Broad Ford Distressed,
Page 2
Compiled &
Written by K. R. Overholt Critchfield ©
8-28-2009
Photographs &
Commentary by cjb19772009
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A. Overholt and Company
Distillery & Attached Buildings in Shadow
Photograph by cjb19772009 © 4-16-09
~~ More From Flickr
Photographer at Broad Ford ~~
This is the second
page of photographs made by Flickr photographer
cjb19772009, currently known as Mtnbiker09. The
series is called Broad Ford Distressed,
and includes Broad Ford Distressed Summer.
Featured are interior shots of the Distillery
Building (identified by cjb as Processing), the
Free Warehouse A (identified by cjb as the dual
Machine Shop-Fabricating Shop), the Office
Building, and a few other landmarks at the site.
The first group shows us the interior of the
Distillery Building, which originally contained
fifteen enormous fermenting tubs used in making
whiskey, all accessed from the first floor of the
building.
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~~ Distillery Building Interiors ~~

Distillery Entry - Photograph by cjb19772009 © 4-16-09
Blueprints of the A.
Overholt and Company distillery building
include drawings of four floors, plus another
page that displays a side view of the whole
distilling process, plus the locations of the
pipes in the basement levels. An additional page
details the elevation plan for the distillery,
cooling room, fermenting house and fermenting
house annex. There is also a page showing a
Diagrammatic Process Flow Sheet. An industrial
architect is needed to really understand the
details of the blueprints, but it appears that
each of the fifteen "fermenting tubs"
on the first floor had a capacity of 23,077
gallons each. There were two other cisterns
located in another section -- one with a capacity
of 26,027 gallons, and one with a capacity that
is undiscernable, but it is big. There were many
kinds of pipes on all the floors -- water supply
pipes, cold water and hot water pipes, slop
pipes, beer pipes, yeast pipes, etc. A whole lot
of pipes.
The second floor shows a condenser in one
corner, but also had a yeast room with six yeast
tubs, and two huge mash tubs that held 879,737
gallons each. A beer still held 24,000 gallons.
The third floor had rye meal hopper scales, malt
meal hopper scales, yeast meal scales, and a
variety of pipes. The fourth floor had bins for
corn, rye, malt, and yeast, plus conveyors, along
with tanks for cold and hot water, and the
condenser. There are a whole lot of other
details, but the interesting thing to me is that
the diagram of the whole works indicates there
were two column stills in the building.
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~~ Studying The Fermenting Tubs ~~

Fermenting Tub 1 - Photograph by cjb19772009 © 4-16-09

Fermenting Tub 2 - Photograph by cjb19772009 © 4-16-09

Fermenting Tub 3 - Photograph by cjb19772009 © 4-16-09
Above you see
the bottom of one
of the fermenting tubs, now full of an assortment
of building materials and groundwater. Take this
as a warning! You would not want to accidentally
fall into this toxic waste! |

Possible First Floor Level "Drop Tank" -
Photograph by cjb19772009 © 4-16-09
This cistern
may have been the
"drop tank" depicted on the blueprints.
At the far left, there is an opening that may
have housed the huge condenser unit that began in
the upper half of the first floor, spanned the
second and third floors, and topped off at
one-third the height of the fourth floor. The
fourth floor was a little less than the combined
heights of the second and third floors, while the
height of the first floor was a few feet more
than the height of the second floor. |
~~
Mounting For A Copper Still? ~~

Probable Chasis for Still - Photograph by cjb19772009 ©
4-16-09
It is my
guess that this is the
platform (or mounting or chasis) for one of the
huge pot stills, as indicated in the blueprints.
The stairway would take the master distiller up
to the platform where the huge pot stills nested
at the mid-floor level. The columns went up from
the top of the pots to the second level and
nearly to the ceiling of the fourth floor. Do a
little research online, and you will discover
what a modern "column still" looks
like. We can bet that the Overholt Distillery had
a pair of the finest copper stills in the
industry. The value of the stills would make them
the first things to be ripped out and sold -- for
the price of the copper alone, or as equipment to
sell to some other distillery. It would be
great to know what became of the twin Overholt
stills! And I wonder who made them, and whether
they were a matched pair, or one of them was an
original that was installed during the original
c.1880 construction of the building. From my
research thus far, experts in the field say the
best stills are made in Europe -- Scotland and
Germany are well-represented online. I confess
that the first time I saw a picture of a shiny
new copper still, I wanted to have one! The
prices being asked for small batch copper stills
are really daunting. Adding a rectification
column increases the price, but the column makes
production so much more exacting, giving the
master distiller a better chance of matching the
chemistry on a consistent basis.
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Ruined Stairway to the Platform - Photograph by
cjb19772009 © 4-16-09
~~
Free Warehouse A - aka Machine Shop-Fabricating Shop ~~

