A few nice vacation sell off images I found:
Astoria, Oregon, North Beach, Washington, Ferry, Megler, Columbia River
Image by photolibrarian
From Wikipedia...
The Astoria–Megler ferry, also called the Astoria–McGowan ferry and the Astoria–North Beach Ferry, ran across the Columbia River between Astoria, Oregon and two ferry docks near the present small community of Megler, Washington from 1921 to 1966.
Contents
Sale to Oregon Highway Department
Until 1920, the Long Beach Peninsula in Pacific County, Washington, also known as the North Beach, was an isolated portion of the state because of the lack of roads. It was practically impossible to reach except by water transport, generally a steamboat. The two most important steamboat landings on the peninsula were on the Columbia River, at Ilwaco and, 15 miles (24 km) to the north, on Willapa Bay (then known as Shoalwater Bay), at Nachotta. In 1889, a narrow gauge railway, the Ilwaco Railway and Navigation Company, connected the two points, running out on the docks at each terminus. During the summers, always the busiest season, steamers such as the sidewheeler T. J. Potter brought vacation crowds from Portland, Oregon down the Columbia River to the landing at Ilwaco, and after 1908 to a much larger dock further upriver at Megler. The railroad and steamers, both under the control of the Union Pacific Railroad, reached their highest point of profitability in the summer of 1913.
In 1916, construction was completed on a paved highway running from Portland to Astoria. Demand for steamer travel fell off. The last steamer to make the Portland to Astoria run was the sternwheeler Harvest Queen, on February 18, 1921.[1] The steamer Nahcotta made runs from Astoria to Megler, but could not compete with the auto ferries that were coming on the route.[1]
Ferry service
Ferry service across the Columbia River from Astoria, Oregon to Megler, Washington began in the summer of 1920 when Capt. Fritz S. Elfving set up a scow as an improvised ferry and transported over 700 vehicles during that summer. In April 1921, Elfving incorporated as the Astoria-McGowan Ferry Company. With the company capitalized at ,000, Elfving was also able to secure a subsidy of 0 per year from Pacific County, Washington. The county also built a road from the town of Chinook to McGowan, Washington, where the company had arranged to build a ferry slip at the end of a dock owned by a cannery, P.J. McGowan & Co. Elving also persuaded the Astoria City Council to use municipal funds to construct a ferry dock on the Oregon side of the river.[2]
Elfving then contracted with an Astoria shipbuilding firm to build a diesel motor ferry, at a price of between ,000 and ,000. The new vessel, Tourist (60 ft (18.29 m) 15 tons, capacity 15 automobiles, 30 passengers) was launched on May 21, 1921, and entered service a few days later.[2] Now with the ferry in place, travellers could drive their automobiles all the way to Astoria and onto a ferry to take them over to the Long Beach Peninsula, without the need of either railroad or steamboat.[1][3]
Ferry traffic quickly rose, and Elfving commissioned a new and larger wooden-hulled ferry, Tourist II (98 ft (29.87 m), 95 tons, capacity: 22 automobiles, 155 passengers), which was launched at Astoria on June 17, 1924.[4] The ferries departed from a specially-built dock at 14th Street in Astoria which included a ramp to allow rapid loading and unloading of automobiles.[2][3]
In good weather the ferry trip took about 30 minutes.[5] In 1925, motor truck operators in Astoria started using the ferries to the Long Beach Peninsula which cut sharply into the railroad's freight business.[1]
Competition
Ferry North Beach
In 1926, the Union Pacific Railroad tried to best the Elfving company by building their own automobile ferry, the North Beach (120 ft (36.58 m) 225 tons, capacity 25 automobiles). Union Pacific had ferry slips built at Astoria and at Megler. Although the North Beach was a well-built vessel, launched on April 28, 1927 with fanfare, and making its first run on July 6, 1927, North Beach could never manage to compete with Captain Elfving's boats. J.W. McGowan, a businessman of McGowan, owned stock in Elfving's ferry company, and he made it difficult for the railroad to build a road over his property to the Union Pacific's competing ferry dock at Megler. Union Pacific shut down ferry operations to Megler in September 1930 selling to one of its employees, Capt. Calvin E. Stewart, claiming they'd lost ,000 per year in the ferry business.[1][3][6]
