Broad Ford Autumn
Written & Compiled by
K. R. Overholt Critchfield, © 3-8-2008
Photographs by Jeffrey Antol

"Broad Ford Autumn" -
Panorama Photograph by Jeffrey Antol, ©
11-11-2007
Brittle
Leaves Underfoot
Broad Ford in
November is a haunting place, indeed. Gone are
the brilliant reds and yellows showing off in the
crisp atmosphere of early autumn days. In local
farming communities, anything worth harvesting
has been taken in for storage or taken to market.
This part of the season is a time of loss --
trees lose their color, their leaves, their
vibrance. The wind rustles through the forest and
moans the loss, loss, loss. The sky
loses its color, too, giving up fluffy white
cumulus, now favoring fog in the morning and the
evening, hanging low gray clouds throughout the
day. The warmth of summer seems far away, soon to
be a faded memory, as faded as the forest
surrounding the seriously fading Overholt whiskey
distillery.
When
Yellow Brick Looks Burnt Orange
Over the past
several years, contributions from Internet
friends and correspondents have been instrumental
to my understanding of what the A. Overholt
& Company Distillery at Broad Ford
looked like over time. Early in my journey,
Thomas Ridenour passed along to me the impresive
black and white photo taken circa 1942, which
shows the distillery at the height of its
success. Go to my list of Found Bottles &
Artifacts to see a large version of this
marvelous photo. Later on, Allen Anthony sent a
photo taken by Hubert Riedman, with whom he
shared a mid-winter canoe trip along the
Youghiogheny River in 1978. That photo appears in
a companion piece to this web page, Broad
Ford Winters (see A. Overholt &
Company Distillery, Broad Ford, PA, by
Hubert Riedman, © January 1978).
Jeffrey Antol sent
me jpegs of an old National Park Service
document he had been saving for posterity -- the
1990 Broad Ford HABS/HAER Report, which was
published on my web site in 2006. This report
showed the distillery buildings in remarkably
good shape, as compared to how they were found
during my 2004 visit (see Broad Ford Safari).
Taken together and added to this new collection
of pictures, it is easy to judge how sad a state
the site has been allowed devolve into. However,
there is a powerful beauty to be seen, as well.
Here we discover
what Broad Ford looked like this past November,
from both sides of the river. Those of us who
still hope to change the course of Broad Ford's
history look at these tough old exteriors (we
cannot get permission to examine their interiors)
and see clearly what is still possible, if we
manage to move fast enough. Please take a few
minutes to look over the remarkable photographs
below. They speak volumes to me, and perhaps will
do the same for you. My thanks to Jeffrey Antol
and his son for taking the time to trek out there
for us.

Background Detail 1: A.
Overholt & Company Buildings -
Photograph by Jeffrey Antol, © 11-11-2007

Closeup 1: A. Overholt & Company
Buildings - Photograph by Jeffrey Antol, ©
11-11-2007

Background Detail 2: A.
Overholt & Company Buildings -
Photograph by Jeffrey Antol, © 11-11-2007

Background Detail 3: A.
Overholt & Company Buildings -
Photograph by Jeffrey Antol, © 11-11-2007

Closeup 2: A. Overholt & Company
Buildings - Photograph by Jeffrey Antol, ©
11-11-2007

"Broad Ford Bridge
Supports" - Photograph by Jeffrey Antol, ©
11-11-2007

Closeup 5: Broad Ford Bridge Supports -
Photograph by Jeffrey Antol, © 11-11-2007

"Broad Ford Bridge Support
System" - Photograph by Jeffrey Antol, ©
11-11-2007

Closeup 4: Broad Ford Bridge
Support System - Photograph by Jeffrey Antol, ©
11-11-2007
When the
vegetation no longer obscures the details, it is
easier to see the strength and beauty of these
buildings. Harder to grasp are the huge
dimensions. Also plainly revealed is the evidence
of abandonment, the fault of past owners. For
more than a year, the current owner has been
trying to sell the site in parcels -- a building
here, a few buildings there. If the plan is
successful, a prospective buyer might take one
look, decide a building is not worth the price of
renovation and arrange to tear it down, which is
just one of my several worst fears. Other
haunting worries are the ongoing damage made by
wind, rain and snow, and damage from seasonal
floods that occur along the Youghiogheny River.

"Granery Bins & Boiler
House" - Photograph by Jeffrey Antol, ©
11-11-2007

"Granery Bins" -
Photograph by Jeffrey Antol, © 11-11-2007

Closeup 3: Granery Bins -
Photograph by Jeffrey Antol, © 11-11-2007
Off the Beaten
Path
Forgive me, but I
must add an aside. Whenever I begin to
construct a web page, I take a great deal of time
deciding on backgrounds and color schemes, and
obsessing about which photos to use and where to
put them. Part of the process is mapping out
sections for text, and before there is any text
to put into these spaces, I fill them with
paragraphs of a sentence people often use to
practice their typing, something used during WWII
to train office personnel. "Now is the time
for all good men to come to the aid of their
country," was the optimal sentence, because
it required the use of so many common
combinations of letters, plus it served to
reinforce a person's patriotism. Of course, my
version, "Now is the time for all good men
and women to come to the aid of their
country," is a little more politically
correct, but what is my point? Well, as I
reviewed these amazing pictures and pondered how
to end this web page, it occurred to me that my
"fall-back" paragraph says exactly what
I wish to say, namely that now is the time for
all good men and women to come to the aid of
Broad Ford.
The abandonment of
this "small industrial complex" is only
one example of the plight of many sites in many
corners of our country, where in times past,
visionaries came together with grand ideas and
harnessed muscle and bone to erect great
buildings to house an impressive enterprise. Then
time went by, and some economic base shrank to
nothing, or some corporate takeover grabbed the
reins of a vibrant company with the sole purpose
of eliminating "the competition."
Whatever the reason, it does not take long for a
business (or a school, a hospital or whatever) to
decline and their buildings to end up suddenly
abandoned. It does not take very long before
neglect leads to vandalism, and vadalism leads to
structural damage. Pretty soon, anything of any
value is stolen or destroyed "for the fun of
it." Broken windows are always hard to bear,
for if the eyes are "windows to soul,"
what do shattered windows represent on a
subliminal level?
Anyway, dear
reader, while you may not be from Western
Pennsylvania, or live anywhere near here, chances
are good that you know of some wonderful building
that is neglected or abandoned, a place you
believe should be saved. As for me, I want to
save what is left of the A. Overholt &
Company Distillery at Broad Ford. I fell in
love with the buildings the first time I set eyes
on them, was captured by the history of the
place, felt connected to it on an emotional
level, and cannot shake the belief that it is my
responsibility to work toward saving all of it.
West Overton affects me in a similar way, but the
situation is different there. The success of
Broad Ford will impact positively on the future
of West Overton, and that is something to look
forward to. Until then:
Now is the time for all good
men and women to come to the aid of their
country. Now is the time for all good men and
women to come to the aid of their country. Now is
the time -- well, my point is made.
See the third page in this
series, Broad Ford Winters.
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first page of Karen's Branches.
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