A Little History Lesson For Me

I received an email from my cousin Adrienne today.  In it, she provided a link to a very cool website, Penny Postcards, which I'm sharing with you here.  If you have any interest in history and what places looked like back in "the olden days," you'll probably enjoy browsing this site.

As I was looking up places where I have lived, I learned that the Madison County Nursing Home, which was torn down in 2009, was once a poor farm.  When I saw the penny postcard of it, I couldn't place it because there's nothing else around it.  So I "Googled" it to exercise my mind and learn something.

Turns out, just before it breathed its last, it was pretty much right in the middle of town -- just a couple of blocks south of downtown Edwardsville.  Giving credit where credit is due, the 2009 photo of the poor farm above was posted on another blog by The Militant Moderate.

I also enjoyed seeing the postcard of the train depot in Sparta.  Most people who have seen this building probably didn't commit it to memory. Others who happen to recall seeing it before may be under the mistaken impression that it's somewhere down in Mississippi, since that was the setting of "In the Heat of the Night," the movie where this unassuming little depot played a starring role.

But Sparta, Illinois, not Sparta, Mississippi, is where this building still stands today. These days, it's an art museum.  I'm glad the good folks of Sparta decided to restore it rather than tear it down.


I like when old things are made new again.  After all, one of these days that will happen to me.