The railroad calculated that the line had suffered losses of 0,000 from 1925 to 1928. Apparently the railroad then hit on the idea of forming a new subsidiary, the Astoria, North Shore and Willapa Harbor Railroad, selling stock in the railroad to local residents, and then using the proceeds from the stock sale to buy out its losing operation. Supposedly the new operation would return the route to profitability by operating cheaper small diesel-electric engines and cut its expenses by 90%. The plan also included a new ferry for motor traffic and used of trucks instead of rail to deliver freight. There were some problems with the legality of the stock proposal, as the sale could not proceed without the approval of the Interstate Commerce Commission. Local opposition was high, and the plan eventually came to nothing.[1]
In the spring of 1931, Stewart incorporated as the Columbia Transportation Company, and began a plan to put his rival, Captain Elfving, out of business. He began quietly buying up underwater parcels of real estate all around the Elfving ferry dock, and then one night with a hired marine pile driver drove in pilings around the dock so that a ferry could not get through. This move, which had been contemplated by Union Pacific as early as 1927 but not acted upon, did not stop Elving from landing his ferry, precisely how is not recorded but a story was repeated that Elving had backed up the ferry then surged ahead at full speed, knocking down the piles. Fighting between the two crews broke out on the dock until the Astoria police arrived. Elfving himself was a tough competitor. He was reported to have simply gotten in a car that was being driven over to the competitor's dock, and persuaded the driver to use his ferry instead.[1] The dispute went on until 1932 when Elfving was able to buy out Stewart, who was having general difficulties in the hard economic times, and combine the two companies. Following the purchase, Elfving relocated all ferry landings on the north side to Megler, which was a better location for a landing than at McGowan.[1][2]
Depression and war
As of April 18, 1931, the route, under the name of the Astoria-North Beach Ferry Company charged a “new low rate” of for car and driver. Ferries departed Astoria for Point Ellice, as the northern terminal was known, and returned, nine times a day. Walk-on passengers on the 9:00 a.m., 12:15 p.m., and 5:00 p.m. ferries out of Astoria could make a bus connection on arrival at Point Ellice, with the converse being true at Astoria for the 9:30 a.m., 12:45 p.m., and 5:30 pm ferries departing Point Ellice.[2]
Construction on an additional motor ferry, the wooden-hulled Tourist III (109 ft (33.22 m) long, 233 tons, capacity: 28 automobiles, 280 passengers) was completed in 1931, with the new ferry entering service on July 4, 1931.[2][7]
During the Second World War, Elfving sold Tourist II to the U.S. Army for ,000. The Army renamed the ferry Octopus, rebuilt the ferry's upper works, and used it for mining laying and logistics. After the war Elfving bought Tourist II back from the Army, paying a little more, ,000, but the Army had installed a new engine in the vessel.[2]
Sale to Oregon Highway Department
Captain Elving retired in 1946 and sold his ferry business to Merle R. Chessman (d.1946), who had planned to sell the operation to the Oregon State Highway Department. This sale occurred on June 1, 1946, but Chessman died before the sale was completed.[2]
In December 1947, a new ferry was launched and, in 1948, placed on the route. This was the steel-built M.R. Chessman (172 ft (52.43 m) 570 tons). Chessman remained on the route until the mid-1960s. Another vessel placed on the route was the motor ferry Kitsap (159 ft (48.46 m) 426 tons, capacity: 95 automobiles (1920s) 32 (1960), 325 passengers.[2][8] The highway department also took over operation of Tourist II, and modified the vessel by shortening the superstructure and installing radar equipment.[2]
Close of service
In 1966 the Astoria-Megler Bridge was completed. This eliminated the need for the ferry route. The final run on the route came on July 28, 1966, and was made by the M.R. Chessman.[2]
Sale of the boats
The ferries were sold at auction on August 12, 1966. The U.S. Navy bought M.R. Chessman for 0,000, and transferred the vessel to Vietnam. The Navy had originally intended to use the vessel as a ferry on the Mekong River. The vessel was employed as a machine shop for river patrol craft.[2][9] Kitsap was sold to an Alaska purchaser for ,250, who had the objective of using the vessel as a floating general store. Kitsap however was wrecked en route to Alaska.[2]
Although Tourist II was over 40 years old, the ferry was still in excellent condition, Pierce County bought Tourist II, renamed the vessel Islander, carried out extensive modifications, and placed the ferry on the Steilacoom-Anderson Island route.[2]
Tourist III was sold to the Pacific Pearl Company which modified the vessel to become a floating fish cannery.
