North America Travel

Sailing the Maine Coast

Penobscot Bay, Maine

by Melanie S. Pinkert

Modern sailboats conjure up romantic images of colonial explorers, pirates, and crusty fishermen. Imagine sailing the Maine coast on a schooner launched in 1871.

The Stephen Taber, a historic landmark, has been sailing continuously for 138 years. Originally a cargo boat, it now takes up to 22 passengers on sailing adventures through Penobscot Bay.

Our sail began with a shipboard meeting the afternoon before casting off. Passengers gathered on the wooden deck. Some sat on the cabin roofs. Others leaned on the rows of gleaming whisky barrels that held the boat’s water supply. Captain Noah had the requisite sailor’s beard and penchant for story telling. He gave us the rundown on how not to injure ourselves on all the ropes, pegs, lines, anchors, and steaming hot pipes on board.

“The plan is,” said Captain Noah “there is no plan.”

Giddy at the prospect of spending the next few days going wherever the winds took us, we went below deck to check out our cabin. We squeezed our way through the narrow door and sucked in our stomachs to get it closed behind us. Inside, it seemed like the trunk of a Cadillac, but wood paneled and with a hand pumping sink. Also hand pumped were the heads (toilets), located above deck. No television. No telephone. No running water. Except for the plugs, radio, and GPS near Captain Noah’s station, we were back in the nineteenth century. Even the food was made the old fashioned way. The Taber has an old wooden stove and a chef who managed to make three gourmet meals a day: lobster, pork loin, or beef tenderloin stuffed with peppers and pepperoni.

Because we went on one of the wine tasting cruises, each evening began with an incredible array of wines laid out by Will, the boat’s 14-year-old sailor-in-training and lovable, Dickensian urchin. The tastings were organized by Captain Noah’s wife Jane, a thirteen year veteran of the wine industry. Incredibly knowledgeable and delightfully unpretentious, she guided us on a wine tour from California Cuvasion Chardonnay to Italian Bussola Amarone.

On occasion, the boat anchored and we explored historic port towns like Stonington, incorporated in 1897. There we watched fishermen unload their lobster catch and wandered art galleries housed in idyllic seaside cottages. When not eating, drinking or wandering through villages, passengers gazed out at the calm waters and beautiful green trees along the Maine coast. Vacations homes and lighthouses graced the shores. Lobster buoys dotted the waters.

Sometimes we assisted the crew, yelling nautical things at each other while hoisting sails and raising anchors. Mostly we all just relaxed and enjoyed a few days living without a plan.

The Taber leaves from Rockland, Maine. The nearest airport is Portland, Maine. The Concord Coach (www.concordcoachlines.com) has a bus that will take you between Portland and Rockland. The Taber belongs to the Maine Windjammer Association (www.sailmainecoast.com). In cooperation with a supplier of nautical goods: https://rippercovers.com/

About the author:
Melanie S. Pinkert is a writer/photographer specializing in the history, culture, art, food and politics of the Americas. Currently living in Washington, DC, she has lived in Florida, California, and Guatemala. She publishes online travel guides at www.bohova.com and blogs at www.bohova-mel.blogspot.com.

Photo Credits:
All photographs were taken by Melanie S. Pinkert and P.J. Walter, courtesy of The Windjammer Association. (www.sailmainecoast.com)

Riding the White Pass & Yukon Railway

Gold Rush Narrow Gauge Train from Skagway, Alaska

by Glen Brewer

The White Pass & Yukon Route was built to take miners and supplies to the newly discovered Klondike gold fields. That was over a century ago, but now the gold rush of Alaska cruise ships is bringing far more business to this narrow gauge railroad than the original gold rush ever did.

I arrived in Skagway by ship, as did so many adventurers on their quests after riches. My ship, of course, was one of several large cruise ships that arrive every day during Alaska’s short tourist season, not one of the picturesque, small steamers of the Klondike days. Four ships were in port the day I arrived.

