Near where I live, in the town of Cambridge Springs, Pennsylvania, there was a historic Victorian hotel called the Riverside Inn. It opened in 1888 as a sanitorium, promoting the healthful properties of the mineral water spring that was found on the premises. At that time, mineral water spas were quite popular, and the town’s location exactly halfway between New York City and Chicago made it a popular destination for those seeking the “water cure.” Several hotels were built in the town, in addition to the Riverside Inn. However, by the 1920s, this health fad had passed, and one by one, the hotels went out of business, were dismantled, or burned to the ground. By the end of the Great Depression, the Riverside Inn was the last of the resort hotels in town, standing and in business. Over the decades, it changed hands a few times, and was restored to its former Victorian glory by Michael and Marie Halliday, who purchased it in 1985. The hotel was on the National Register of Historic Places.
On May 2, 2017, the Riverside Inn was destroyed in a fire that started in its kitchen. More below the fold.
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The fortunes of Cambridge Springs, PA, have drifted ever downward since the end if its heyday as a health resort. This small town is typical of many in western Pennsylvania, as well as thousands of others throughout the US, where industry and good-paying jobs have disappeared. At least half of the storefronts on Main Street are vacant; presumably, most residents do their shopping 6 miles away at the nearest Walmart, as there is no grocery store or supermarket in town. The best they’ve got is a Dollar General. It is impossible to buy a copy of Time magazine anywhere in town, which tells you something about news access. The campus of Alliance College, a college that went out of business two decades ago, has been converted to a minimum security prison for women (for-profit, of course). And like most of rural western Pennsylvania, the citizens are staunch wingnuts, clinging to their guns and religion. The town was papered over with “Trump/Pence” and “Hillary for prison” banners before the 2016 election, and more than a few are still on display.
The loss of the Riverside Inn will be yet another blow to the local economy, and the tax base, already diminished, will suffer a huge loss. However, the head of the Marriott Hotel in Erie has offered to hire all of the employees of the Riverside Inn, so those workers are not hopeless, as long as they have the resources to travel the 20 miles from Cambridge Springs to Erie.
A sad end to a beautiful old landmark.
On to the comments:
Top Comments, (May 13, 2017):
From Dirtandiron:
Ammo Hauler quotes an excerpt from an article in The Nation that reminds us that the white working class are not fascism’s natural allies—in fact fascism’s (and Trump’s) supporters can be found further up the income scale. From teacherken’s recommended post A prescient look at American Fascism.
From Yasuragi:
For those of us who lived through the Cuban Missile Crisis, these are powerful comments; for those of us who didn't, they're one hell of an education as to what life was like: One from noweasels, and one from Catte Nappe. [Both spawned very interesting threads.-Ed.] From Onomastic’s recommended post Haven’t been this frightened for our Nation since the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Top Mojo (May 12, 2017):
Top Photos (May 12, 2017):
Tonight’s picture quilt is courtesy of jotter!