June 24, 2022

GASTRO OBSCURA  Department-Store Restaurants  Department-store food once entranced the American shopper. For white, middle- and upper-class American women, the imported French concept of the department store was a step into both physical and financial freedom, where women could shop, socialize, watch fashion shows, write to their friends on store letterhead, and, of course, dine, all within the stores. For generations, department-store restaurants were the toast of the town, drawing a clientele well beyond the targeted ladies-who-lunched. Here’s a small sampling of what was on offer.  READ MORE → RAILROAD ENTHUSIASTS Saving America’s Pint-Sized Railroads Railroad fact! Most railroads around the world have four feet, eight-and-a-half inches between the rails, often called “standard gauge” or “Stephenson gauge.” But in some areas in the United States, narrow gauge railroads, as they’re known, come in a variety of sizes, usually between 24 and 42 inches. At one point, there were dozens of them, existing outside the normal rail network, from the rocky coast of Newfoundland to the desert of California, with many running into the early 20th century before being abandoned in favor of standard gauge railroads or highways. Now, historians are determined to preserve this track of history. READ MORE → ATLAS OBSCURA COURSES Curate Your Personal Collection Museums tell deliberate stories. In this four-part seminar with Alexis Hyde, former curator and Director of the Museum of Broken Relationships in Los Angeles, discover how to bring museum-making into your home and learn to curate a collection of your own. This course will help you incorporate museum systems and philosophies into your life and collections. ENROLL TODAY → WANLOCKHEAD, SCOTLAND Wanlockhead Beam Engine This is a true industrial relic. It is the only reasonably complete water-powered beam pumping machine that remains in Britain, and the only one still standing in its original location. When the beam engine at Wanlockhead was built around 1870, it was designed and installed to pump water from the Straitsteps lead mine beneath it. The mine had originally opened in 1710 and was in commercial operation from 1793 until around 1850. READ MORE → HOMEGROWN ADVENTURE Climbing Pittsburgh’s 739 Public Staircases How do you settle into a new city? You might look for your nearest grocery stores, or identify your favorite coffee shops. For Laura Zurowski, settling into her new home of Pittsburgh required a little bit more than that. The Rust Belt city is home to more public staircases—739 to be exact— than anywhere else in the United States, and Zurowski has walked every single one of them. That’s a step in the right direction, we think. READ MORE → ATLAS OBSCURA TRIPS Explore Hidden Florence Journey through elaborately frescoed cathedrals, sprawling palaces steeped in history, and museums full of mysterious curios to trace the lesser-known history of this Renaissance capital. Explore secret society meeting spots, ancient villages, and centuries-old pharmacies and other often overlooked wonders of Florence. BOOK TODAY → INDIO, CALIFORNIA Dr. June McCarroll Monument In the fall of 1917, Doctor June McCarroll was driving her Model T down a stretch of highway to her office in Indio, California when she was almost run off the road by a truck. The experience spurred her to invent the white line down the middle of the road to separate lanes of highway traffic. Unfortunately, at the time, the very good idea fell on deaf ears at the local chamber of commerce. So McCarroll went out paintbrush in hand and personally painted a white stripe down the middle of the road herself. READ MORE → PRIDE MONTH 7 Establishments Celebrating LGBTQ+ Community Bars and restaurants have often served as critical safe havens for the LGBTQ+ community. Throughout much of history, operating such establishments was a radical act—one that some proprietors risked everything to do. From New Orleans, which boasts one of the oldest continuously-operating gay bars in the United States, to New York, where a legendary subterranean piano bar now inhabits the space of a famous “boy’s bar,” many of these spaces are steeped in history. Come for a drink, stay to celebrate the generations of activists who fought for the rights of these places and their patrons to exist. READ MORE → SPONSORED BY DISCOVER PUERTO RICO Hacienda Buena Vista This hacienda is more than a hundred years old and hosts the only functional hydraulic turbine in the world. Beyond the architecture and history, the hacienda features a beautiful waterfall, a river, and a forest that allows visitors to unwind surrounded by nature. LEARN MORE → ROUND AND ROUND WE GO How to Create Spherical Rocks Large boulders shaped like nearly perfect spheres can be found in a handful of places around the world. Perched amid craggy, sandy landscapes, these curious orbs have been confounding onlookers for centuries. Some are so superbly round they appear to defy nature, which has led to wild speculation as to their origins: Ancient gods? Evidence of giants? In fact, spherical boulders are molded over millions or even billions of years by a natural but long-misunderstood geological phenomenon. READ MORE → CORK, IRELAND Buttered Eggs The term “buttered eggs” might bring eggs cooked with butter to mind. But in Cork, Ireland, it once meant rubbing butter on the eggshells of whole, unbroken eggs. That might seem counterintuitive. Why waste butter on the outside of an egg? But clever Irish farmers had hit on buttering eggs as a way to preserve them during winters, when hens produce less. Better butter better butter up. READ MORE → SPONSORED BY VISIT FLORIDA Florida’s Iconic Mermaid Performers Mermaids are real! Kind of, anyway. Weeki Wachee Springs State Park hosts underwater performers year-round, for an experience unlike any other. Children of all ages enjoy mermaid performances, which spark any imagination. It’s why Weeki Wachee Springs State Park remains so special, so very Florida, after 75 years. LEARN MORE →