On one of my trips to see my parents, I took a slight detour on my route to save time. It was/is a 14 hour trip and any shortcut to shorten the length is worth checking out. The route took me through the town of Van Wert, Ohio. There is no reason for anyone outside of northern Ohio to know about Van Wert. It isn't on a major highway, in fact the 4 lane road that goes by it, seems to try its best to avoid the town.
Van Wert was initially survey in 1824 and was founded a few years later. Even the area it was founded in wasn't anything special. The only uniqueness of Van Wert was that it was the only place in America that produced Liederkranz cheese, which was done at the now gone Borden plant. The towns population is around 10,000 people. There is nothing really spectacular about Van Wert, except for its architecture.
I don't know what was going on in the town, but they had the money and means to create some beautiful buildings and homes at one point in their history. And I enjoy seeing them when I drive through.
Not all the houses are in great shape, but you can tell that there was effort in designing these huge houses.
It is a shame that some just sit there in disrepair. I wish I had the money to buy one and move it to a nice big lot.
The really sad part, is that while one street will have a dozen of these houses needing a lot of attention and love, the ones across the street are in great shape.
These are just a few of the images we took while driving. While we have time for a quick detour, we usually don't have time to stop and look around. Maybe we will do it on one of our trips.
If Steem had a gallery feature, maybe I would add more.
Get your old school text-based gaming on.