Preserved Ancient Walser Alpine Village: Otro, Italy

The Walsers descended from Germanic peoples over 1000 years ago and settled throughout the Alps.   They usually settled in remote, higher-altitude valleys (above 1500 m), particularly in the region around Monte Rosa, a major mountain massif on the Swiss-Italian border east of the Matterhorn. In return for maintaining and harvesting inhospitable Alpine lands, the Walsers were typically accorded a relative degree of freedom and were able to form communities with a high degree of sovereignty. As a result, they preserved their ancient German culture, traditions, and language.

The villagers of the isolated Walser communities had to work hard to survive the harsh Alpine weather and long, snowy winters.  They had to clear timber, till the rocky soil, shape the land into meadows and fields, build houses, and produce everything necessary to feed their families and animals during the long winters.  The difficulties in transport and their isolation made them fiercely independent and proud.  Among their cultural characteristics are their farm houses.

(The two paragraphs above are paraphrased from Sharp, H.  2007.  Tour of Monte Rosa, A Trekking Guide.  Cicerone Press, Cumbria, UK, 166p.)

This is Alpe Planmisura at altitude 1782 m in the Valle d"Otro.  It is a steep 1000 m drop from the Col d'Olen at 2881 m (you need strong knees).  This little town featured stone architecture and is still partly occupied in the summer.

One of the better preserved examples of a Walser village is Otro Dorf at 1640 m, also in the Valle d'Otro

In Otro, the houses have characteristic Walser wood and stone construction, with wide porches and broad roof overhang.  The porches were used to store wood and hay and protect them from rain and snow. Consider, until the late 1800s, these villagers were probably almost totally cut off from lower-altitude valleys and had to be self-reliant. Preserving wood and grain made the difference between staying warm and the cattle surviving long, harsh winters.  Also, winters were longer and colder in the 1800s, as Europe slowly emerged from the little ice age.

The wood was worked with hand tools and fitted with very few nails or machine-made fasteners.

At least, pure cold water was plentiful.  Washing clothing by hand in a stone tub was hard work.

After a long day hiking, the Refugio d'Otro offers a tempting place to stop for the night or eat a weekend luncheon feast, as these 50+ trekkers can attest.  Home-made pasta, wine, garden-fresh vegetables, more wine, espresso, pastry - hard to keep trekking after this.

Finally, another architectural note.  This is an example of Walser construction in Zermatt (the sophisticated tourist resort).  The wide circular slab of stone was supposed to dissuade vermin from climbing up the support posts and eating the grain stored within.  I am not sure how effective this technique was, but you see granaries and huts throughout the high Alps with these circular stones on the foundation.

Hiking note:  the Tour of Monte Rosa is one of the grand Alpine treks with spectacular scenery and the opportunity to cross glaciers and many passes. Most people start and end in Zermatt, making a 10-12-day circular route.  Highly recommended!  All photographs taken with a Fuji F31fd digital camera.

References

Sharp, H. 2007.  Tour of Monte Rosa, a Trekking Guide.  Cicerone Press, Milnhorpe Cumbria, UK, 166p.

The Mississippi Delta 17: Benoit

Benoit is one of many small agricultural towns in Bolivar County on the former railroad line and now served by Highway 1.  Oddly enough, Baby Doll, directed by Elia Kazan, was filmed here in 1956 (remember Carroll Baker in her tiny nightgown? - quite daring for 1950s USA.). About a half hour north of Greenville, today Benoit is quiet, slowly fading away.

These elevators, standing in 2004, have been torn down.

Even the beer joint has closed.  Notice the asphalt single siding.

This is Rice Chapel, facing Highway 1.

All photographs scanned from Kodachrome 25 transparencies with a Plustek 7600i scanner.  Original photographs taken with a Leica M3 rangefinder camera with 50 mm or 35 mm Summicron lenses.

Abandoned Utica High School, Utica, Mississippi

Utica is a small town in Hinds County about half way between Vicksburg and Crystal Springs. Like many towns throughout Mississippi, especially in the Delta, that I have described in these pages, Utica must have been active and prosperous decades ago. Today, it is a sad place; most of the stores are boarded up, there is little commercial activity. A few years ago, a block of the former commercial shops on Depot Street were dismantled for their bricks. Drive west out of town on West Main Street, turn left on Carpenter Street, and the old high school is on the left. Built in 1948, it is a traditional brick building with large windows and a cheerful look.

The large windows date to the time before air conditioning was installed in schools, and the natural light reduced the need for fluorescents.