I was anxious to see what transportation challenges the early pioneers and the railway construction and operating men faced. As do most of today’s travelers, I boarded my train on the dock, right alongside my ship.

Gold was discovered in 1896 along the Klondike River of the Yukon Territory, but, due to the extreme remoteness, it took quite a while for news to reach civilization: it wasn’t until July of 1897 that the first successful prospectors arrived in Seattle telling their stories of great riches waiting to be scooped up.

These were depression times, especially in the mining industry. The United States Government had committed to purchase silver at a fixed, 16 to 1 ratio compared to gold. Silver mining boomed, but eventually the US treasury gold supply was nearly depleted. In 1893 the law was repealed. Mines closed – most never to reopen. Suppliers failed, railroads failed, the steel industry was in serious trouble. Soon the US sank into the worst depression it had ever known.

Silver had lost its luster, but not gold. Soon hordes of intrepid gold seekers were bound for the Klondike. Most of them took steamers from Seattle or Vancouver, and then packed their goods over one of two tortuous routes: the shorter but steeper Chilkoot Trail starting from Dyea or the longer but slightly easier White Pass Trail starting at Skagway. To make things worse, these hardy adventurers often traveled in winter. Of course, they were in a hurry to be among the first to reach the gold fields, but also it was easier to move supplies over snow and ice than mud and sharp rocks. Plenty of survival goods had to be packed by every traveler: Mounties required each person entering Canada to have at least one ton of supplies – the amount judged necessary for one person to survive for a year.

Construction of a three-foot gauge railroad from Skagway, Alaska began in 1898. By then the construction of a narrow gauge railway was unusual. Narrow gauge (any less than the “standard gauge” of four-feet eight and one-half inches between the rails) was a bit of a fad in the railway business. It was very popular for new construction starting about 1872 and then rapidly declined over the next twenty-five years. Basically the narrow gauge era was already a thing of the past when the White Pass selected it, but the advantages of cheaper and quicker construction for the narrower, lighter tracks which allowed tighter curves and less earth moving were just as compelling here as they had been in Wales and in Colorado a few years before.

The last spike was driven and the railroad opened for business in 1900 extending for 110 miles to Whitehorse, Yukon Territory. But by that time, the gold rush was nearly over. Business settled to a slower pace of hauling mining concentrates and supplies.

Business really boomed for the first time during World War II as the US government built the new Alaska Highway – considered a high wartime priority. The railway was taken over and operated by the US Army; additional equipment was requisitioned from Colorado and elsewhere. As many as thirty trains operated per day delivering materials for the new road.

After the war, since there was still no highway between Skagway and Whitehorse, business continued. There was no interchange with any other railroad; therefore, the gauge was not a problem as it had been for other narrow gauge railroads. The White Pass became an innovator in container service, operated docks, ships and even airplanes. But by 1982 a highway was finally built. Business declined precipitously, and the railway shut down.

That looked like the end of the line for the narrow gauge, but fortunately, the Alaskan cruise business was quickly growing. Optimistically the White Pass reopened in 1988 and carried 35,000 passengers on its first year of renewed service for the cruise trade.

On an unusually fine, sunny, warm early afternoon, my train, right on schedule, took its place in a grand procession of four separate trains proceeded out of town, each within sight of the one ahead. Our ascent to White Pass began almost immediately and grew ever steeper: much of the way to the summit is on a 3.9% grade.

At Rocky Point, there is a sharp curve to the right and a fine view looking back over the tree tops back to Skagway, the Lynn Canal and Mt. Harding. All four cruise ships were easily seen at their docks.

Remnants of the old Brackett Wagon Road appeared below the track level. By November of 1897 George Brackett began to do something about the hardships of the White Pass Trail. He built a wagon road part way up the pass. The toll was set high, and so many travelers ignored the tollgates, that the Brackett road was soon a failure. The road certainly must have been an improvement, but even considering deterioration over the years, it did not appear an easy road to traverse.

