Lincoln Highway Road Trip, day 7. Nice game by the Dubs last night. Of course, this is Cavs country around here and I have to be circumspect.
As promised, some more shots of this incredible town I stopped in yesterday, East Liverpool, right on the Ohio across from West Virginia. A ghost town. Well, it seemed that way, although there are still about 10,000 people living there. They sure weren’t anywhere near the old center city. Of course, it was Sunday. Around here that means church, and it gets awful quiet just about everywhere except for a few sinners out and about. The little churches abound around these parts. Besides the historic churches and the mainstream denominations, there seems to be about everything else and seemingly mostly of an evangelical bent (I happen to like a well written Presbyterian sermon – I sure have been to enough of them as the kids were being raised as good Presbyterians – or a high church service, especially in England for a Sung Eucharist, but have never quite gotten the whole American evangelical thing which I say without intending any disrespect). Christian Assembly, Pathway Church, Champion Life Church, First Christian, Cornerstone, Lighthouse Baptist, Assembly of God, Rains of Grace Fellowship, Solid Rock Apostolic, New Beginning Church, Deliverance Christian Church, Evangelical Friends…you get the picture. They are everywhere. You can imagine I was pretty excited when I saw the Star of David on the little (empty) synagogue in East Liverpool.
Anyway, I digress again. The buildings in East Liverpool are in decent enough shape but at least 2 out of 3 storefronts are vacant and a whole bunch of the buildings are for sale. Californians, picture the historic center of Petaluma but a little bigger and much, much more turn of the century architecture, but without people or any stores or restaurants to speak of and otherwise looking closed down.
As I said yesterday, this was once a huge center of the US ceramics industry. It is also where the gangster Pretty Boy Floyd was brought in 1934 to a funeral home there after they finally got him.
More Ohio today, heading west towards Indiana…life is good.
