Midwest Ghost Town

Part I - covering the lost rubber plantation of the Ford Motor Company - Fordlandia -

Reference given to Fordlanda: The Rise and Fall of Henry Ford's Forgotten Jungle City - By Greg Landon. - Excellent read if you get the chance - a lot of the background was given from research with Greg's book - plus from many of the same references included in his book - (A finalist for the Pulitzer Prize) -

The neighborhood of Old Hickory can still be found around Nashville, Tennessee - but back around WWI - it was a Du Pont company town - forming the largest smokeless gunpowder operation in the world - and earning it the nickname "Powder City"

There are a few other credit that will be added to the notes - but one of the key notes is the diary of Lou Cretia Owen. This work is in the public domain and housed below

The diary of Lou Cretia Owen can be found and read -

Courtesy Tennessee State Library & Archives.

Lou Cretia Owen's diary

Lou Cretia Owen Papers, 1918-1919

35

ID 43261

Location: I-D-1, Folder 1

Item is in the Public Domain - l

More was written about Old Hickory - from an interesting article found at the Tennessee State Library Archives Website - titled "Old Hickory Gun Powder Plant" by Jack Humphrey - and I'll post a link below.

https://tslablog.blogspot.com/2018/08/old-hickory-gunpowder-plant.html

All music for production was used from Pixabay royalty free music - no attribution required with content ID attached - I'll come back and give attribution for each song - though not required by the license - I feel the artist deserve mention. -- I'll post attribution by 1/20/24 - thank you.

Material Used in the Podcast found - and credit

1. Williamsburg Walking Tours - A wonderful article - go check them out if you are visiting the area (they give tours according to their site) www.williamsburgwalkingtours.com - article written by Trish Thomas

2. The Canary Girls memorial project - is found Canary-girls.com - you can read more about their background story over-seas.

3. There was another article where some of the background information and dates were given - at Mr. Williamsburg - you can find their site at www.mrwilliamsburg.com

The Ghost Town of Moore, Iowa - better known to locals as "Powder Town" - Once the largest Blasting Powder Operation of Du Pont.

Episode 1 - Season 2 - of Midwest Ghost Town

Most information with details in the podcast can be found at a few other references provided.

One of them is the DuPont Hagley Museum - found at hagley.org - in reference to dates and history of the company through the DuPont Company on the Brandywine Project - an interactive look at the history of the DuPont Company black powder works that operated along the Brandywine River in Wilmington, Delaware, Delaware from 1803 to 1921.

In addition - there are two short videos on YouTube worth watching on the subject of Powder Town - entitled du Pont Iowa Powder Mills 1 & 2 - produced by Ed Vinson. They are both older videos, but Ed did a great job highlighting and giving information about the town and Mill.

Some call it the Great Midwest Fire, others the Peshtigo Fire - and most remember it from history as "The Great Chicago Fire" of 1871. Remember the misteaching of Mrs. O'Leary's cow that kicked over the lantern? It turns out that the whole story was based on legend - but it was the same fire in Chicago that gave birth to the name "The Forgotten Fire" - because on the same day in October - the worst and most devastating fire in U.S. History occurred up in Wisconsin, Northern Illinois, and Western Michigan - fueled by high winds and lengthy forest fires around the region - and it completely overshadowed the event. One particular town, Williamsonville, was completely wiped off the map and never rebuilt - left as a permanent ghost town in ash. Come join this podcast episode as we explore "The Forgotten Fire of 1871"

In this episode, we move from the desert in Namibia to the desert in the Middle East - to the desert Ghost Town of "Al Madam" - Another story of a Ghost Town buried under the sand!

Ghost Towns under the Sand: Part II "Kolmanskop, Namibia" another Midwest Ghost Town video podcast, and this time we leave the Midwest (and the United States) entirely and cross the Atlantic, and down the skeleton coast on the continent of Africa, to the country of Namibia - home of the old diamond mining Ghost Town of Kolmanskop.

There are some amazing pics used in than video podcast, and all were used in the public domain - with the exception of the footage in Kolmanskop - Some of the attributions weren't required, but I wanted to add the work of

Elina Emeleeva which was found on Pexels - and of course the work of James Kerwin on some of the other pieces (especially floating door) with creative common link below. - and the pics by Avillagomez67, SqueakyMarmot, Damien du Toit, Harald Supfle, Joachim Huber, Skypixels, and Olga Ernst - all listed below. They had terrific shots of the ghost town shared in the video.

James Kerwin Photographic, CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/..., via Wikimedia Commons

Avillagomez67, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/..., via Wikimedia Commons

Uploaded on April 24, 2006 by SqueakyMarmot, CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/..., via Wikimedia Commons

Damien du Toit from Cape Town, South Africa, CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/..., via Wikimedia Commons

Harald Süpfle, CC BY 2.5 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/..., via Wikimedia Commons

SkyPixels, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/..., via Wikimedia Commons

Joachim Huber, CC BY-SA 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/..., via Wikimedia Commons

Olga Ernst, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/..., via Wikimedia Commons

In this two-part episode "Ghost Towns Under The Sand" (Part I) We discuss the lost town of "Singapore Michigan" buried under the sands of Lake Michigan - We talk about the Great Peshtigo Fire and conclude the episode talking about a long-lost Pony Express Riding Station - found under the sands in Sand Springs Station, Nevada.

Covering and telling the story of Elizabethtown, New Mexico and South Pass, Wyoming Ghost Towns - and the story of a couple serial killers that lived in each town.

Part 2 of Ghost Towns and Boxing - covers the Ghost Towns of Busenbark, Ohio, Melbourne, Michigan, and Rock Bluff, Nebraska - George "The Saginaw Kid" Lavigne, and Perry Ivan "Kid" Graves

Amazing stories and links between Ghost Towns and Boxing.