History

Spanish-Mexican colonial heritage in San Diego and Riverside counties

The San Luis Rey Mission, in Oceanside, Calif., was founded in 1798, when Spain still claimed all of California and much of the American West. Today it offers a retreat center and a peaceful setting to contemplate a different era. The old church is filled with what I consider to be classic American Baroque paintings of the passion of Christ, reminding me a lot of similar ones I saw in Cuzco, Peru–lots of pain, lots of intensity. That was also visible in the bronze life-size statues in the courtyard. It is one of many missions on the West Coast, and called “Rey,” or king, because of its size.

Further northeast, in Riverside County, sits the Santa Rosa Plateau, which still contains original adobe structures granted to the last Mexican governor of California. The ecological preserve offers miles of beautiful trails through Oak meadows, providing sanctuary for wildlife like coyotes, mountain lions, and badgers. (Click on each photo to see a larger picture on a separate picture page.)

The ruins of the Sumela Monastery
Taken in 2001.
Taken in 2001

The Sumela Monastery is among the most magnificent Christian monasteries I have visited in the Near East, and there is a lot of competition for magnificence in this great category of monastic facilities. The monastery is located in beautiful mountain foothills, a short bus ride from the major Black Sea Turkish port Trabzon. Two Athenian monks during in the fourth century had visions and founded the monastery on the cliff’s face. It was run by Greek Orthodox clergy until 1923, having received special dispensation from Ottoman rulers because of the place’s sacred status.

During the violent period of ethnic cleansing following the war between Greece and Turkey after World War I, which saw up to 2 million Turks and Greeks change borders, the monastery was abandoned. I could not find an accurate account upon first look of who actually was responsible for the defacing of what should be a World Heritage site, but the ancient facility provides a good example of cultural devastation, particularly along religious lines. (For details on what happened to many Christian sites in Turkey following the creation of the modern Republic of Turkey, I would recommend reading William Dalrymple’s From the Holy Mountain, in which he talks about the upheavals in Turkey during this time and later.) I strongly recommend anyone in Turkey take time to visit this very special place. You cannot help but feel something other-worldly here. I did, despite the obvious damage done to the ancient art and buildings.

Recently, Turkey’s government has allowed a few Greek Orthodox services at the monastery. That is a great sign of reconciliation and progress, I believe, between Christians and Moslems in this great country, Turkey.

University City seen through my GoPro
This shot is actually taken in St. Louis, but most of the “Danforth Campus” of the university is located in the municipality of University City, my old home town.
According to Washington University, the school’s new Music Center was built in 1930 as the Shaare Emeth Temple. It is an Art Deco style building that was once home home to CASA, the St Louis Symphony Community Music School.
This place has been a center for the arts for decades and is still going strong.

I grew up in University City, Mo., a municipality due west of St. Louis. Its roots date to the turn of the 20th century. Today about 35,000 people call it home. It has undergone a lot of changes over the years, but during that time the Loop area has remained the community’s heart and soul. One can find former synagogues converted to cultural facilities, beautiful stone churches, my now-abandonned elementary school, eateries, shops, the world-famous Blueberry Hill club and restaurant, and the St. Louis Walk of Fame–stars with the names of famous St. Louis area residents cast into the cement.

University City also is home to a good chunk of one of the nation’s wealthiest private universities, Washington University in St. Louis, with assets valued at more than $9 billion. As a 501(c)(3) corporation or non-profit, the school pays no property taxes to University City, and is engaged in a development strategy to acquire and develop property in University City and the surrounding area. Washington University recently completed a beautiful student housing facility and store in the heart of the Loop that provides a strong anchor of stability. This also has created friction in the past. The school remains the bedrock that provides the wealth to the area, and which draws many people who want to live and settle in the community. It is the penultimate golden goose that makes the place a beacon to the world.

Finally, University City is home to many houses of worship, including Bethel Lutheran Church, where I attended with my family until I was 18 years old. This church is famous because of its role in a divisive controversy that split faculty at the nearby Concordia Seminary, pitting conservatives against progressives and leading to the departure of faculty that were in the Bethel circle. Today it is an ELCA Lutheran church, and I always have great affection for the beautiful building and the good people who I got to know there.

(Click on each photo to see a larger picture on a separate picture page.)