Along the way, we were treated to views of waterfalls cascading down the mountainsides. The most prominent of these is the Bridal Veil Falls across the canyon and intersected on its way down the mountain by Highway 2.

A porcupine scampered away from our approaching train. Passengers often see bears and mountain goats on the mountainside near the tracks. These animals seem quite used to the passage of the trains and are not usually much disturbed by them.

As we headed into a hairpin curve, I could see the train ahead high above on the mountainside. It was on a narrow shelf blasted from the hard rock of the mountainside. Men dangling from ropes drilled and blasted these shelves for the track bed.

Beyond the shelf, the tracks curve around the mountain and to what is probably the most photographed spot in the more than one-hundred years of this railway. Here the tracks first curve back to the left onto a spindly looking, high, wooden trestle and then immediately plunge into a dark curving tunnel. Soon there was snow on the ground around us, and as we climbed onward, it became deeper.

Our train passed the original cantilevered, steel, bridge across a deep chasm. The bridge, bypassed by a new tunnel in 1969, is still in place. It sure doesn’t look like it would ever have supported all those Army trains of World War II. A little more evidence of the old trail up this pass was evident below as we approached the pass itself and the British Columbia border. By then the snow was quite deep. A previous train waited for us at the White Pass siding.

For most trains, White Pass is the turning point for the ride back to Skagway. Our brakeman cut off the engine so that it could run around the passenger cars and re-couple at the other end. Then we backed out of the siding and pulled forward past the following train, which by then had pulled into the siding for us to pass. We then had a clear track back to Skagway.

Since reopening for the tourist trade the White Pass & Yukon Route has become the busiest tourist railway in North America operating as many as 14 passenger trains a day. In 2007 a record of 461,388 passengers were carried, and despite the economic downturn, 2008 was still the second best ridership in 108 years with over 437,000 passengers carried.

For the White Pass line, the gold rush is finally here. The railroad itself is a triumph of nineteenth century perseverance and engineering – a fact recognized in 1994 when the line was designated as an International Historic Civil Engineering Landmark. For passengers like me it is a bonanza of fascinating history and always impressive mountain scenery.

Skagway Shore Excursion: White Pass Summit and Skagway City Tour

If You Go:

A round trip to White Pass takes about three hours. A few selected trains go on to Fraser, BC and even to Carcross, YT. On weekends only, a steam train runs to Fraser.
White Pass & Yukon Route
P. O. Box 435
Skagway, AK 99840
800-343-7373

Skagway itself is a fascinating little town with an interesting history. Downtown streets still look much as they did in late gold rush days. The estimated year around population in 2007 is only 798 people; when it was incorporated in 1900, the population was 3,117.
www.skagway.com

Many of the preserved, historical buildings of Skagway are operated by the US National Park Service as part of the Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Site.
US National Park Service
P. O. Box 517
Skagway, AK 99840
907-983-2921

Although the majority of passengers arrive in Skagway aboard cruise ships operating out of Vancouver or Seattle, Skagway may also be reached by commuter flights from Juneau, car ferries of the Alaska Marine Highway System, or even by highway.

About the author:
Glen Brewer is a freelance writer and photographer residing in Denver, Colorado. Previously published travel and features have appeared in The Chicago Tribune, Vancouver Province, Denver Post, and Arizona Star. His railway oriented articles have appeared in Classic Trains Magazine, Rail & Wire, O-Scale News, and The Colorado Timetable.

All photos are by Glen Brewer.

Casper, Heart of Wyoming

Where Personal and Frontier History Merge

by Roy A. Barnes

The venues that travelers deem as either a neat place to visit or a waste of time and money are often spots where the dramas, the highs, and lows of another’s past may have played out, leaving embedded memories. Such is the case for the venue of Casper, Wyoming, where I came of age in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

Casper is often overshadowed by the better known places in the northwest and southeast corners of the state such as Yellowstone National Park, Jackson Hole and Cheyenne Frontier Days. As a child, I found myself in the role as a tourist to Casper a few times a year, as I headed some 180 miles north from Cheyenne to visit my grandparents during vacation breaks and long weekends. That is, until Fate, in the guise of my father’s promotion within his company, would bring my family to the Casper area.

