Monthly Archives: June 2026

Trip Peek #156
Trip #157
Willie and Beyond

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This picture is from my 2019 Willie and Beyond trip. That’s Willie Nile in the title and the photo. On the trip’s first day, I headed directly to Valparaiso, Indiana, to see Willie and his band in concert, then I spent three days getting home. Those three days included some time on the Lincoln Highway, Dixie Highway, and National Road, with stops at Big Thorn Farm & Brewery, Moonshine Store, Edinburgh Diner, and more. For the unenlightened, the Moonshine Store is in the unincorporated town of Moonshine, Illinois, and is known for its hamburgers.

Trip Peeks are short articles published when my world is too busy or too boring for a current events piece to be completed in time for the Sunday posting. In addition to a photo thumbnail from a completed road trip, each Peek includes a brief description of that photo plus links to the full-sized photo and the associated trip journal.

LHA 2026 Conference

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I’m on my way to York, PA, and this year’s Lincoln Highway Association Conference. It is where the Articles of Confederation were adopted, and it served as the nation’s capital for nine months in 1777 and 1778.  That means that some of the excitement associated with the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence will no doubt seep into the conference. I am posting this from the Lincoln Highway, but will move away from it before reaching York. By the time I get to the conference, I will have finally seen America’s oldest surviving roadside attraction, and ridden the second of two ferries that are part of a US Highway. The first day’s journal, which reaches Mann’s Choice, PA, has been posted.

This entry lets blog-only subscribers know about the trip and provides a place for comments. The journal is here.

Howard Steamboat Museum

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I was vaguely aware of the Howard Steamboat Museum in Jeffersonville, IN, but it wasn’t until it kept popping up as I poked around the internet in preparation for my March visit to the Arabia Steamboat Museum in Kansas City, MO, that I thought seriously about visiting. Within moments of entering, I regretted not visiting the museum years ago. I expected a collection of steamboat artifacts, and there are indeed plenty of those, but the museum is so much more. The setting for those artifacts is a Gilded/Victorian Age time capsule unlike any I’ve seen before.

James Howard started building steamboats in 1840. His son, Edmonds, began construction of this 22-room mansion in 1890.  Edmond and his wife Laura moved into the mansion, furnished for the most part with items purchased at the previous year’s Chicago World’s Fair, in December, 1894.

Their son James and his wife Loretta were the mansion’s last residents. James expressed his desire to convert the family home into a museum, and after his death in 1956, Loretta made that happen, with nearly all of the original furnishings remaining. When several feet of water flooded the house in 1937, most of the contents were saved by moving them to the upper floors. The Steinway piano was too heavy and suffered greatly from the floodwaters, as shown in displayed photos. The cabinet has been wonderfully restored, but not so the internals. It is beautiful to look at, but will never be played again. The house was constructed by workers and with materials from the boat building operation, and the floors were made exactly like a boat deck. Almost unbelievably, they survived the flood. The beautiful terrarium is a boat builder story in reverse. Intended as an aquarium, my guide Aaron explained that its builders could keep water out but not in. It leaked from the beginning, so the water was replaced by sand, and even that leaks a bit.

Because the home’s construction was treated as a side project to boat building, its cost was never known. The cost of the fabulous chandeliers is known, and Aaron shared it, but I’ve forgotten the exact amount. I do recall it was over $600,000 in today’s dollars.

After a guided tour of the first floor, Aaron turned me loose, and I headed upstairs with a tour guide book in my hand. This is where more of those steamboat artifacts are displayed, but there is also quite a bit of original home and office furnishings.

Exhibits tell the Howard Steamboat story along with the general story of the steamboat era.

A remarkable piece of history from the steamboat era is this stateroom door from the famed Robert E. Lee. I imagine this desk was moved here from the boat works across the street. Sitting atop it are an Ediphone, a typewriter, and another Ediphone with some wax cylinders.

The Howard home was naturally one of the first with both indoor plumbing and electricity. The electricity originally came from a generator at the boat works. Because the generator did not operate full time, lighting fixtures could use either electricity or gas.

When I learned about a nearby candy company that is more than a hundred years old, I had to stop. I bought a bag of Red Hots, which Schimpff’s has been making making since they opened in 1891, and downed a root beer float at one of those cool tables. Those may be Coca-Cola napkins, but it’s root beer in the glass.

Book Review
Fifty Inventions That Shaped the Modern Economy
Tim Hartford

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Although I have since figured it out, when I pulled Fifty Inventions That Shaped the Modern Economy from my to-read list, I wasn’t sure how it got there. I was, however, quite certain that beginning it immediately after reviewing Cities of Gold was a real piece of luck. That’s not because of any overlap in subject matter. There is virtually none. It is because that review had ended with me seriously considering whether or not the invention of the automobile had been a good thing. I guess I was in the mood to think about inventions.

Harford leads us to think about inventions differently than we otherwise might. Of course, just considering their impact on the economy, the focus of this book, is new for some inventions and some readers. But Harford has us thinking about how they came to be, why some took so long to be created or accepted, and yes, good versus bad.