Odd and scenic sights on the Forest Park Running Trail

I grew up in the St. Louis area. One of my favorite places remains Forest Park, perhaps one of the nation’s top tier public parks. It is both historic and beautiful as a natural place in an urban setting. There is a six-mile running trail that circles the outer edge of the park that takes one by a bird sanctuary, a golf course, the Jefferson Memorial Building dating from the 1904 World’s Fair, some artificial ponds where urban fisherman really do fish, and the St. Louis Science Center. The latter has a life-size diaroma model of a tyrannosaurus rex battling a triceratops, which were among my favorite critters growing up.

One of the oddest attractions is a monument to the Civil War veterans from the Confederacy, highlighting the city’s legacy as both a Southern and Northern community–a racial and sometimes divisive legacy that remains today, as seen recently in protests in Ferguson. There is also a competing statue nearby of German-American veterans of the Union Army from the Civil War. These are all visible from the running trail. I decided to photograph these sights today using my GoPro Camera to capture the scenes with a fish-eye view.

Runners, put on you shoes and do a lap or two when you visit. You will love it. (Click on each photo to see larger pictures on separate picture pages.)

The historic Black Sea port of Trabzon

 

A view from my hotel in Trabzon in 2001. Getting there was a great epic. I arrived at 3 a.m. after a day-long bus ride and found a hotel with nary a scratch. The things we do when we travel. Loved this place.

 I visited Trabzon, in northeast Turkey on the Black Sea, during my Turkey trip. It is a fascinating, large city, with Greek, Byzantine, and finally Turkish roots. One of the great Byzantine-era churches, the Hagia Sofia, is now just a shell there, on a hill overlooking the sea and recently converted to a mosque. I used this city as a base to visit the Sumela Monastery, a Greek Orthodox sanctuary in the nearby mountains that was abandoned in the 1920s when Greeks and Turks engaged in a nasty ethnic cleansing of their respective countries that displaced about 2 million people. I may publish some pictures of that monastery later. (Click on the photograph to see a larger picture on a separate picture page.)

Grave of a Nez Perce warrior, Yellow Wolf
A grave for Nez Perce warrior Yellow Wolf was erected by “white friends” in his honor.

I passed through the Colville Reservation this summer, which encompasses a huge swath of land in the north central part of Washington State. On the way, I stopped at the Nez Perce Cemetery. The Nez Perce are among the 12 confederated tribes who make up the reservation. This is one of the graves in the cemetery. The gravestone reads: “Yellow Wolf / Patriot Warrior of the Nez Perce ‘lost cause’ 1877 / Marker placed by white friends”

The persecution of the Nez Perce led to one of the more sorrowful chapters of the conquest of the American West. In 1877, multiple U.S. Cavalry commanders chased more than 750 Nez Perce men, women, and families for more than 1,000 miles starting in Oregon all the way to the current border with Canada, though not in the lands managed by the Colville Reservation. This event and trail is now recognized as the Nez Perce Trail, commemorated by the U.S. Congress in 1968. In the words of one Nez Perce descendant, Frank B. Andrews: “We the surviving Nez Perces, want to leave our hearts, memories, hallowed presence as a never-ending revelation to the story of the event of 1877.”

(Click on the photo to see a larger picture on a separate picture page.)

Photos from the Owens family tree

 

This was taken, I believe, at the family farm, in Michigan.

From time to time I like to publish old photos from the family vault. I am adopted, and it was not until I was 24 when I learned about my biological family ancestry, on my birth mother’s side. Her father, Vyrl Owens, comes from a long line of mostly farmers, with roots in Michigan, Indiana, New York, Vermont, New York, even Rhode Island. They mostly have Welsh, English, and I think a bit of Irish ancestry in there too.

I love old pictures because they show how different people looked before our modern era. There was a certain toughness and resolve. People were not afflicted, yet, with the curse of obesity, mostly because of their diets and because of the hard work most of them did.

Here is a photograph of my biological grandfather, Vyrl Owens, taken when he worked in Greenland under contract, helping to build the Thule Air Base. The black and white photo is of his mother, my great-grandmother, Addie Mae Baker (Owens), and her daughter, Vyrl’s sister, and my great-aunt, Thelma. Addie Mae died in 1977, when she was 93 years old. She clearly was a strong woman. I have her masterful nose. I hope I have her Midwestern, live-long-with-grit genes too.

