Fieldstone & Cupula

Photography Now & Then #50

These fieldstones were laid in place in the early 1980s, not long after we moved here.  The lichens and moss have grown on them in the time since then.

Today’s photo: Fieldstone – aged stone driveway retaining wall, rural west-central Arkansas, February 19, 2018 (Pentax K-3 II)

Today’s photo[1]: Fieldstone – aged stone driveway retaining wall, rural west-central Arkansas, February 19, 2018 (Pentax K-3 II)

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We’ve visited Bannack,  a remote ghost town in Montana, three times over the years.  The first time was when we lived in Idaho in the late 70s.  That time we tent camped in a small campground next to the town.  The other times were on day trips from wherever we were staying on whatever trip we were on. The town is now preserved as Bannack State Park, with on going preservation and restoration in conjunction with the Bannack Association.

This cupula, an architectural feature of one of the towns prominent buildings, the combined school and Masonic temple, was documented in 1964 by the National Park Service in the Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS)[2] in conjunction with the Library of Congress[3] and the private sector. HABS was started during the Great Depression and is one of the few New Deal programs still in existence.

Photo Favorite: Cupula on School and Masonic Temple Building, Bannack, Montana, July 30, 2010 (Pentax K10D)

Photo Favorite[4]: Cupula on School and Masonic Temple Building, Bannack, Montana, July 30, 2010 (Pentax K10D)

School and Masonic Temple Building [5]

This building has an unusual arrangement of a school house on the first floor and a Masonic Lodge on the second floor. The Masonic Order played a major role in establishing early day law and order in the mining towns of the west, and the problem of education was important to the people of the early mining towns.

Cupola: A wood louvered cupola with a rear access door (destroyed) to the roof is located on the ridge line and in line with the gable end of the front of the building, Roof of the cupola is hand-split wood shakes.


  1. Today’s Photo is a photo that is almost always taken the day of the blog post.  In some instances, posts may be backdated if internet access is not available on the day of the photo or other reasons prevent posting Photograph Now and Then.
  2. Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS) – National Park Service. An ongoing project, “The Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS) is the nation’s first federal preservation program, begun in 1933 to document America’s architectural heritage. Creation of the program was motivated primarily by the perceived need to mitigate the negative effects upon our history and culture of rapidly vanishing architectural resources.”
  3. Historic American Buildings Survey/Historic American Engineering Record/Historic American Landscapes Survey – Library of Congress. “The Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS) and the Historic American Engineering Record (HAER) collections are among the largest and most heavily used in the Prints and Photographs Division of the Library of Congress. Since 2000, documentation from the Historic American Landscapes Survey (HALS) has been added to the holdings. The collections document achievements in architecture, engineering, and landscape design in the United States and its territories through a comprehensive range of building types, engineering technologies, and landscapes.”
  4. Photo Favorite is a randomly selected older photograph from a batch of photos specifically “curated” for Photograph Now and Then.
  5. School and Masonic Temple – Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS), Library of Congress

Notes:

  • Reference links were accessed on the date the blog post was published, unless otherwise stated.
  • The title convention for Photography Now & Then blog posts evolved early on from one word related to each photo separated by “&” to usually being the first word in the caption description for each photo.
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