As well as instructor for this freshman seminar course, today it is my pleasure to introduce dr. Christine henry, an assistant professor of Historic Preservation as well as the original designer for the course. Professor henry holds a ba from the university of william and mary. She holds a degree from the catholic university. She holds a phd from the university of maryland at college park. Her Research Interests focus on the concept of place making and social justice issues in the discipline of Historic Preservation. In addition, professor henry is forever a student of natural architecture, including focusing on roadside architecture, which dovetails nicely with this class. Welcome, professor henry. Prof. Henry good morning , everyone. It is great to see you. Thank you so much. So this is what i think of when i think of a road trip. The open road. All semester, you all have been studying all kinds of themes of the freedom of the road, of who is allowed to travel when and where. Travel as a process, rather than a destination. The mythology of the car in American Society and roadside architecture in the 20th century. Today, i am going to tell you a story that ties those themes together. This morning, it is going to be about a quest to find a magical piece of the place that i remember from my childhood. The story begins in the 1990s. I had the opportunity to travel to ohio on business and i wanted to see if i could find my favorite roadside attraction, the blue hole. Like the back of this postcard says, it is six miles west of sandusky, ohio, on route 101. The depth of the hole is unknown. The visible depth is apparently 50 to 60 feet. It finds its source in an underground river and maintains a temperature of 48 degrees, winter and summer. It is not affected by flood or drought. The volume of water flowing from this marvelous spring is 7 million gallons per day. It is sufficient to supply a city of 75,000 people. Really, a hole filled with water where you cannot see the bottom . That seems pretty magical to me. But i suppose the story actually begins a little bit earlier, in the 1970s when i was a kid. When road trips for me were not about the freedom of the open road and the romantic notion of going anywhere at anytime. They were instead about long hours in the back of the plymouth with my brother. We were traveling to the upper midwest, to ohio and michigan to see grandparents and cousins and aunts and uncles and sit in lawn chairs and picnic with all sorts of salads, none of which involved anything green. To me, the blue hole is all part of the story of the upper midwest. Does anybody have any questions . Student my question is how did you hear about the blue hole as a child considering you said 20 years later many ohio natives did not even know about it . Prof. Henry that is a great question. My parents introduced us to road tripping early. Im not sure if that was to keep us from fighting in the backseat or to keep us entertained, but at every stop, we were allowed to pick up as many of those brochures as we possibly could, and we were each allowed to choose one amazing attraction that we could stop on. On these trips, my brother and i would go back and forth on what we wanted to come and see. Ultimately, to everyones dismay, i actually always requested the same place. I always wanted to go back to see the blue hole. As this brochure shows you, they had everything. There was play equipment, they had a museum exhibit. They had a big waterwheel, and of course, they have a hole in the ground. What is not to like about a pool of water that is so clear that you can stare into it forever . I can let my imagination run wild. The formations to me were better than clouds. On the back of this postcard, they say that the most extraordinary Artesian Spring on the continent, quite a claim, and in the clear depths of the apparently motionless water, the visitor sees a myriad of strange formations, varying from the flowing white beard of hoaryhaired giants to the rich blue snowcovered alps. This is located west of federal route six and state route 101. It is more beautiful at night than during the daytime. When i had my opportunity to travel back to ohio as an adult, i talked with a few of my friends to find out about this place. Interestingly, a few of them had no idea what i was talking about. And then, one person finally said, oh yeah, but i heard they filled it in. And another person said, oh i heard they moved it. They what . I mean, really, how do even do that . I know that if you cannot see the bottom, you cannot fill it in. The postcard told me. The depth is unknown. And how do you move a hole, even one that is magical . This started me on research. Right . I had to find the truth. This quest actually lasted many years as i tried to figure out how in the world this very famous attraction had somehow gotten wiped off the map. I had to get to the bottom of the mystery. The history is kind of interesting. The blue hole starts in the 19th century in a small town of the banks of lake erie in a town called castalia, named after an ancient greek nymph that apollo turned into the fountain at delphi. It is all about the water. The water was always important to its identity. This really quick, clear Running Stream that was fed by artesian waters that came from glacial deposits ran right through the center of town. The townspeople in the 19th century thought that this would power our industry. This will push us in into the 19th century running our mills and doing wonderful things so we are going to put a dam across