"APRÈS NOUS L'ORANGE" Dutch Royals and the Symbolic Meaning of Avalanche
Image by Imaginary Museum Projects: News Tableaus
Dutch royals, Queen Beatrix, the Crown Prince Willem Alexander and his wife Maxima plus children, posing in their après-ski outfit - against an added dynamic historical background - for the royalty press in their traditional ski-resort in the Austrian village of Lech in February 2013.
The other children of Queen Beatrix, and their wives and children, are this year not joining the photograph session. One child because he can not, Prince Friso, who was hit exactly a year ago in the same place by an avalanche that almost killed him and left him since then in an 'irreversible coma'. Princess Mabel, the wife of Prince Friso, and her two daughters, were - nevertheless - part of the royal family ski-holiday gathering this year, but choose not to appear in front of the seventy or so photographers during the official photo-shoot. One wonders why she went at all...
Prince Constantijn, the third child of Queen Beatrix, seems to have avoided the royal ski-holidays this year, though he is a board member of World Press Photo, so he should be able to withstand a photo-shoot, also under the strain of last years drama that befell his brother. (1)
There is royal arrogance in the public posing for a whole bunch of press-photographers during the traditional yearly ski-vacation of the Dutch monarch and her family. Prince Friso was acting recklessly last year when he went out to ski on grounds that were known to be dangerous. He also failed to equip himself with an appropriate modern safety device, like an airbag, that may keeps you afloat when being hit by an avalanche (unlike his companion who had equipped himself and survived the disaster). The accident of Prince Friso have been displayed last year in all detail in Dutch media, whereby the journalistic construct of "the empathy" with the suffering family of Prince Friso by "the whole nation of the Netherlands", was a recurring news item.
"APRÈS NOUS LE DÉLUGE" / 'After us the deluge' is the infamous statement most often attributed to the French King Louis XV (1710-1774) or his mistress Madame de Pompadour (more learned sources do attribute it to the Prussian King Frederick the Great). The 'we' is to be understood as the 'pluralis majestatis', the 'majestic plural' form used by monarchs who do believe they are more than just a singular human being. This saying is known to express 'dédain', disdain for the common man and his fate. A carelessness often displayed by the super rich and lofty aristocracy, knowing themselves unaffected by the mishap and hardship of common man. The nation under their tutelage may not fare well, little does it matter. King, Queen and court will wine and dine as usual. Troubles affecting the 'subjects' of a monarch, may be addressed - now and then - by the monarch, in solemn words spoken at ceremonial occasions, like the opening of the parliament, or an television address at Christmas. The actual economic crisis, pushed upon so many in the Kingdom of the Netherlands, have not let to one ride less in the 'golden carriage' or restraints on spendings for royal pomp, leisures or other extravagance. Austerity measures for the bulk of the nations, not for the royals.
One million or more euros will be spend on restoring a 19th century wooden royal barge just for a few minutes fare during the upcoming inauguration of the new Dutch King Willem Alexander, in the harbour of Amsterdam. This money has been made available by one of the biggest National Lotteries, money from common man gambling, wasted on royal pomp. (2)
The anachronism of a hereditary monarchy in the 21st century, makes this ski-holiday picture even more symbolic. My 'reading' of these inescapable newspaper pictures, appearing 'ad nauseam' in Dutch dailies and television - as prime news before the tragedy of unemployment and the like - with the Royal Dutch family posing in the snow of the Austrian village of Lech, was as if a big headline was printed on top shouting: "APRÈS NOUS L'AVALANCHE" (after us the avalanche).
