The Newtown Pentacle

Friday

– photo by Mitch Waxman

After my last trip to the Pittsburgh area, one of the places that really stuck out for me was the City of Wheeling in West Virginia. It’s another one of the so called “rust belt” cities, and is in the middle of trying to reinvent its downtown. It’s a small city, with about 27,000 people living in the city center, but with nearly 150,000 residents residing in the Greater Wheeling Metropolitan Area. The Ohio River defines not just one of its borders, but West Virginia’s border with the State of Ohio. Wheeling is about 60 miles west/southwest from Pittsburgh.

Pictured throughout this post in the 1849 vintage Wheeling Suspension Bridge.

Here’s a mega massive panorama of the Ohio River span, with the more modern Fort Henry Bridge visible in the background.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

I find Wheeling very, very interesting – speaking from a photographic point of view. While we driving around, one of the destinations which I wanted to check out was a small overlook park found high above the city. That’s the Ohio River again on the right hand side. I plan on returning here in the future, and especially so during the cold months when the trees are less vivacious.

We had other destinations to visit, after all.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

My pal Max had an interest in Pennsylvania’s Washington County. We drove there, and we were soon standing in front of the magnificent 1900 vintage Washington County Courthouse. This governmental facility is where the seat of Washington County is found.

Washington, PA. also hosts Washington and Jefferson College, and it used to be a “railroad city.” Then it was an “oil city.”

This municipality was at the very center of the Whiskey Rebellion in 1791-94 that challenged the authority of the newly minted Federal Government to tax its citizens. It got all the way up to President George Washington marching towards the rebels with 13,000 militia troops following him.

Shit get real when George Washington is coming at you with an army, yo. That’s what they say in Washington.

No, not really.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

I was pretty impressed by the grandiosity and obvious abundance of funding which were incorporated into this court house building. Surprisingly, while casting my research nets out, one of the little fishies that came back revealed that the Pittsburgh Railway Company operated an inter urban trolley service between 1909 and 1953 between Washington and Pittsburgh.

Another pretty interesting place, and not terribly far from Pittsburgh either. Western Pennsylvania is fascinating.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

As mentioned, the Washington County Seat is found here, and apparently there’s an architecturally noteworthy City Hall as well, quite nearby where I was standing. In one of the cardinal distances, pictured above, the spires of the Washington and Jefferson College campus rise above the town.

The other direction though…

– photo by Mitch Waxman

Something wicked this way comes, thought a humble narrator, and that we should start driving my pal Max’s Mercedes in the opposite direction of an oncoming thunderhead and back towards Pittsburgh with haste.

More! Next Week! At this! Your Newtown Pentacle!!!

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