Some inventions create clear winners and losers, and that is the name of the book’s first section. A good example, and the one Harford talks about first, is the gramophone. As he does with all fifty of his chosen inventions, he tells its story through real-world examples that illustrate why it was chosen. In pre-gramophone days, top-tier performers made more money than those who weren’t quite as good, but second- and third-rate performers could do alright since the only way to hear a hit (or any sort of) song was via a live performance. Once it became possible for a star to record a single performance and sell copies, the market for not-quite-star performers dropped dramatically.

Several of the listed inventions require a large array of other inventions to even exist. The premier example of this is the iPhone and the other smartphones that followed. Harford notes that economist Mariana Mazzucato has identified a dozen technologies needed to make this device practical and useful. Several are specialized miniature electronic components, but things like analog-digital conversion, a cellular network, and the World Wide Web are also obviously necessary. I was reminded of those pictures of a guy weighed down by all the devices replaced by a modern smartphone, and made to realize that if all of those functions didn’t already exist, smartphones wouldn’t be very smart at all.

There are other inventions that do not require a bunch of prior breakthroughs but do require a lot of coordination. I have passed harbors filled with ships loaded with identically sized shipping containers and have watched trains carrying the big cubes pass me. It never occurred to me just how much coordination it took to create ships and railcars to hold the containers and cranes and other devices to move them. The story of how that happened is fascinating.

Naturally, a lot of what Harford has to say about an invention concerns its impact. The book’s purpose, after all, is to identify those that shaped the modern economy. Some of that impact is intentional, some is not, and some of the unintentional impact is not good. It was the negative environmental impact of the automobile described in Cities of Gold that got me to consider it differently, and there are plenty of negative unintended consequences described in Fifty Inventions…. But there are also plenty of positive unintended consequences connected with those inventions.

Air-conditioning is a great example. Its invention was driven by the effect of varying humidity on color printing. It solved the problem – but also led to a lot of comfortable and happy people in their cars, homes, and offices. Along with the safety elevator, reinforced glass and concrete, and a few other things, air-conditioning is one of the inventions that allow glass-covered skyscrapers to exist.

That the inventions Harford identifies have overall been good things is reinforced in the Epilogue, when he recounts economist Timothy Taylor asking his students whether they would rather be making $70,000 a year now or in 1900. The answer might seem obvious at first, but it requires just a little thought to realize that while that money would definitely buy more stuff in 1900, much of the stuff that makes life enjoyable today was not available in 1900 at any price.

Fifty Inventions That Shaped the Modern Economy, Tim Harford, Riverhead Books (August 28, 2018), 5.5 x 8.21 inches, 336 pages, ISBN 978-0735216143
Available through Amazon.

Skirmish at Dogwood Pass

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I first heard of this faux town in southern Ohio a couple of weeks ago when someone reported on a visit there in an online travel group.  Dogwood Pass began as a man-cave-style retreat for Mike Montgomery and his buddies, but has grown to be a whole lot more. The place was used to raise funds for a seriously ill child in 2012, and the practice has been repeated annually, with an event benefiting a different child each time.

Ideas kept coming, and the place has become a year-round attraction, with something going on at least twice a month, and much more around Halloween and Christmas. When I learned that one of the big Civil War-themed events would take place on June 6 and 7, I thought it would be a good time to check it out. When it aligned with perfect weather, I knew it.

The three dozen or more buildings that make up the town sure look like authentic 19th-century structures, and there is even a boot hill for the truly permanent residents.

Storefronts and wooden crosses are definitely not the only thing to look at. Among the less static attractions are the Roy Rogers Memory Museum, the g-g-g-g-granddaughter of Little Turtle, Buildings, and a hard-working village smithy.

Two Civil War reenactments were scheduled, and as the time for the first one approached, Dogwood Pass founder and owner Mike Montgomery told spectators a little about his man-cave’s wild transformation and the upcoming visit by Morgan’s Raiders. Everyone should stay behind the safety rope, he explained, to avoid getting “run over, shot, or killed”. This was especially important today, he said, because “It’s too hot for anyone to dig a hole to put you in.”

The town folk remained calm and it was business as usual until word arrived that Morgan was on his way.

The town cannon was fired as the raiders reach the edge of town but it was just wasn’t enough. Confederate troops were soon in the town square.

In 1863, Morgan’s Raiders worked their way through many small towns in southern Indiana and Ohio looking for horses, food, or anything else the could use. On Saturday, reenactors did the same in Dogwood Pass, and for a time were in complete control of the town.

It was short lived, however. Before long, United States troops appeared and cleared the town of the intruders.

Of course, not all of them left. Then, after a moment to let folks take in the scene and consider what they had just witnessed, the command “resurrect” brought everyone dispatched during the melee back upright. The reenactors eventually joined in formation and all the participating units were introduced. I regret that I can’t recall and share their identities. Many had traveled quite some distance and every one of them added something to a very impressive operation.

An even bigger battle was planned for the afternoon but I left after peace was restored in the town. The event continues today, with what I believe are repeats of both reenactments. I’m sorry that this is being published too late for any but the nearest neighbors to use that information but encourage everyone to check out the Dogwood Schedule and plan a future visit. It’s quite impressive.