fear of what they might find. One of the members tapped on the crate and  asked if everything was "all right within?" A muffled voice replied in the affirmative, and the members
quickly pried open the box and let an escaped slave named Henry Brown experience his first breath of freedom. Brown had survived an excruciating almost 27-hour journey, and despite bold lettering on the box directing that it be kept "This Side Up," the crate was repeatedly dropped upside down, putting almost fatal pressure on Brown's neck and head.

I had read that Brown became a successful businessman and moved to Colorado, where he opened one of the most elegant hotels in the city. After I made my reservation, I was shocked that although the hotel's own website repeatedly mentioned how historic the building was, there was no picture of Brown and no mention of his daring escape--just a brief description that he was a "Denver carpenter-turned-entrepreneur." Which is a little like referring to Beethoven as a piano tuner.

In conjunction with his upcoming book, Here Is Where: In Search of America's Great Forgotten History, we're following historian and Legacy Project founder Andrew Carroll as he drives, flies, walks, boats, buses, bikes, and hikes to seek out little-known historic sites in all 50 states. Bookmark all of his posts here.

Near the top of my "things to find" list for this 50-state journey are historic markers on major highways that come up out of nowhere and cannot possibly be read at 65 miles an hour. I've seen these plaques and signs on past trips, and I'm determined to locate one at some point so I can stop, back up along the shoulder (safely of course), and see what it says.

What brought this to mind was the faded brown and white sign I recently whizzed past on Highway 6 & 50 en route to Baker, Nevada, that simply states: "Historical Marker."

The sign gives no indication as to what site of historical significance awaits whomever ventures down the gravel road. Nor does it suggest how far one has to drive. I was running late, short of gas, and had no time for an open-ended adventure in the middle of a Utah desert.

But I knew I'd curse myself if I later found out I'd passed by some extraordinary site just a few hundred feet away, so off I went.

In conjunction with his upcoming book, Here Is Where: In Search of America's Great Forgotten History, we're following historian and Legacy Project founder Andrew Carroll as he drives, flies, walks, boats, buses, bikes, and hikes to seek out little-known historic sites in all 50 states. Bookmark all of his posts here.

From Chicago I flew to Hawaii, and before popping over to Honolulu to pursue a story that connects Abraham Lincoln to Oahu, I set out to find a little-known grave in Maui, just south of Hana. Buried here is one of the most famous (and infamous, to some) Americans--and yet his final resting place could hardly be more remote.

The far-flung burial spot receives only a trickle of visitors, and seasonal flooding and mud slides can make the site totally inaccessible. Fortunately only a light rain was falling the morning I went there, and the drive along the Hana Highway was one of the most exhilarating I've ever taken. Never before have I seen such diverse landscape on a single road, from lush, dense forests one moment to dry and rocky terrain the next. The (barely) two-lane highway curves so sharply that I often felt as if I were driving through the twisting exit ramp of an endless underground parking garage. Countless myna birds casually hopped between the double yellow dividing lines, seemingly oblivious to the constant stream of cars rushing past. (The occasional clump of smashed feathers in the middle of the road however were proof that some had been a bit too cavalier.)

In conjunction with his upcoming book, Here Is Where: In Search of America's Great Forgotten History, we're following historian and Legacy Project founder Andrew Carroll as he drives, flies, walks, boats, buses, bikes, and hikes to seek out little-known historic sites in all 50 states. Bookmark all of his posts here.

I typically travel to Chicago about once or twice a year, and on every trip I've walked past and in many cases gone into the Tribune Tower building at 435 North Michigan Avenue. But not once have I ever noticed the outside of the building.

After visiting Pittsburgh (see last week's blog) I sprinted through Ohio, Indiana, and Michigan and arrived in Chicago at about 7:00 p.m. The light was fading by the time I find a parking spot downtown, and I had to leave early the next morning for Hawaii so this was my only chance to photograph the Tower.

I raced up North Michigan Avenue and as the neo-Gothic building came into view, there they are: Embedded in the outside walls are stones, chunks of metal, small marble slabs, shards of jade glass, bricks, petrified wood, and a variety of other materials and architectural flourishes from landmarks across the globe--the Great Wall of China, the Taj Mahal, the Berlin Wall, the pyramids, the dome of St. Peter's, the Kremlin, the Arc de Triomphe, the Forbidden City, and a host of famous temples, mosques, and cathedrals.

"Here Is Where," is the latest column on the Intelligent Travel blog. In conjunction with his upcoming book, "Here Is Where: In Search of America's Great Forgotten History" we're going to follow historian and Legacy Project founder Andrew Carroll as he drives, flies, walks, boats, buses, bikes, and hikes to seek out little-known historic sites in all 50 states. Bookmark all of his posts here.

Most accounts of Meriwether Lewis and William Clark's three-year trek across the continent have the expedition beginning in Missouri on May 14, 1804. But the first journal entry was in fact written by Lewis on August 31, 1803--from Pennsylvania.

"Left Pittsburgh this day at 11 ock with a party of 11 hands 7 of which are soldiers, a pilot and three young men on trial they having proposed to go with me throughout the voyage," Lewis notes in the first line. Two sentences later we learn how close the whole journey came to unraveling from the get-go; while one of his crew mates was holding an "airgun" Lewis had brought, the rifle accidentally discharged and shot a bystander in the head. "[T]he ball passed through the hat of a woman about 40 yards distanc," Lewis writes in his error-ridden prose. "[S]he feel instantly and the blood gusing from her temple... [but] in a minute she revived to our enespressable satisfaction."

They departed soon after.

I thought the site would be a fitting a place to officially start my own coast-to-coast adventure, so I flew into Pittsburgh from Washington, D.C. (my home) the evening of July 5th. David Grinnell, who is the chief archivist at the Senator John Heinz History Center and could not have been more helpful, informed me that the site was near the Fort Wayne Railroad Bridge at 11th street (pictured, above).

We'd like to introduce "Here Is Where," the latest column on the Intelligent Travel blog. In conjunction with his upcoming book, "Here Is Where: In Search of America's Great Forgotten History" we're going to follow historian and Legacy Project founder Andrew Carroll as he drives, flies, walks, boats, buses, bikes, and hikes to seek out little-known historic sites in all 50 states. And here is where he introduces himself and the project. Find all of his posts here.

Although today marks the official launch of my 50-state trip to find forgotten history sites throughout the U.S., I've been seeking out these unmarked spots for 15 years now. This began essentially as a hobby. Whenever I traveled to a new city I tried, time permitting, to hunt down unmarked places associated with little-known events and people.

Sometimes I was successful; during a recent trip to Los Angeles I found the baseball fields in Encino where U.S. military officer Gary Powers died after his KNBC helicopter crashed in August 1977. (Ironically, Powers had survived being shot down over the Soviet Union seventeen years earlier--an incident with enormous historical implications--when he was flying U-2 spy planes for the CIA.) Other times I was less so; while in Missouri last year I tried to locate any site related to George Eyser, a one-legged gymnast who won three gold medals in the 1904 St. Louis Olympics. No luck. But regardless of what I do or don't find, the search is what's exhilarating, and these mini-adventures have prompted me to explore neighborhoods and parts of towns I might otherwise not have visited.