Two of my friends attended Utica HS. One of them told me that it originally was for African-American students in grades 9-12. Students in grades 1-8 attended Mixon Elementary Colored School, a few miles north. In 1970, Utica's schools were integrated, and the first mixed black and white class met in Utica HS that year. It was renamed Utica Consolidated High School. With a satellite building to the east (now a grass field), the new consolidated school held about 800 students in six grades, with about 500 in high school.

The building has a fallout shelter in the basement. That dates it to the early cold war era, the time of "duck and cover." I recall air raid practice in elementary school in New York City in 1961. My grandmother lived in Berlin in World War II, and from her descriptions of bombings, I was familiar with the concept of a shelter.

The inner hallways were decorated with that terrible green industrial paint you see in mid-20th century schools and asylums throughout the country.

This building is still in reasonably good condition. As usual, I can't understand why a school system abandons a facility in sound condition. You wonder who really benefits from new school construction -  empire-building by bureaucrats perhaps? Kickbacks from the construction trade?

The transoms are another example of ventilation in a pre-air-conditioning era.

The Gold Waves were the basketball team.  They won many athletic events.  The trophy racks and the fantastic purple wall were in the athletic building just to the south of the main school. The roof of the field house is collapsing now and the gymnasium is a mess.

Photographs are from a Panasonic G1 digital camera with Lumix 14-45 mm lens, tripod-mounted.

Abandoned Grand Station Casino and the 2013 Mississippi River crest, Vicksburg, Mississippi

The 2013 flood season in Vicksburg, Mississippi, was notable for two reasons. First, the crest in Vicksburg occurred on May 19 with a height of 44.2 ft on the Vicksburg gauge. This was officially in flood but was well below the 57.10 ft elevation of 2011. Second, the abandoned Grand Station Casino (originally Harrah's) was towed away from the Vicksburg waterfront on Friday, May 18.

Harrah's Casino, March 1997, Kodak Ektar 25 film, Rolleoflex 3.5F camera

Let us go back in history. The casino was built by Harrah's Corporation in 1993. It was the second to open in Vicksburg after riverboat gambling was authorized by state law. At that time, a casino had to be on floating plant, so all the gambling facilities were on a barge made to look like a river boat. The hotel and restaurants could be on land. Harrah's leased land from City of Vicksburg and built a very nice hotel with a walkway to their barge.  According to the Vicksburg Post, the total investment was $30 million.  The facility became Horizon Casino in 2003 when Harrah's sold to Columbia Sussex. Several subsequent changes in ownership led to bankruptcy and an auction of the remaining assets on April 26, 2013. The City will probably never collect years of rent owed on the waterfront land.

This is the view of the Harrah's casino from the top roof of the hotel in March of 1997. The former manager kindly let me go up with some of the maintenance staff and the help of tall ladders. The river was in flood, and the coffer dam was totally covered, so the barge really did look like a river boat moored in the Yazoo Canal.

Yazoo Canal, view north

This is the view of the Yazoo Canal looking north. The water was lapping at the base of the floodwall, and the city workers had put stop logs in the wall. None of the waterfront ramp was visible. See my article on the 2011 flood for information on how the timbers are installed.

Undated post card from the Cooper collection, Mississippi Department of Archives and History

This is approximately the same view to the north, taken in the early 1900s. Notice the long covers over the platforms at the depot to provide shade for train passengers.

Yazoo Canal, view south

Undated post card from the Cooper collection, Mississippi Department of Archives and History

Looking south, Levee Street parallels the Yazoo Canal.  The confluence with the Mississippi is in the distance.  The 1997 scene is rather pathetic when you consider what a bustling commercial and industrial port this was one hundred years ago.  Then, you would have seen steamboats, wagons, supplies, timber, trains, shops, and people.

Here are city workers installing the steel uprights to prepare for high water in 2008.

This is the waterfront on May 19, 2013, with the barge gone.  The corners of the cofferdam are visible. Who will pay to remove them?  I assume they are a hazard to navagation.

Horizon Casino awaiting scrap

The shell of the former casino is sitting at a boatyard operated by Keyes Recycling Center, Inc.  Mr. Keyes bought the barge at auction for $10,000. So much for depreciation.

Haining Road, view west, Port of Vicksburg

Haining Road and the Port of Vicksburg facilities are on fill land and high enough to be safe from flood waters.

This is a 2007 view from the Yazoo Canal of a derelict tug at the boatyard.

The Yazoo Canal was dredged in 2007 to deepen and widen it.

The low woods north of Haining Road flood when the water rises above about 42 ft.  The metal posts on the right are water pumps, used by the City of Vicksburg water plant.