These royalty watch pictures emanated an extra level by what was not shown: the missing brother of the future king, Prince Friso and his wife Mabel. An indirect pointing to the inability of the Dutch royal family to put and end to the vegetative state of being, a continuous coma for over a year, of Prince Friso. A medical state of affairs that for many humble subjects living under a calculating regime of cutting health care costs, would have been solved already months ago. The only sane decision: allow the coma patient to die, allow his wife and children the peace of mind of accepting the vulnerability of this prince, who after all is just a human being. Give time and space for for the humane act of bereavement. (3)
The royal family - with Queen Beatrix as the one who wants always to be in total control - has been incapable to perform such a medical and ethical sound act during 12 months. They could not and can not bring themselves to pull out the plug, to halt the whole machinery in the specialised London Hospital where the body of Prince Friso is kept in a vegetative state. They treat the brain dead Prince as if he was a jewel from the royal family collection, something related to their dynasty to be preserved in a constantly guarded special vitrine.
The royals of the House of Orange have decided to keep on prolonging the life of this reckless Prince, showing their defiance of his fate by not changing anything in the their prestige protocol machinery. This family must always perform! The yearly luxurious ski-holidays, is acted out like a religious ceremony. I remember similar kind of royal ski photographs from similar Austrian ski resorts from my youth, Sankt Anton and later Lech - and I am a man of 69 years by now. This time prince Willem Alexander and his family were even travelling with a special 'royal train carriage' from the Netherlands to Austria. Another royalty photo shoot event, pushed in the faces of all who have neither money nor time for such an extra winter holiday. (4)
"AFTER US THE AVALANCHE", this association came once more to my mind and the second time it dawned on me, that this family sees itself as something beyond the 'awe of nature', that moment when the beautiful reshapes itself and becomes something terrible. To see an avalanche from a safe distance is quite a spectacle. To be hit by it is yet another experience. (5)
The royal-ski photo-shoot for the press, was a demonstration, a 'show off' by the House of Orange that they will not be wiped away by the forces of nature, neither by an avalanche, nor by a deluge. Monarchs that rise above the mortals, with their blood lineage written down in constitutional law and sanctioned by parliament. As long as the royal family is successful in procreation, the death of each king or queen, will be followed by birth and installation of a new one: "Le roi est mort. "Vive le roi" / "The King is dead. Long live the King." "The throne shall never be empty; the country shall never be without a monarch." A system devised to avoid quarrels about who should be the next king or queen, a system to avoid the danger of power fractions and throne pretenders to unleash a civil war. It is the mostly hidden counter side of being a royal, being nothing more or less than a mere disposable object of statehood.
A King or Queen in the Netherlands is no 'primus inter pares' (the first among equals) called to a state position by the recognition - by many - of their personal qualities. Their position derives from rights endowed upon them merely by their birth into a specific family. Hence the often unjust endowment of superior qualities found in minor endeavours of royals and their offspring. It needs a slavery mentality to produce kingship. "Voluntary servitude" as already analysed and criticised in a text by the young French author Etienne de la Boétie (1553/1576) explaining that tyrants (in ancient times chosen leaders who were given special power) and monarchs have power only because people give it to them. (6)
"JE MAINTAINDRAI" / I Will Maintain, I will 'preserve', also to be understood as 'persevere', says the banner under the Great Coat of Arms of the Royal Kingdom of the Netherlands. This text is in French as it points back to the coat of Arms of the small 16th century Princedom of Orange in the South of France, from which the family name of the House of Orange stems (through an inheritance of the title of 'Prince' by the German Duke of Nassau, Willem (1533-1584), who was given the more prestigious name "Prins Willem van Oranje" from his eleventh year, and later became a leader of the revolt of the Dutch subjects against "their" Spanish and Catholic King, Philip II). The House of Orange - though with it's direct dynasty lineage starting with 'Prins Willem van Oranje' broken in the year 1702, because Prince Willem III produced no heirs - has managed to find a substitute in the Nassau lineage and thus 'maintained' itself for five centuries.