It was here, in the heart of Wyoming, where I spent the last years of my childhood and the brunt of my teenage years. Casper is the only other place I’ve called home. My passion for writing has its roots here. My desire to cross oceans to interact with peoples of different lands and cultures was planted here, though it would be years before those dreams would blossom. My loyalties to the New York Yankees came to fruition in Casper when one October night in 1977, I watched Reggie Jackson smack three consecutive pitches off of three different Dodger hurlers over the Yankee Stadium fence from the comfort and safety of my home on South Lincoln, thanks to my parents’ oversized, unpredictable black and white TV set.

Whenever I visit the city now, I walk around my old tree-drenched neighborhood. Strangely, I felt as if I never lived there, despite the fact that memories of my six years as a Casper resident have sometimes flooded my senses as I wandered in the deep valleys of north central Spain, or get drenched with precipitation in the midst of Panama’s tropical rainforest. The title of Thomas Wolfe’s 1940 novel, “You Can’t Go Home Again”, rings true for me, too, although I return to craft fresh travel articles about a place I once called home.

In another era gone by, Casper was paramount to settling the Western Frontier. The Oregon, California, Mormon, Pony Express, Bridger, and Bozeman Trails all went through this locale, making it a stop along the pathway to the dreams of many people who were seeking a better life, adventure, and even fortune. These accounts can be relived at the National Historic Trails Interpretive Center. One of its gallery exhibits, called Inscription Wall, is a sandstone wall engraved with the names and musings of pioneers and go-getters who passed through the area during the nineteenth century. One can also find out about the lives of Native Americans via the center’s exhibits, including audio-visual presentations. The entrance to the complex actually resembles the curved top of a covered wagon.

Casper came into existence upon Brigham Young’s arrival in 1847. He wanted to establish an Upper Crossing point over the North Platte River en route to the Mormon’s new homeland in Utah, using ferries. In 1862, the US Army established a fort close by for manning telegraph stations, named Platte Bridge Station. In July 1865, Lt. Caspar Collins of the 11th Ohio Volunteer Cavalry fought heroically against the Lakota and Cheyenne during the Battle of the Platte Bridge, but was killed. The fort’s name was changed to Fort Caspar to honor him. Two years later, the fort was disbanded. For reasons unexplained, the letter “e” found its way into the spelling of Casper after the town was founded in 1888.

The Fort Caspar Museum and Historical Site can be explored. The fort’s buildings were reconstructed on the original foundation sites in 1936. Fort Caspar’s exhibits and buildings focus on Wyoming life in the 1860’s. For me, this is one tourist haven that will always have a special place in my heart because my late grandmother would take me here each summer and let me explore the buildings and grounds. I posed for some snapshots, sitting on an old wagon or standing next to an exhibit while sporting a replica Union Cavalry hat that my grandmother had just bought me.

In 1890, the same year that Wyoming became the nation’s forty-forth state, oil was discovered just north of Casper in the Salt Creek fields. Since then, the city has experienced several boom and bust periods over this natural resource. Roughly 45 miles north of Casper, you can re-live the history of the Salt Creek area at the Salt Creek Oil Museum, in Midwest, Wyoming. Tens of thousands of oil-related and Americana artifacts are featured, thanks to the enduring 60 year dream that finally came true for one local resident, Pauline Schultz.

Casper is currently Wyoming’s second largest city with a population of around 50,000 residents, and proudly rises 5,123 feet above sea level. It’s nicknamed “Wyoming’s Mile High City”, even though a mile is 5,280 feet above sea level!

My old neighborhood even serves up a couple of places to put on your to-do list when visiting Casper. Those wanting to experience the history of the Casper area since the beginning of time can visit the Tate Geological Museum, which showcases more than 3,000 specimens of dinosaur fossils, minerals, and jade that have been discovered in and around Casper. The museum is located on the grounds of Casper College. Several blocks north of the museum is Casper’s premiere art venue called the Nicolaysen Art Museum and Discovery Center. It showcases contemporary Western Art of the Northern Rockies, High Plains, and of Native Americans. The museum includes an interactive learning center and new exhibits find their way here on a regular basis.

