Signs along the way

This morning I took my last walk (for this trip – hopefully not for the future) around the loop on top of Monte Sano.

The mountain outside of Huntsville, AL has a fascinating history – at one point there was a major spa-type resort hotel that welcomed such guests as William H. Vanderbilt, William Waldorf Astor, Walter Damrosch, Jay Gould and Helen Keller.

Signs along the way allow one to understand the history of the mountain:

 

Built as a healthy place "out of town".

 

 

As a place of recuperation in the late 1800s

 As part of Roosevelt's Conservation projects (Civilian Conservation Corps) from 1935-40. The legace of this is the 2,340 acre Monte Sano State Park.

The only remaining "proof" of the C.C.C.

 

 

 

 

 

When Wernher von Braun and his team of scientist were brought from Germany to Tex after the war, they didn't fit in well with the locals and were eventually transferred to Huntsville, AL. Many lived up here on the mountains and I could still speak German to the older generation just 15 years ago.

 

Still today, it is a very wooded residential district and many homes show this sign in the front of their lawn.  I took these pictures earlier this week and today had no camera with me: naturally there were three bunny rabbits, a gray squirrel and even an opossum!

Signs along the way: teaching us what went before.

Signs along the way: educating us as to what we can still accomplish.