Queen Beatrix holds the - well documented - belief that the task of a monarch is a 'God Given Task', a firm belief that needs also firm believers to be put it in practice. The Dutch monarchy will have it's 200 year anniversary this year, as the return of an exiled Prince of Orange (Willem Frederik), from England in 1813, is interpreted as the beginning of the Kingdom of the Netherlands while - in fact - real decisions were made a bit later by the Allied Forces that had beaten Napoleon in 1814-1815. This happened during the Vienna Congress an international diplomatic meeting under the command of the German Prince and diplomat for the Austrian Empire, Klemens von Metternich. This Congress - in which the Dutch representatives did not sit at the main negotiation table, but were banned to the side rooms, sought to put the revolutionary heritage France and its later Napoleonic European expansion under control.
Counter acting on the revolutions during the last decade of the 18th century in which heads of kings had been rolling, old monarchs were reinstalled and new monarchies created. Thus the Princes of Orange, that had a history of two centuries of acting like warlords, provincial conspirators and rulers, often in the position of 'stadhouder' (Stadholder) in the service of the Federal Dutch Republic, were ordained Kings by the Vienna Congress. Kings of a newly formed 'buffer state' against France: 'The Kingdom of the Netherlands'. Belgium and Luxembourg were at first also part of it (though secession of Belgium and Luxembourg occurred shortly after in 1830).
The first two Dutch kings tried hard to establish an absolute monarchy and root out the remnants of enlightened republicanism as it developed - even before the French Revolution, in the form of the Dutch 'patriot' movement from 1770 onward for almost twenty years. Oddly enough it was a combination of patriotic movement and French revolutionary armies that led to the first Kingdom of the Netherlands. First there was the short lived 'Batavian Republic' which was seen by some as just a vassal state of revolutionary France. Later, when Napoleon established his new form of imperial power, it was under French occupation that the Kingdom of the Netherlands actually was established. A brother of Napoleon, Louis, became the first King of the Netherlands. Historical facts that fit not well in the construction of the myth of the benevolent rule and great attachment of the Dutch for the House of Orange and the kings and queens produced by it. Official history always remains a tool in the hands of rulers, shedding light on what befits them leaving the rest in obscurity.
It took till the middle of the 19th century before some form of political parties were allowed and some more decades before the power of the Orange Kings was 'de facto' limited enough to be able to speak about the Netherlands being a 'constitutional monarchy'. From the end of the 19th century the female line of the reconfigured House of Orange took over with three subsequent queens: Wilhelmina, Juliana and Beatrix.
"APRÈS NOUS L'ORANGE" is what will be celebrated soon on April the 30th, Koninginendag / Queens Day, the traditional annual celebration of the royals (actually the birthday of the previous Queen, Juliana). This year it is also day when Queen Beatrix will abdicate and Prince Willem-Alexander of Oranje Nassau, will be inaugurated as King.
Queens day is known to be a day of the traditional street parties, free market s and boat tours in over-crowded Amsterdam city canals. It is the great day for Royal Brewery Heineken making it's top score. The usual level of public drunkenness produced has led the capital city major to try out stringent measures on the occasion of the crowning year of a new monarch. Restricted measures on street selling of alcohol. An attempt to quell the usual 'DELUGE OF BEER' and other pleasure substances that splash till over the top of the dikes of the Netherlands. The Crown Prince himself is known as a fan of a glass of beer, called a 'pilsje' in Dutch, hence his alternate name 'Prins Pils'.
An ORANGE AVALANCHE is in the making, that will roll like thunder over the Low Countries. We all will need 'airbags' not to drown in the party euphoria that overtakes the Netherlands on such occasions. (7)
Is everybody in the Netherlands a royalist, a fan of the House of Orange? Of the 'colour orange' at least, as a supporter of the National football team dressed in 'orange'; as an accountholder of the ING Bank that has changed it's traditional colour blue (Giroblauw Past Bij Jou / Giro Blue fits You) several years ago to 'orange, or as a customer of the privatised Royal Dutch Mail, TNT, that changed at some moment all the red letter boxes to orange ones. Are there so many adherents of the Royal House of Orange as there are orders for orange coloured party paraphernalia under production now at the air-polluting plastic factories in Red China? Are there no 'republicans' left, what about the anarchists, the anti-monarchists?