In downtown Casper at South Center Street (part Casper’s “Main Street” that runs north-south), The Wonder Bar is a great place to relax after a hard day’s sightseeing. It was opened in 1934 after the repeal of Prohibition. Horses are allowed to come into the bar as long as they are potty-trained! Celebrities like Ernest Hemingway have been patrons to this establishment.

The cities and regions we visit are where others actually live, breathe, fall in and out of love, experience the great highs, the in-betweens, and devastating lows of being human. The history that gets the most publicity is mostly of the kind that generates the biggest effects politically and economically, especially in an age of sensationalized media. But in seemingly ordinary places like Casper, Wyoming, history has been and is still being made that will play a role in making up those more noted aspects of human endeavour.

If You Go:

Fort Casper Museum and Historical Site: 4001 Fort Caspar Road, Casper, WY 82604. 307-235-8462. Admission Charge.

National Historic Trails Interpretive Center: 1501 N. Poplar Street, Casper, WY 82601. 307-261-7700. Admission Charge.

Nicolaysen Art Museum & Discovery Center: 400 E. Collins Drive, Casper, WY 82601. 307-235-5247. Admission Charge.

Salt Creek Oil Museum: Roughly 45 miles north of downtown Casper at 531 Peake Street, Midwest, WY 82643. 307-437-6513. Donations appreciated.

Tate Geological Museum: Casper College, 125 College Drive, Casper, WY 82601. 307-268-2447. Free admission.

The Wonder Bar: 256 S. Center Street. 307-234-4110.

GETTING THERE:

Three major airlines serve Natrona County International Airport (airport code is CPR, and is located twelve miles west of Casper): United Airlines from Denver: 1-800-UNITED-1 or www.united.com Delta Airlines from Salt Lake City: 1-800-221-1212 or www.delta.com and Northwest Airlines from Minneapolis: 1-800-225-2525 or www.nwa.com. By auto, Interstate 25 is the main route for getting to Casper.

ACCOMMODATIONS:

When I’m in Casper, I stay at the Parkway Plaza Hotel and Convention Centre. They offer free internet access and comfortable beds. It’s just a short walk or drive away from downtown: 123 W. “E” St., Casper, WY 82601. 307-235-1777. Reservations: 800-270-7829.

About the author:
Roy A. Barnes was a part of Casper’s history, as he lived there from 1977-1983. He now writes from southeastern Wyoming, about 180 miles away from Casper. Besides Travel Through History, his travel articles have appeared at Transitions Abroad, Cyber Oasis, Tampa Bay Parent Guide, Central Florida Lifestyle, The Traveler, Live Life Travel, and others.

Photo credits:
First Casper CB&Q, BN station by Bruce Fingerhood from Springfield, Oregon, US / CC BY
All other photos are by Roy A. Barnes.

Festival du Bois in Maillardville Celebrates French-Canadian Heritage

Coquitlam, British Columbia

by W. Ruth Kozak

I’m standing in line waiting to enter the big tent in Macklin Park, aware that I am surrounded by French-speaking folks. On this cold West coast evening, I imagine that I could actually be in Quebec. But this is Maillardville, a neighbourhood in the city of Coquitlam near Vancouver, BC.

It’s almost time for the evening show to go on and the enormous tent is already crammed to capacity. Long tables are set up, banquet style, occupied by hundreds of people, some of them sporting toques and sashes, some enjoying plates of French Canadian cuisine and a glass of beer or wine. The atmosphere is definitely festive.

