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Any items of historical interest within 15 miles of your house as the crow flies?

1. Dirigible hanger at Moffet Field. Its a huge structure and I think the only one in Northern California. It dates back to the 1930's. Its about 12-13 miles to the southwest. ( see my avatar )

2. The first gas station in Alameda county is just down the street. Its a car repair business now. It dates back to the 20's or 30's I believe.

3. There are several buildings from the late 1800's in a small business district down the street. One is a former Bank of America. There is a giant old style vault inside.

4. Mission San Jose is only a few miles away. Its been restored since the original mission was destroyed by an earthquake.

5. The transcontinental railroad came through Niles canyon which is just a few miles away.

The most important thing, I think, is Golden Gate Bridge. Built during the Depression to create jobs for the needy, it connects the pennisula with the North Bay counties.

Darth Yoshi wrote:The most important thing, I think, is Golden Gate Bridge. Built during the Depression to create jobs for the needy, it connects the pennisula with the North Bay counties.

Thats a good one, dont forget Alcatraz Island!

[1] The City of Philadelphia basically counts a whole, having been the US capital for some time among other things
[2] Valley Forge,
[3] Brandywine battlefield
[3] Cruiser Olympia, flagship of Admiral Dewey at the battle of Manila bay, one of only a few cruisers and warships of the period still in existence.
[4] Battleship New Jersey


2 and 3 might be a bit further then 15 miles.

I got some silly papers like the Declaration and the Constitution near my place .

Oh yes, I'd forgotten Alcatraz. Civil War fort turned prison turned tourist attraction. As opposed to fog.

Bah, time for people with real history to get in on this....lets see....within 15 to 20 minutes drive we've got :-
Burns Cottage - the birth place of Robert Burns the poet.
Culzen Castle - A big fuck off castle 'nuff said.
Greenon Castle - Almost completely fallen over castle...not as big and fuck off.
Dunure Castle - Marginally fallen down and pretty impressive all the same...
Burns Monument - A rather large pillar thing in memory of Robert Burns.
Auld Alloway Kirk - from the poem Tam O'Shanter

You can more than trebble the number of castles if you want to double the time in the car....plus there's lots more...

A fort used by Native Americans during King Phillips war is 200 ft. behind my house.

The site of a Native American massacre is nearby.

Then there's Narragansett Bay with a Viking outpost, the sunken wreckage of a British frigate, and a bunch of forts and bunkers from WWI.

Fort Leavenworth
There's a museum of sme kind dedicated to Amelia Earhart in her hometown (Atchison, KS).

Some of the things Sea Skimmer mentioned, plus several historical points of interest in South Jersey:

1. Swedesboro, one of the oldest European settlements in the Northeast, from before the Dutch took over the Swedish settlements in what would become New Jersey and Delaware.

2. Red Bank Battlefield, site of a Revolutionary War battle over a fort guarding the river approach to Philadelphia.

3. The Benjamin Franklin Bridge, at one time the longest suspension bridge in the world, and the first bridge over the lower Delaware.

4. RCA Victrola tower, Camden. Art deco skyscraper, once the headquarters of Victrola. Now being converted into luxury condominiums.

5. The City of Woodbury, New Jersey. County seat of Gloucester County, founded in the mid-17th century by the Wood family.

6. Deptford, New Jersey. My hometown. Endpoint of the first flight on the American continent--a baloon flight from the yard of Walnut Street prison to a field in Deptford Township, on January 9, 1793.

Well, lets see:

- Just a 10 minute drive from my house is Tec Voc High School, which (I belive) was the very first vocational high school.

- Just a 15 minute drive from my house lies The Forks. A place where 2 rivers meet and is the whole reason Winnipeg was founded in the first place. Has since been turned into our major tourist attraction.

That's about all I can think of.

New Iberia: The first offical Spainish colony town to be laid down after the Spainish took over all the other fRenxch settlements and town. It's my home town with a population of 30,000. (although I don't live in the limits)
And some decent sized Civil War battlefields in the area as the Union marched through here. All I can think of.

paul revere got captured within a few blocks of here.

the shot heard round the world is similar distance.

Corregidor - Just across Manila Bay. The last stand of the joint US-Filipino forces against the Japanese during WW2.
Intramuros - the walled city dating back to the Spanish colonization of Manila.
De La Salle University - site of the WW2 massacre of the Brothers of St. La Salle. It is said that every year on the eve of the massacre, one of the rooms in the old part of university is said to bleed blood. Bunch of old wive's tales if you ask me...
University of Sto. Tomas - one of the oldest universities in Asia. Dating back to the Spanish colonization.

5 minutes away, "Battle of the palmah" bah, all I get in my city are battles.

The Hohokam settlement of Casa Grande is about 30 minutes away. It has nifty astronomical observation holes cut in the walls.

In Albuquerque... How 'bout the entire damned city? Especially Old Town? Given, New Mexico was one of the first places entered in the cintinental US when the Spaniards invaded from the South, in Mexico.. The University of New Mexico..

Any further than 15 miles... there's Santa Fe to the north, and the Pueblos even further than that. There's APache reservations down south, Roswell down south, White Sands National Park in Alomogordo, Carlsbad Caverns.. Capitan Mountain, where Smoky the Bear was found... More national parks and things than I can remember.. Los Alamos National Labs, Sandia National Labs, the Rio Grande...

No, New Mexico is not known for a lot...

~ver

generator_g1 wrote:Corregidor - Just across Manila Bay. The last stand of the joint US-Filipino forces against the Japanese during WW2.

Close to the Bataan Peninsula. [sighs]

~ver

Wissenhofsiedlung[/url]

historical stuff near my house? lets see.....

there's Gaspee point, whre the first action of the revolution took place when the HMS Gaspee was sunk... a bunch of 300 year old houses.... H.P. Lovecraft's house....Brown University and the Edgar Allan Poe Library. The oldest Baptist and Unitarian churhes in North America.... everything around here is old (well, by American standards) so it's hard to seperate the historical from the just plain old.

I have a cemetery dating back to the 1800's about 10 mins away.

That's about it.

1. waynes world of paintball
2. Old river paintball
3. some Fort
3. Some other Fort
4. Some bridge where the Yankees and some Rebel militia fought...
5. Silver Springs
6. Ocala National Forest- Teddy named it...
7. Some Bombing range
8. ummm other stuff that i cant think of... to early

Jaris Merc wrote:1. waynes world of paintball
2. Old river paintball
3. some Fort
3. Some other Fort
4. Some bridge where the Yankees and some Rebel militia fought...
5. Silver Springs
6. Ocala National Forest- Teddy named it...
7. Some Bombing range
8. ummm other stuff that i cant think of... to early

Whoa, your town sounds cool.

The closest historical sights where I live are:

The San Jacinto monument: celebrating the most glorious victory in Texas history

The battleship Texas:IIRC the last dreadnaught left, first battleship turned museum, and the last ship left to see action in both world wars.

oh, i just remembered, 5 minutes down the road , the Russian sub museum. they have an old Juliett.....number 484. it was used in filming K-19 The Widowmaker. It's a cool ship, the restored it quite a bit. The USS Saratoga foundation bought it and is using funds raised to restore the Forrestal-class flat top USS Saratoga and turn it into a museum. Righ now the Saratoga is sitting at the NUWC in Newport, but they already have a couple of Phantoms they are working on to put on it.