They did and do exist, though only a few outspoken ones may be invited on the stage of public media. Often the ones that do appear in public media - are those that can be easily ridiculed by Dutch mainstream journalism. Journalist practice that has reshaped itself in the last decades, from partly republican (from the sixties to the eighties of last century) to predominant pro-Orange royalist now-a-days. Anti-monarchism is just a needed side show, to prove once more the omnipotence of all those who fare well by publicly proclaiming their pro House of Orange stance.
Being pro Orange has become first of all a personal promotion and marketing tool like the almost inescapable support given to the national football team. It is hardly based on any historical monarchist conviction. Opportunism it is, wanting to be part of the crowd. Those who fail to join in may even be aggressed when they are spotted in the extra trains that pour in from the province overfilled with exhilarated orange clad crowds during the yearly Queens Day celebration. There is also a good buck to be made each year on beer, dance and food stuff by an eager middle class.
There are some members of parliament who publicly proclaim their 'republican' sentiments and some even have had the courage to announce that they will refuse to swear an oath of obeisance to the new king, as Dutch royal protocol (not state law by the way) prescribes. Typical for the Dutch way of evading confrontations, they will not act this conviction out in public, but will either not be invited for the inauguration of the King, or announce on forehand that they will not attend the ceremony.
Once again the symbolism of the snow landscape comes back. The changing properties of snow that may turn a lovely slope to slide over on skis into a killing disaster when it gets unstable and changes into an AVALANCHE. Layers of snow that cover the whole landscape, with one bright colour are temporal, lasting for a few weeks only, or months high up in the mountains. Once snow starts to melt, all of it waters down in hours or days.
Harsh light of daily realities will invoke thaw, melting all that 'orange snow' to a flow of drab-orange water. All what will be left are some muddy trails, that soon will be washed away by rain. Monarchy in the Netherlands has become for most people just all a vehicle for leisure euphoria, like a short ski-hollidays high in the mountains, to get out - if only for a moment - from the hassles of daily life the Low Countries.
---
(1) See my article "Photography and the imagination of Prince Constantijn: from patronage to paternalism" May 17, 2009
limpingmessenger.wordpress.com/2009/05/17/244/
(2) "Tijdens het Goed Geld Gala van de BankGiro Loterij kreeg het museum gisteravond 1 miljoen euro om het schip op te knappen en weer ten toon te stellen. Als het schip wordt gebruikt tijdens de inhuldiging zal het daarna op de wal worden tentoongesteld in een soort buitenvitrine." NOS Nieuws 6/2/2013.
www.inhetnieuws.nl/go/22663286/?u=aHR0cDovL2ZlZWRzLm5vcy5...
(3) See my article "The Vegetative Prince Will Not Wake Up: Dutch Prince Friso medical ethics and the ordeal of social inequality" August 24, 2012
limpingmessenger.wordpress.com/2012/08/24/the-vegetative-...
(4) "“Terug naar het verleden. Met de trein naar de wintersport” zei een vrolijke prins vanavond op het perron van Amsterdam Centraal tegen de aanwezige fotografen." ("Back to the past. By train to winter sports." said a joyful Prince tonight on the platform of Amsterdam Railway station to the photographers.) A news item on one of the many roaylity fan web pages
www.royalfanvivian.nl/2013/02/gezin-prins-van-oranje-per-...
(5) See my visualised note "Emanuel Kant and the Dutch crisis: Awe of Avalanche" posted on February 18, 2012
limpingmessenger.wordpress.com/2012/02/18/awe-of-avelache/
(6) "The politics of obedience: the discourse of voluntary servitude" is one of the many English language translation that can be found on-line via
mises.org/rothbard/boetie.pdf
There are also two Dutch translations, one from the thirties of last century by Hillegonda de Ligt (a Crhistian anarchist lady)
www.athene.antenna.nl/MEDIATHEEK/BOETIE-1.html
The other translated by Ewald Vanvugt omstreeks 1980
www.beroepseer.nl/nl/groepsblog/algemeen/item/667-over-de...