This is Maillardville’s annual Festival du Bois, an event celebrating it’s francophone roots. Maillardville is the largest francophone community in Western Canada. It was built up by workers from Sherbrooke Quebec and Rockland Ontario in 1909/10 when skilled workers were recruited to work at the Canadian Western Lumber Company. Soon many other French-speaking people from across Canada arrived. The parish of Notre Dame de Lourdes grew under the spiritual guidance of Father Maillard, and the community took the name Maillardville in 1912.

You’ll still hear French spoken in the community of Maillardville. The street signs, business and interpretive signs are in both French and English. Even some of the architecture reflects a “French” style. The Festival du Bois is held one weekend every March to promote French Canadian culture and language with music and dance. The Main Stage, daytime on Saturday and Sunday, offers a variety of artists melding traditional Quebecois, Celtic and World tunes. The highlight is the evening performance on Saturday night.

In the tent, announcements are made in French and English introducing the first group of entertainers. The stage is crowded with young adults, teen-agers and some kids no older than Junior High school. The North Shore and Coquitlam Celtic Ensemble (left) is a culturally diverse collection of about two dozen musicians from the Greater Vancouver area who have an international reputation, and it’s not hard to understand why. With fiddles, guitars, percussion and wind instruments they perform lively Celtic music that soon has toes tapping and people step-dancing in front of the stage.

During the intermission there’s lots going on. Venders have set up tables selling French-Canadian DVDs and videos. A popular spot is the table displaying home crafted souvenir “Frog” items, everything from frog toques and scarves to knitted booties and frog toys. Out in back there are lots of delicious French Canadian treats for your eating pleasure including Montreal-style corn beef sandwiches, tourtiere and maple sugar pie. I was disappointed to find there was no poutine available Saturday night. A plate of French fries heaped with the popular, typically Quebecois cheese-curd topping would have made the evening complete.

After intermission, the hand clapping and dancing starts again with the distinctly French Canadian foot-stomping rhythms of Juno award winning La Bottine Souriante (The Smiling Boot). This group has been at the forefront of Quebec traditional music internationally for over 30 years. They began back in 1976 in the Lanaudiere region of Quebec and have become one of the most popular tradition-based groups in the world.

The early French colonists called themselves les Canadienes (the Canadians) to distinguish themselves from les Francais (the French) who were natives of France. The Canadienes inherited a rich tradition of songs and dances from Northern France, and this explains the Celtic connection that Quebec still shares with Brittany, Ireland, Scotland and the Maritimes. In time, the French Canadians developed their own music, incorporating and transforming the styles of music played by the British settlers.

La Bottine Souriante melds French, Irish and Scottish sounds. Along with jigs, reels and ballads you’ll hear salsa, ska, funk, Cajun, Latino and African melodic and rhythmic influences. Besides several Junos, the group has won FELIX awards and the BBC Folk Award for Best Live Act.

An exuberant, typically francophone mood permeates the tent. There are cheers as the band’s lively percussive dancer, Sandy Silva, step dances across the stage, flirting with the fiddler, then dancing a lively foot-stomping duet with one of the other musicians. Strings of people, holding hands, dance up and down the narrow aisle between the tables. The entire tent is bouncing, vibrating to the beat of the music. My own feet can’t stop tapping and moving to the rhythm. It doesn’t matter if you don’t speak French, or if you can dance or not. Like me you will feel part of the celebration, part of the joyous beat of the music and the camaraderie of this unique French-Canadian Festival.

Fraser Valley Private Wine Tour and Bistro Lunch

More Information:

Maillardville’s Festival du Bois: www.festivaldubois.ca
The North Shore and Coquitlam Celtic Ensemble: www.nscelticensemble.com
La Bottine Souriante: www.bottinesouriante.com
French-Canadian music: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_of_Quebec

About the author:
W. Ruth Kozak is not only a travel writer, but also a historical writer. She enjoys the music, dance and folklore of many different cultures and growing up in Canada is particularly interested in the history of the French Canadians. Maybe it’s her own Celtic roots, because she’d really like to step-dance! www.ruthkozak.com

Photo Credits:
All photos are by Paul Norton.