(Click on each photograph to see a larger picture in a separate picture page.)

A monument at Hangman Creek
This monument was erected in 1935 by Spokane residents at the location where the warrior Qualchan/Qualchew and six other Indian warriors were hanged by the U.S. Cavalry in 1858. Today it is a tourist attraction for history buffs, which I count myself among.

About 20 miles south of Spokane stands a monument to one of many sad stories of the subjugation of American Indians by the U.S. government. In 1858, the U.S. Cavalry was engaged in open military combat in eastern Washington with numerous Indian bands, despite treaties having been signed three years earlier that ceded much of the state to the United States. Led by Col. George Wright, the U.S. forces had all but defeated five tribes in the region, which included the killing of 800 Indian horses. Facing overwhelming odds, the indigenous forces decided to end the conflict.

A Yakama Nation warrior Qualchan (also called Qualchew) surrendered to Wright’s forces on Sept. 25, 1858, at a spot near an open meadow and a small creek the Indians called Latah. Though Qualchan/Quelchew surrendered while bearing a white flag, he was hung within 15 minutes from a tree. That was followed with the hanging of six Palouse warriors the next day. The incidents, brutal in their boldness, typified the period of conquest in Washington. The killing of the Qualchan/Qualchew was not the only hanging incident of tribal leaders during these turbulent years.

To honor the significant event in the settling of the region, local leaders in Spokane erected a granite monument at the spot where it is believed the hangings took place. The creek today is called Hangman. It flows into Spokane. There is even a Spokane golf course, Hangman Valley, bearing the name of the incidents that took place in the mid-1800s. You can read an informative 1997 story about the creek’s name  that was published by the Spokesman Review newspaper.

The day I visited the marker, a half-dozen other visitors, some American Indians, also had pulled over to photograph the spot. The location today is marked by a nondescript historic location sign on the rural road with no description of the events that took place here. The only information is what is inscribed on the stone. Given Americans’ love of Western history, I believe this location will grow in popularity in coming years, creating opportunities to tell the story of this state and the West. Perhaps this spot could benefit from an additional cultural interpretive sign and a little slick marketing by the city. History can be good for business, after all. I can point to hundreds of examples making this business case.

(Click on each photo to see a larger picture on a separate picture page.)

 

Fort Spokane, a mixed legacy

 

The stables is one of the few remaining buildings from the old military fort dating from 1880.
The powder magazine and stable are captured in the morning light at Fort Spokane.

This month I visited Fort Spokane, a former U.S. military base that is located where the Columbia and Spokane rivers join. Today those waters are dammed in what is now the Lake Roosevelt National Scenic Area. The fort was built in 1880 to keep “the peace” between white settlers and Indian residents on the Colville Reservation. (Click on each photo to see larger pictures on separate picture pages.)

The National Park Service notes, “In many ways, the Indian experience at Fort Spokane is a microcosm of the Indian experience across the United States.” In 1900 the fort become an Indian boarding school, one of the most controversial legacies of the treatment of American Indians. Children were forcibly moved here from their families from the Colville and Spokane reservations, leading to major protests by Indian leaders, including Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce. The school was then closed in 1908.  (See the display from the visitor center below.)

Click on the picture of a display at the Fort Spokane Visitors Center entrance to read the description about the Indian boarding school controversy surrounding the boarding of more than 200 American Indian children here at the start of the 20th century.

Spokane Historical, published by Eastern Washington University, describes this controversial era, which was followed by having the fort become a tuberculosis sanitarium after 1909: “The idea behind Indian Boarding Schools was that the children would benefit from learning skills that would help them integrate into the white population. It was the general consensus among the white government agencies, at the time that this was far superior to the education that they would have received at home. As Capt. Richard H. Pratt said on the education of Native Americans, the cruel philosophy was, ‘Kill the Indian, and Save the Man.'”

After much of the fort was removed prior to 1930, a few remaining buildings were saved, such as those captured in my photographs and incorporated into a cultural site to be administered in the area surrounding the newly created reservoir that filled the river canyon after the Columbia River was dammed in Coulee City. I highly recommend anyone traveling to eastern Washington visit to the fort and lake and enjoy the beautiful scenery (I heard coyotes when I camped there). Also take the time to learn about the area’s history. This location truly is a microcosm of the state’s development in the last two centuries.