the spring. The problem is that all of the rock on top of it was too fragile. The pressure caused collapse and there were sinkholes all over town. But early fishermen saw the potential in such a swift stream. The cold water was perfect for trout and it moved at a rate of 5000 gallons per minute with a constant 48 degrees temperature. Because it came up from so far below the surface, there was no air in the water. So, they created small waterfalls near these holes. Then they stocked the stream with trout. Trout is not a native species, but it is one that really loves cold water, and it is one fishermen love to catch. As they are creating their own private getaways in these little small parts of the woods all around town, the secrets get out. Townspeople at first sneak through the fences, walk through woods to see these magical blue holes. Eventually they tell their friends, and people start to come from far and wide. But not really too much until yes, the car. Of course. They were open secrets, but once people had the opportunity to come from far away and see many things and just stop at these blue holes from one point to another, it became a crowd. It was a bit scary, i think, for the fishermen to see all of these visitors. At first they thought about trying to keep them out and trying to shut them out, building higher fences. But the populations of cleveland and toledo were so big, they thought maybe instead, we should invite them in. So the private clubs decided to open up their waters. They developed a little bit of mythology around the bottomless spring to lure people in from the roads, from state and federal routes. People passing by. You can start to see that it has evolved from just a stream with a few rocks to make a waterfall, it suddenly looks like an attraction. And looks like a place that they are welcoming you in. It has this nice fence around the edges and a pathway. They are trying to encourage people to come and visit. This continues for a while. They are always upgrading and always trying to make it more interesting. They include a couple of these step ups so that you can peer further down into the water. As the popularity grew around the blue hole, people had expectations and knew what you should find at a roadside attraction. One of the things that they started with early on is building an incredible garden all the way around the blue hole. In the midwest, they have pretty rough winters. When summer comes around and things are blooming, everybody wants to see gardens. It does not have anything to do with the blue hole, but they knew people would enjoy it. And, they put in areas for picnicking. That is really when it becomes a bona fide roadside attraction. Come and stay the afternoon, and have your lunch, and Wander Around the gardens. But admission is only so much. So dont forget the gift shop. I am not really sure why they chose a log cabin. It had been a very long time since ohio was considered a frontier. But this was their gift shop for quite a long time. And it was wellstocked. They had every tchotchke you could imagine to commemorate your visit to the blue hole. Salt and pepper shakers were my favorite. Not sure why. I dont necessarily associate salt and pepper with a roadside attraction but you can always find them. It continued to grow. Like i said, it was a stocked pond that these fishermen had. They had to continue to stock their pond in order to keep fishing this little pond. So they created a hatchery. The hatchery itself became its own attraction, as you can see. The farmed fish at the hatchery, you could feed them for a and watch the machine them all jump around in the water. They were pretty excited. You can see the big waterwheel. No more little waterfalls to keep it aerated. They had this huge, big, waterwheel. I am honestly not sure it does much more than the waterfall, but it makes a much better kodak moment. When you have a roadside attraction, you want to make sure that people capture it in pictures so they share it with friends and then they come back. As one of the postcards said, it is better at night. I do not know if it is better, but they did build infrastructure to make sure that you would come back just to check it out and see. You can see in this image, it has that rustic fence all around the edges. But in the center, there is this quiet little lily pad floating in the middle. That is no accident. That is an artificial lily pad with down lighting so to make sure you can see the formations at night. Clearly, it was a place for a romantic stroll, as you can see the couple on the edge trying to enjoy it. But the glory days of the blue hole did not last forever. Which i suppose is no surprise. As often happens, the interest in these magical waters waned. Eventually the gate is shut forever in 1990. They honestly just could not keep up with all of the other attractions in the area. This part of ohio right on the shores of lake erie is actually called ohios vacationland. People come for the beaches and all sorts of attractions. And the blue hole is maybe a little too quaint and too quiet. I like to show this because i do not think the postcards do it dont quite do it justice. The gate that they have to enter the blue hole is actually made out of the local limestone rocks that collapsed in order to make the blue hole. It is all together in one. I thought i would show you some of the things that the blue hole is competing with. In ohios vacationland, if you have ever been, there are all kinds of things that everyone associates with summer vacation. You