(7) See my article "Oranjelol/Orange Jinks/Orange Craze written one day after once more experiencing Queens Day in Amsterdam, on May 1, 2009.
limpingmessenger.wordpress.com/2009/05/01/26/
mysterious house in Oxford
Image by Gary Bridgman
Creative Commons attribution (required for reuse): garybridgman.com
It's called the Kennedy-Price-Shaw House: Jackson Ave. E. at 17th St. A longtime resident told me that it reminds her of Faulkner's short story "A Rose for Emily"
Here's the article I wrote that the other Oxford photos (see below) were supposed to accompany:
From BOOK magazine, January 2001
Yoknapatourism
by GARY BRIDGMAN
Faulkner may have put Oxford, Mississippi on the literary map, but he's not the only reason it stayed there.
MOST OF THE entry points into beautiful and bookish Oxford, Mississippi, are disguised--guarded even--by the landmarks common to the sub-rural South: strip malls in varying degrees of decay; doublewide mobile homes for sale, still in their clear wrappers; food-mart filling stations selling more heat-lamped grease than motor oil.
Closer to the center of this town of 10,000 people, the Lafayette County Courthouse and its grounds, along with the shops and businesses surrounding it, comprise one of the most enjoyable--even hip--public spaces in the Deep South. William Faulkner described the setting famously in Requiem for a Nun:
Above all, the courthouse, the center, the focus, the hub sitting looming in the center of the county's circumference, like a single cloud in the ring of the horizon.
Infused with the youthful vigor and economy of a university town, while enjoying a reputation as a writers community, Oxford actually lives up to its predictable chamber-of-commerce hype about "small-town charm with big-city amenities." The body-pierced kids behind the coffee counters on the square know how to look cool and bored, just like everywhere else, but their soft drawls on "yes, sir" and "no, ma'am" tend to betray their Southern manners.
So is Oxford where Mayberry collides with Greenwich Village? Hardly. Bantam-weight millionaires who keep vacation homes just for Ole Miss (University of Mississippi) football weekends have recast it as more of a moonlight-and-magnolia Aspen. And some parts of it are more Mayberry than Mayberry ever was. There is still a barber shop, a shoe-shine place and Gathright-Reed Drug Company, which was one of the first places in Oxford to sell Faulkner's books.
And every once in a while, you may still see a couple of old men sitting on a bench in the shadow of the courthouse.
"Fortunately, life in Oxford changes just a little bit, and the old, funky stuff isn't disappearing too fast," says Richard Howorth, owner of the town's well-known and well-regarded Square Books. [author's note: He's now Mayor Richard Howorth.]
The literary feel is impressive and pervasive. A few years back, author Rick Bass stopped by Square Books to read and sign Where the Sea Used to Be. In the middle of answering a question, he spotted local novelist Barry Hannah near the back of the audience. "Shit! There's Barry Hannah!" he said, looking almost embarrassed to be standing behind a podium in his presence. "You all don't know what you've got here."
The vibrant literary life of Oxford began within the feverish imagination of William Cuthbert Faulkner, who arrived there as a boy with his family when his father took a job at the University of Mississippi in 1902. From 1924 to 1962, he produced experimental prose, written mainly in Oxford and about Oxford, although he dubbed his backyard universe "Yoknapatawpha County."
His home was Rowan Oak, which has become something of a thinking person's Graceland. One of the oldest structures in Oxford, this Greek Revival fixer-upper on Old Taylor Road was built in the 1840s by a Colonel Shegog. Faulkner bought the crumbling house, then known as the Bailey Place in 1930 and slowly refurbished it. (Faulkner promptly renamed the house after the Rowan tree, a small tree found in Scotland, England and Ireland that he had read was a Celtic symbol for good luck. There has never been a Rowan tree on the property.)
Faulkner's daughter sold Rowan Oak to the university in 1972 so it could become a place for people from all over the world to learn about her father's work. The best room to see is Faulkner's study, where his Underwood typewriter sits and where his handwritten outline of the plot of A Fable is still legible on the walls.
"Younger people are more interested in Faulkner's writing while the older people are more into the history, architecture and the grounds," said Bill Griffith, Rowan Oak's curator. "I know I'm doing my tour right when the old guys start asking me what they should read."
A former Rowan Oak docent, Jim Higgins, tells a funny story about one busload of senior citizens who arrived on a tour from a casino in nearby Tunica County, Mississippi. A woman walked up to Higgins and demanded to see the swimming pool "where his wife drowned last year." Knowing that Estelle Faulkner had died of natural causes decades earlier and that there had never been a pool at Rowan Oak, Higgins was mystified by the request until he realized that the woman thought this was the home of William Shatner.