Scott Joplin: King of Ragtime

St. Louis, Missouri

by Michael Schuman

What jazz was in the 1920s, rhythm and blues was in the 1950s, and hip-hop was in the 1980s, are what ragtime was at the turn of the 20th century: on the cutting edge, music played in not so savory places and an art form that respectable people said was going to be the end of western civilization as we know it. And nobody in the late 1890s and early 1900s wrote and played ragtime as well as a Texas-born itinerant musician named Scott Joplin.

The only home where Joplin ever lived that still stands is a humble yet handsome, brick, walk-up flat on Delmar Boulevard in St. Louis. It is open as a state historic site, serving both as a tribute to Joplin and perhaps the nation’s most significant monument to this truly American musical genre. The bottom floor is a mini-museum devoted to ragtime and the early recording industry; the top floor is a recreated turn of the century flat, furnished like Scott Joplin and his wife Belle might have done during their residency.

Joplin may today be remembered the King of Ragtime, but he was a child prodigy who grew up playing myriad instruments, composing music and rendering the classics. In time he left Beethoven and the rest behind and gravitated towards the improvisational, syncopated rhythms that had their roots in the minstrel tradition. That evolved into the piano-dominated music called ragtime, originally known as “ragged time” because of its supposed ragged sound.

In its early days, ragtime was not the music one heard at concert halls. It was played in the saloons, brothels and skid row restaurants of railroad towns and port cities in the Midwest. Yet like jazz, rhythm and blues and hip-hop, ragtime soon made the transition from music of the counterculture and black culture to music enjoyed by the white middle class.

By the time Joplin moved into this St. Louis home in the spring of 1900, he was starting to become nationally-known. Much of his success was due to his first highly regarded published work, “Maple Leaf Rag.” It was a mega-hit in the world of ragtime and became the first sheet music to sell over a million copies.

In the home’s museum section visitors can peruse the covers of period sheet music, and several are evocative of the day’s racial mood. The cover art for his 1902 composition, “The Entertainer,” is by today’s standards remarkably racist — a stereotypical strutting, top-hatted black minstrel-style performer. Another 1902 number is titled, “I Am Thinking of My Pickaninny Days.”

It was “The Entertainer” that turned a new generation onto this leader of ragtime royalty. Joplin was a footnote in musical history when in 1974 composer Marvin Hamlisch arranged much of Joplin’s music for the movie, The Sting. The movie went on to win seven Academy Awards, including best picture, and it spawned a single: Hamlisch’s rendition of “The Entertainer.” During a time when the music charts were topped by artists such as Elton John, John Lennon, and The Allman Brothers Band, this anachronistic ragtime number reached number 3 on Billboard magazine’s Hot 100 list. After decades of obscurity the world had rediscovered Scott Joplin.

It is hard to appreciate ragtime without hearing it, and visitors are permitted to have a seat at a period player piano and pump the pedals. The QRS player piano rolls offer ragtime numbers such as the bouncy “Magnetic Rag” and “Swipesy: Cake Walk.”

The cakewalk was a hybrid, a combination of a dance consisting of alternating hopping and kicking steps, and an early version of the game musical chairs. The last couple standing won a prize, literally a cake, although prizes gradually became bigger over time. The cakewalk was incredibly popular around the turn of the century. Site administrator Cookie Jordan noted, “Because black Baptists did not allow dancing they did not refer to the cakewalk as a dance. They called it a march.”

Joplin’s prime years coincided with the infancy of the recording industry. Ancestors of today’s MP3s, ipods and compact discs were recorded cylinders, and several are displayed here. Recorded cylinders lasted on the market for a few decades, and were all but replaced by flat phonograph records by the late 1920s. The two most successful record manufacturers, Edison and Victrola, handcuffed the buying public much the same way computer software giants Microsoft and Apple are accused of doing today. Both Edison and Victrola manufactured record players as well as records, but one could not play an Edison record on a Victrola record player and vice versa. Victrola ultimately won the war.