can get ice cream, you can get taffy, you name it. It is a beach kind of place. It starts out around the same time as the blue hole with kind of this victorian, very kind of lowkey attraction. But, cedar point becomes quickly the Main Attraction in this part of ohio. Even early on, you can see they are developing huge big roller coasters and carnival attractions. Honestly, this is where my brother wanted to go, not the blue hole. And cedar point is still going. It continues to be built out. It is almost amazing that the blue hole lasted as long as it did with Something Like this as close by. But, all was not lost. The castalia fishing club that was the owner of the blue hole was not the only owner of a blue hole. They just owned the biggest. In 1997, another private fishing club across town along the same stream sold their land to the state of ohio to create a state Fish Hatchery. This was quite controversial in ohio at the time. They paid 1 million for this hole in the ground that happened to have really cold water. Many taxpayers were not happy about this. Are there any questions . Student the article talks about a dam being built adding , nonnative fish. My question, what impact did that have on the local environment, if any . Prof. Henry great question. In terms of the natural environment, it does not seem to have had a lot of negative impact. What it did have was a lot of positive impact on the economic environment for the people that lived in this area, and not just for the town of castalia but for the whole state. As i mentioned, it becomes the state Fish Hatchery. In ohio, that is a huge part of their business. So, they spent not only the 1 million to buy the initial spot, but they invested another 7 million into this to make it a stateoftheart Fish Hatchery to raise steelhead trout that supply the ponds and streams all over the state. Now, that may not sound like a lot, but as of 2013, ohios Wildlife Tourism business, which includes both fishing and hunting, was over 3 billion. So this little hole in the north part of ohio is the source of all the steelhead trout all over the state. It is bringing people not just from ohio, but all over. So they have upgraded. They have created a channelized stream through to that new, less picturesque hatchery building. It does not have the big waterwheel anymore, but it still hatches the fish. And they have the concrete runways where the small fish can become bigger fish before they are sent out to their streams and ponds. But it does all start here with this apparently motionless, crystalclear water. That is on view for a whole new generation. To contemplate the bottomless hole and the encrusted rock formations that capture your imagination. And, you can still entertain the kids by feeding the fish, all for the price of a three dollar box of cheerios. I spent some time talking to this family and they said this is one of their alltime favorite things to do when they are on vacation. They make sure to come and feed the fish. Not only is this the state Fish Hatchery, but they are well fed before they are let out to be caught. But i could not feel i had gotten to the bottom of the story without going a bit deeper. So, in the 1980s, geologists shattered that mystery of the blue hole having no real bottom. They were able to map the entire sandusky basin, and they connected the blue hole to seneca caverns. It is about 10 miles south of the blue hole. It is 110 feet below the surface. It is often called the cavious of the caves. Thats a great way of describing a cave. In virginia, we have our own show caves, not the cavious of caves because we have other things. If you have all been to luray caverns, you know what it is like. Seneca does not have stalactites and stalagmites that make a natural organ. They do not have all of these spectacular things for you to see. Instead, they have that limestone, that same limestone that was so fragile that it broke apart in castalia. It is underground here. It has fractured and collapsed and creates a series of chambers that go 110 feet down into the ground. You can go all the way to the bottom where the water starts on a hand dug trail. At the very deepest level of this cave, the water seeps out of a very small fissure. But it eventually makes its way to cold streams and ponds. They are filled at a rate of 7 million gallons per day at 48 degrees. So my quest finally came full circle, and our journey ended at the beginning. When we got to sip the water from, as the postcard describes, the old mystery river. Now that was magical. But the true mystery was not that there was no bottom to the blue hole, nor that it was actually moved across town. Because they really did move it. But the generations of road trippers from far and near stopped just to see clear, bluegreen water and imagined that they saw entire worlds in a few underwater rocks. This is still my favorite place. Thank you all. While many hotties look different, still remembered festivities from years past. On the sixth and last time i have come to light this Christmas Tree in the nations capital. My prayer now, as it has been in each of these other decembers, is for peace and reconciliation abroad, justice and tranquility at home. Seasons greetings from all of us at American History tv. Next, on the presidency, a historian talks about the views of Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass on emancipating those held in slavery. They track early in the career through the civil war. Good morning, everyone. Happy new year to everyone. Welcome to the neurotic