Faulkner's grave, usually festooned with coins, flowers and whiskey bottles, is the other popular Faulkner pilgrimage site (in St. Peter's Cemetery--look for the historical marker on Avent Street off Jefferson Avenue).
Mr. Bill, as locals knew him, was widely praised and often misunderstood. He died in 1962 and was quickly replaced as the town's most famous living resident by James Meredith, the first black student at Ole Miss.
The deadly riots that followed Meredith's enrollment in the fall of 1962 branded the community as a bastion of racial hatred, which didn't seem to bother most white Mississippians. The only writers hanging around the town were journalists who slept with their shoes on. Today, that image has faded just enough to make it more interesting than dangerous. Bob Dylan described the 1962 violence in his song "Oxford Town;" today Oxford Town is the name of the local newspaper's weekly entertainment supplement.
The town was transformed from one writer's town to a Writers' Town around 1980, when native Mississippian Willie Morris ( North Toward Home, My Dog Skip) became the writer in residence at the university. He knew many renowned authors from his youthful tenure as editor of Harper's during the 1960s and cajoled a few of them to come and read at Square Books, which Richard Howorth had opened a year earlier.
After Barry Hannah ( Airships, High Lonesome) joined Morris as a writer in residence in 1982, the two went on to instruct or encourage many nascent writers, including Donna Tartt ( The Secret History), John Grisham ( A Time to ... well, you know) and Larry Brown (Dirty Work, Fay). Brown went on to teach fiction workshops himself at Ole Miss and later the University of Montana; Hannah went on to serve as interim director of the Iowa Writers Workshop on the heels of a Pulitzer Prize nomination; Grisham personally endowed the visiting Southern writer-in-residence program at Ole Miss.
Hannah, whose latest novel, Yonder Stands Your Orphan is due out in May, likes to ride around Oxford on his motorcycle when he's not writing, teaching or tending to his six dogs. "For my friends who come here to visit, I recommend a very leisurely tour of Rowan Oak and Faulkner's grave," Hannah says. "People get a lot of strength from those places. I always take friends down to Taylor for catfish. That's a lovely trip and the food is excellent. Hell, you can know this town in forty-five minutes."
Perhaps a bit longer than 45 minutes, if you want to experience the University's more significant cultural offerings for the literate traveler. The Center for the Study of Southern Culture, housed in the antebellum Barnard Observatory (whose telescope was intercepted in shipment by Union troops and now resides at Northwestern University) on Grove Loop, hosts special events that exhaustively explore all things Southern. The center co-sponsors the outstanding Oxford Conference for the Book with Square Books each April; the annual Faulkner and Yoknapatawpha Conference with the Ole Miss English department each August; and the Southern Foodways Symposium in October.
While you're there, pop next door to Farley Hall and visit the Blues Archive. A few old brick buildings west of there, the J.D. Williams Library's Archives and Special Collections Department displays the papers and mementos of William Faulkner and James Meredith, including Mr. Bill's Nobel citation from 1950 (Faulkner's 1949 Nobel Prize for Literature was awarded the following year).
Meanwhile, back at the square, visit Southside Gallery to see the excellent photographs Martin Dain took of Faulkner and Oxford in 1961 and 1962. There is a good selection of Southern and Cuban folk art as well.
Even aside from its central role in the development of Oxford as a literary hub and owner Richard Howorth's prominence as past president of the American Booksellers Association, Square Books is simply a remarkable place to visit. If the courthouse is the heart of the square (and the bars at City Grocery and Ajax Diner are its liver), then its brain is Square Books. Potential employees must pass a literary awareness test, and once employed they are required to read and review new books. The ninety-foot-long balcony along the upstairs side of the store is the second-best people-watching spot on the square, after the balcony at the City Grocery restaurant.
Howorth's quick advice for visitors is to tour the obvious places, then get out on your feet and ask some questions. "Before there was a tourism industry in Oxford, there was still tourism," Howorth says. "These people who came here knew how to see all this without being too obvious. They are the kind of people who will be able to encounter strangers and find out what's going on."
