The sport of stock car racing quickly became immensely popular in Maine during the post-World War II years, and much of this popularity is due to the construction of the Beech Ridge Motor Speedway in Scarborough, Maine. Constructed in 1949, it was the first purpose-built race track in the state, and continued to operate until …
The historic stone dam in Whiting, Maine has been the central feature of this tiny community of in Downeast Maine since the mid-nineteenth century. It is the lower of two dams on the Orange River, which has a brief, five-mile run as it drains eastward into Dennys Bay leading to the Atlantic Ocean. The dam …
It was a delight to join again with my colleagues at the Michigan Historic Preservation Network annual conference this year. We spent two terrific days in Sault Ste. Marie, at the easternmost edge of the Upper Peninsula. This small city, located at a long series of rapids in the St. Marys River that connects Lake …
It was my immense pleasure and honor to prepare the Administrative History of Big Cypress National Preserve. Working with my colleagues at Outside The Box LLC, I conducted the research and wrote this book-length study for this park, one of the first of two units of the National Park System that were designated as National …
In one of my earlier collaborations with real estate broker Michael Franklin, I conducted the HABS/HAER photography of the former National Guard Armory in Amsterdam, NY. Built in 1895, this imposing Gothic Revival building was decommissioned in 1994 and sold into private hands. By 2012, it was a private house and occasional bed and breakfast, …
I had the distinct honor and pleasure in 2024 to work under contract to the Maine Historic Preservation Commission on behalf of the historic McCurdy Smokehouse, located on the water’s edge in Lubec, the easternmost town in the United States. The MHPC asked that I work on revising the 1993 National Register of Historic Places …
I once again joined a terrific set of colleagues for the annual conference of the Michigan Historic Preservation Network, held this year in Kalamazoo. It was another enjoyable and informative gathering, and as usual I brought my 4×5 camera for some HABS/HAER photography. Both Western Michigan University, where the conference was held, and the City …
In early 2021 I was asked to conduct the HABS/HAER photography of the former L Street Power Station, in South Boston, MA. This is a massive, sprawling power generation complex located on the Reserved Channel that is a conglomeration of several generation facilities built over the course of nearly a century. The site is now …
In the winter of 2022, I conducted the HABS/HAER photography of a series of duplexes at Barksdale Air Force Base in Shreveport, LA. I worked on this project with my colleagues at Outside the Box LLC to complete the HABS/HAER documentation package of nineteen of the base’s duplexes, built in the early 1930s, together with …
In 1978, in response to the international oil crisis of the mid-1970s, Congress and the administration of President Jimmy Carter collaborated to pass and enact the Public Utilities Regulatory Policies Act (PURPA). The purpose of PURPA was to both promote energy conservation and to stimulate the production of domestic energy, particularly from cogeneration and renewable …