Before the logging industry wiped out millions of wooded acres across the United States, the trees in old-growth forests were hundreds of feet tall, with gnarled bases and trunks that could measure more than 20 feet across. To fell the trees, loggers would build platforms 10 to 12 feet off the ground where the tree’s shape was smoother. So when settlers moved into the cleared forestland, they had a lot of giant stumps to contend with. Some stumps were removed, sometimes using perilous methods such as fire or dynamite. But others, particularly the larger ones, were repurposed. The bases of these massive trees had soft wood interiors and sometimes even hollow areas, so it was relatively easy to carve out the center of a stump and turn it into a building, such as a barn, post office, or even the occasional home. The …Read More

There have been only two father-son pairs to serve as U.S. president: John Adams and John Quincy Adams and George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush. (Robert A. Taft, the son of President William Howard Taft, came somewhat close to joining their company but failed to secure his party’s nomination despite three close attempts.)  As the only person to be the son of one president and the father of another, however, John Scott Harrison occupies an even rarer place in history. His father, William Henry Harrison, was the shortest-serving president in U.S. history, having died 31 days into his term on April 4, 1841. John Scott Harrison’s son Benjamin Harrison occupied the White House from 1889 to 1893. John Scott Harrison was 36 when his father died, and he went on to represent Ohio’s 2nd congressional district from 1853 to 1857 — first …Read More

The Dust Bowl wasn’t entirely confined to the actual Dust Bowl states. Oklahoma, Texas, Kansas, Colorado, and New Mexico were certainly the most affected by the extreme drought that ravaged the Great Plains in the 1930s, a natural disaster that followed overcultivation and proved disastrous for both the land and the people living on it. But some of the dust storms that resulted were so extreme that their clouds reached cities more than 1,500 miles away on the East Coast. Boston, Massachusetts, even saw red snow due to red clay soil becoming concentrated in the atmosphere. One of the worst storms hit the Great Plains region on April 14, 1935, which became known as Black Sunday. What started as a sunny morning quickly turned into an oppressive haze that dropped temperatures more than 25 degrees in an hour and turned the sky black. …Read More

When you think of German cuisine, you probably don’t think of coconuts. That’s a little clue that German chocolate cake has nothing to do with one of Europe’s largest (and very nontropical) countries. Indeed, the cake is actually an American invention — Texan, to be specific.  The dessert is often traced back to 1957, when a recipe for “German Sweet Chocolate Cake” appeared in The Dallas Morning News. German’s Sweet Chocolate was (and is) a specific kind of chocolate manufactured by Baker’s Chocolate and named for its inventor, Samuel German. It comes with sugar already added, unlike most dark baking chocolate.  In 1957, a homemaker identifying as “Mrs. George Clay of Dallas” submitted the recipe to the newspaper’s “Recipe of the Day” column, describing buttermilk-enriched chocolate cake layers topped with a custardy confection of coconuts and pecans. Some accounts note that a similar …Read More

For most of human history, you were either a child or an adult. The word “teenager” first entered the lexicon in 1913, appropriately enough, but it wasn’t until decades later that it took on its current significance. The ages spanning 13 to 19 are formative no matter what you call them, but three developments in the mid-20th century had a major influence on the creation of the modern teenager.  The first was the move toward compulsory education, which got adolescents out of farms and factories and into high school, where they spent more time among their peers. The second was the economic boom that followed World War II, which created a new, highly sought-after demographic for companies and advertisers. And the third was the widespread adoption of cars among American families, which afforded 16-year-olds unprecedented independence. Because one generation criticizing — and, to …Read More

Just because colonial Americans were subject to taxation without representation doesn’t mean they never voted. Indeed, elections were often held to select local officials and members of colonial legislatures. Rather than paper ballots, however, colonists voted by voice in a practice known as “viva voce.” This being the past and all, voting machines were centuries away from being invented, and paper ballots, despite having been around since ancient times, had yet to be widely adopted in the American colonies. So voters would gather in a public venue and announce their choice out loud for all to hear.  Like most of the country’s early political traditions, viva voce came to America’s shores from the other side of the pond. It was the norm not only in Britain but also in the Netherlands, German provinces, and Scandinavia, eventually becoming law in six American colonies before …Read More