For more information about river stages in Vicksburg, the list below is from the National Weather Service web page:

Historical Crests

(1) 57.10 ft on 05/19/2011

(2) 56.20 ft on 05/04/1927

(3) 53.20 ft on 02/21/1937

(4) 52.80 ft on 06/06/1929

(5) 52.50 ft on 04/28/1922

(6) 51.60 ft on 05/13/1973

(7) 51.50 ft on 02/15/1916

(8) 51.00 ft on 04/20/2008

(9) 50.20 ft on 04/16/1897

(10) 49.90 ft on 04/27/1913

Low Water Records

(1) -7.00 ft on 02/03/1940

(2) -6.80 ft on 11/01/1939

(3) -5.80 ft on 01/06/1964

The 1997 square photographs from the roof of the casino were taken with a tripod-mounted Rolleiflex 3.5F camera (Carl Zeiss Planar 5-element 75mm f/3.5 lens) using Kodak Ektar 25 film. This was the sharpest color print film ever marketed.

Update January 2015: The barge is moored in the Yazoo River Diversion Canal neat Ergon Refining; no outward change in status.
Update July 23, 2015: The hotel has been open for about a year under the name Portofino Hotel. It will close this week in preparation for construction of a new casino.

Newman Plantation Store, Edwards, Mississippi

Here is another old-fashioned country store near Utica and Edwards, Mississippi: the former Newman Plantation store.  It is at the corner of Newman and Canada Cross Roads.

Map of Edwards and vicinity, with other historic stores shown (from ESRI ArcMap software)

I have little any information about the store's history.  Unlike the nearby Yates store, no one came by to chat on this quiet Sunday afternoon.  The store had the long overhang typical of early gasoline stations.  According to Tidbits and Treasures, written by Mary Landin, "Newman  Plantation covered a large area around Newman, which is the crossroads of two historic county roads that did not used to have names. No Newmans ever  lived on what is now Newman Road, because their homes face what is now  called Canada Cross Roads. When the county named them, they named the one that the Newmans thought should have been named Newman Road, Canada Cross  Roads, which is a misnomer in itself, and named the road that went to Edwards  from Newman, Newman Road."  Ms. Landin is a local historian and advocate of small-town living.

The store is locked and protected with bars, but I was able to take one photograph through the dusty glass.

Interior of abandoned Newman country store

Look at the old cash register on the shelf in the lower left. And is that a hot water radiator on the far wall?

I took these photographs taken with a Panasonic G3 camera with 9-18mm Panasonic lens or a 1949-vintage Leitz 5 cm ƒ/2 Summitar lens. The Summitar lens has been in the family since my dad bought it new.

Yates Country Store, Utica, Mississippi

Country stores once abounded in rural Mississippi. In an era before everyone owned their own car, rural people walked or rode a carriage to the country store to buy seed, tools, groceries, books, a newspaper, candies, or to make a telephone call. In 2011, I wrote about the Betigheimer store on Hwy 27, long gone. This one is near Utica: the W.B. Yates store, at the junction of Old Port Gibson and Cayuga Roads.

W.B. Yates store, Old Port Gibson Road

This is a rather basic cinder-block structure with the squared-off front that is so common on stores and commercial buildings in early-20th century rural areas.  The grey paint makes the place more severe, but the Coca-Cola sign adds a splash of red.

I could not go inside, and all the windows were blocked with plywood.

While I was putting my tripod away, an elderly gent came by to talk. He was a relative of the Yates family. He said the present store was built in 1947 (that explains the post-war cinder blocks). The original store was across the street where a post-war suburban home now sits. Mr. Yates died in 1986 and Mrs. Yates operated the store for two more years. She died tragically when she was hit by an 18-wheeler.

The name Cayuga, as in Cayuga Road, is an Indian name. The European settlers to this area came from upstate New York, where Cayuga Lake is the longest of the glacial-derived Finger Lakes. This is different than Cuyahoga, which is the name of the river that flows through Cleveland and debouches into Lake Erie.

The gent had some other interesting stories. Nearby is Charlie Brown Road. People kept stealing the sign, and the highway department could not figure out why. He convinced them to print a sign "C Brown," and the theft problem ended.

These are digital images from a Panasonic G3 digital camera and a 1949-vintage Leica 5cm ƒ/2.0 Summitar lens, tripod-mounted. My father bought the Summitar and its accompanying Leica IIIC rangefinder camera new at the Post Exchange on Guam. Stopped down to ƒ/4.0 or so, this lens equals many contemporary optics.

Update December 2019: A cabinet-maker and carpenter is using the Yates store. We chatted for a few minutes, and he said he was very busy with projects. Good news!

W.B. Yates Store (Panatomic-X film, Hasselblad 501CM camera, 80mm ƒ/2.8 Planar-CB lens, yellow filter)