Historic-Buildings

Sodom School - Octagon shaped one room schoolhouse (Northumberland County, PA)

This octagonal one room schoolhouse was built about 1836 and was in use until 1915. It was renovated several times throughout the years, first in the 1930s and again in the 1960s. A major rebuild had to be performed in 1972 after flood damage. The latest renovations began in 2006 and went through 2008 which included the addition of school desks, black board and period cast-iron stove as well as repointing of the exterior stones. It is located about a mile from Rishel Covered Bridge on PA Route 45 between West Chillisquaque and East Chillisquaque Township in Northumberland County, Pennsylvania. The school once featured a belfry on the roof as shown in this old news article I found.

For information and locations of octagon and round dwellings in the U.S., check out this web site.

I shot this as five hand held bracketed RAW frames at 1/3rd increments and then combined them into an HDR with Photomatix Pro and finally, tone mapped that image.

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Henry’s Forge House

by Gregg Obst on June 29, 2010

in Photos

Henry's Forge House

This is the main house at the Henry’s Forge historic site within the Jacobsburg Environment Education Center near Wind Gap, PA. They forged iron on these grounds starting in 1809. Today it is surrounded by some great trails that are used pretty heavily for hiking, mountain biking and horseback riding, all in a very quiet, forested setting.

For more information on Jacobsburg Environment Education Center visit this site

I shot this as seven bracketed RAW frames and then combined them into an HDR with Photomatix Pro and finally, tone mapped that image to create the final product.

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Baumgardner’s Mill (Lancaster County, PA)

June 29, 2010

This Lancaster County mill was built around 1836 by Abram Mylin. It also went by the names “Millvale Mill” and “Harnish’s Mill” at various times. The first mill on this site was a log mill built in 1774 by Jacob Smith. That mill was a corn & saw mill. J. Smith replaced this mill around [...]

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Melcher’s Mill (Berks County, PA)

June 27, 2010

This small grist mill was built in 1888 in Bally, Washington Township within Berks County Pennsylvania. It was moved to the Berks Heritage Center location in Bern Township in the late 1970′s. The mill was water-powered and initially served the Nicholas Melcher farm on which it was located. It has a footprint of 25′X 25′. [...]

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Another One Room Schoolhouse found on my travels

May 25, 2010

I went driving around the farmland surrounding my town looking for old one room school houses on Sunday afternoon and found two that I didn’t know about previously. This is the second one. I found this one on High Road just on the border of Kutztown and Mertztown in Berks County, PA. I’m pretty sure [...]

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One Room Schoolhouse on the outskirts of Kutztown, PA

May 24, 2010

I went driving around the farmland surrounding my town looking for old one room school houses on Sunday afternoon and found two that I didn’t know about previously. This one is on Bastian Road between Kutztown and Lyons Station, PA. It has been refurbished and the present owner has an interesting topiary garden in the [...]

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Oh to be a horse…

May 8, 2010

Two horses graze in a field in front of the Bertolet barn at the Daniel Boone Homestead. It was really windy today with gusts up to 50MPH so it was a challenge to try and find things to photograph. The value of a good quality sturdy tripod cannot be underestimated on a day like today. [...]

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Garvine’s Grist Mill (York County, PA)

April 26, 2010

I’ve been meaning to get to this particular mill for a while now and with today’s rain and fog, it seemed like as good as time as any. This mill was built somewhere between 1800 and 1830. It is located in Fawn Township near the intersection of Garvine Mill Road and PA route 425 (aka [...]

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Straps and Sleighs

January 4, 2010

Leather horse bridles in the foreground and seasonal storage for horse drawn sleighs in the background inside the main barn at HopeWell Furnace National Historic Site near Elverson, PA. This was an experiment to see how much detail I could pull out of something that was completely in the shadows using HDR. I shot this [...]

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Daniel Boone Homestead Saw Mill

January 2, 2010

This is the water-powered, vertical-blade Bertolet Sawmill which was moved to the Daniel Boone Homestead site from the Oley Valley in 1972. The mill was built circa 1810. If you remember “The Walton’s” TV Show in the 1970s, they had a similar, though larger sawmill operation as the family business. For more information on visiting [...]

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Stillwater School House – Columbia County

July 21, 2009

This is the renovated one room school house in the tiny village of Stillwater Pennsylvania which resides along route 487 in Columbia County. The school house must have been renovated and re-sided within the last few years because I found photos of it from 2-25-2005 on Wikipedia that shows it in pretty deteriorated condition. It [...]

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Henry’s Forge dwellings

July 13, 2009

These are two stone dwellings on the Henry’s Forge historic site within the Jacobsburg Environment Education Center near Wind Gap, PA. They forged iron here starting in 1809. Today it is surrounded by some great trails that are used pretty heavily for hiking, mountain biking and horseback riding, all in a very quiet, forested setting. [...]

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Coplay Cement Kilns

March 28, 2009

he giant Coplay Cement Company Kilns, located in the Saylor’s Park on North Second St., in Coplay, Pennsylvania which is not too far from Allentown. These giant ninety foot tall vertical Kilns were in use From 1893 to 1904 when they were superseded by more advanced cement kiln technology. In the 1920s all the surrounding [...]

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