You get an idea of the Joplins’ living quarters on the second floor. Says Jordan, “A lot of people have romantic notions of the Edwardian era, and they think how wonderful things were. I have to tell people they had outdoor plumbing. People had a hard life by our standards, and that’s the reality of what life was like for Scott Joplin.”

Gaslights, calcimine paint and late Victorian-style furniture offer a taste of Joplin’s day. There is a desk with pigeonholes topped with a gas lamp and sheet music; a period cabinet upright piano sits against a parlor wall. A bedroom fireplace kept the Joplins warm in winter, while they spent many muggy St. Louis summer nights outdoors on the adjacent sleeping porch.

Joplin tackled more ambitious projects beyond single ragtime tunes. He composed an opera, The Guest of Honor, to commemorate Booker T. Washington’s dinner at Teddy Roosevelt’s White House. It was performed throughout the Midwest and prairie states in 1903, although some music halls refused to accept the fact that a black man could write an opera and credited The Guest of Honor to “Scott Joplin’s Minstrel Company.” Unfortunately, the sheet music has been lost so The Guest of Honor can never again be performed.

A second Joplin opera, Treemonisha, tells the story of a post-Civil War black couple who adopt a baby girl who grows up to become a teacher and leader. No music publisher thought it would be a commercial success and Joplin was unable to sell it. He self-produced and performed it once in 1912, but Treemonisha was soon forgotten — that is, until 1972 when it was performed for a second time in Atlanta. It was then presented in Texas by the Houston Opera Company which was invited to perform it on Broadway in New York City. In 1976 Joplin was posthumously awarded a special Bicentennial Pulitzer Prize for his contributions to American music.

Jordan would like visitors to leave Joplin‘s house with an appreciation for an innovative musician from a long time ago. She says, “Museum patrons should go away with a sense of what the turn of the 19th to the 20th century was like for Joplin. It was a new age, a new music was being developed, serving as a glimpse of the times to come. Museum-goers should also be able to realize the genius of Joplin and his other ragtime contemporaries, mostly African Americans forging new ground and planting seeds for new art forms to follow.”

One of those art forms that grew out of ragtime was jazz, hatched in the 1910s and coming into its own in the 1920s. And like jazz, ragtime is a wholly American music genre.

Watch a video of the Scott Joplin House Missouri State Historic Site

St Louis Food Tour: The Dish on the Central West End District

If You Go:

Scott Joplin House State Historic Site is open Monday-Saturday 10-4 and Sunday 12-4. Tours are offered on the hour. Admission: $2.50 adults and $1.50 ages 6-12. Note: The building next to Joplin’s house has been refurbished and opened as the new Rosebud Café, featuring ragtime performances. The first floor of the café interprets a turn of the 20th century bar and gambling club. (The original Rosebud Cafe where Joplin played was located at 22nd and Market streets, roughly five blocks away.) Note: The Scott Joplin House State Historic Site will hold its 17th annual Ragtime Rally with live performances on Memorial Day, May 25, 2009.

The 29th annual Scott Joplin Ragtime Festival will take place June 3-7 in Joplin’s former home town of Sedalia, Missouri, about 190 miles west of St. Louis. Events include a ragtime concert and fish fry as well as a symposium on Joplin’s legacy. Information: Scott Joplin International Ragtime Foundation, 321 South Ohio Avenue, Sedalia, MO 65301, (866) 218-6258, (660) 826-2271

Information: Scott Joplin House State Historic Site, 2658 Delmar Boulevard, St. Louis, MO 63103; (314) 340-5790.
General information: St. Louis Convention & Visitors Commission, 701 Convention Plaza, Suite 300, St. Louis, MO 63101, (314) 421-1023, (800) 916-0040

About the author:
Michael Schuman has been writing travel copy for over 30 years. His articles have appeared in the travel sections of over 175 newspapers and two dozen magazines. He is the author of seven travel books and 23 nonfiction books for the young adult market. His latest is Barack Obama: “We Are One People.”

All photos are by Michael Schuman.