Free Warehouse A - Photograph by cjb19772009 © 4-16-09

Free Warehouse A Main Entry - Photograph by cjb19772009
© 4-16-09
~~
Free Warehouse A Interiors ~~

Free Warehouse A Interior 1 - Photograph by cjb19772009
© 4-16-09

Free Warehouse A Interior 2 - Photograph by cjb19772009
© 4-16-09

Free Warehouse A Interior 3 - Photograph by cjb19772009
© 4-16-09
~~ The
Office Building ~~

Office Building Entry Facing Railroad Tracks - Photograph
by cjb19772009 © 4-16-09
The front entry
to the Office
Building faces the CSX railroad tracks. In the
background, on the right, you see the Distillery
Building. At cjb's Flickr site, the
large-size version of this picture is available,
and shows that the stone inscription at the top
of the structure reads, "OVERHOLT & CO. REGISTERED DISTILLERY.
However, when you zoom in and manipulate the
picture in your favorite computer photo program,
another line is revealed, but is unreadable. 
It would be interesting to learn
why the main entrance to the Office Building is
facing toward the track, rather than toward the
Distillery Building. On the Distillery side (see
below), during the summer, the building is nearly
obliterated by vines.
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Office Building Rear, Facing the Distillery Building -
Photograph by cjb19772009 © 4-16-09
~~
Office Building Interiors ~~

Office Interior 1 - Photograph by cjb19772009 © 4-16-09
"Spiderweb
is still wet
with morning dew," is the caption cjb gave
the picture above. It is what he saw by training
his camera lens on the scene through a window of
the front door. These interior shots are striking
and enlightening, and you will see more of them
in Inside Looking Out, one of the two
pages listed under Broad Ford Forsaken.
The whole group of pictures on this page gives
those of us wanting to renovate the Broad Ford
buildings a really clear idea of how much needs
to be done to accomplish the task. I am wondering
what these walls originally looked like, whether
they were wood-paneled, whether they were warm in
the winter. |

Office Interior 2 - Photograph by cjb19772009 © 4-16-09

Office Interior 3 - Photograph by cjb19772009 © 4-16-09

Office Interior 4 - Photograph by cjb19772009 © 4-16-09
I am wondering
which one of
these rooms was the place where, circa 1935, a
man labored long at a manual typewriter, plunking
out the original text to commemorate the 125th
anniversary of the manufacture of Old
Overholt Whiskey as a commercial product. My
discovery of a copy of that text in the
Pennsylvania Room of the Carnegie Library
(c.1995-96) marked a turning point in my efforts
to learn about my ancestors, and that text became
the basis for my first big article for Karen's
Branches -- OLD OVERHOLT: The History of
A Whiskey, published in 1999. |

Office Interior 5 - Photograph by cjb19772009 © 4-16-09

Office Interior 6 - Photograph by cjb19772009 © 4-16-09

Office Interior 7 - Photograph by cjb19772009 © 4-16-09

Ruined Antique Bathroom - Photograph by cjb19772009 ©
4-16-09

Office Stairway 1 - Photograph by cjb19772009 © 4-16-09

Office Stairway 2 - Photograph by cjb19772009 © 4-16-09

Office Stairway 3 - Photograph by cjb19772009 © 4-16-09
~~ The
Grain Elevator ~~

Grain Elevator Entry 1 - Photograph by cjb19772009 ©
4-16-09

Grain Elevator Entry 2 - Photograph by cjb19772009 ©
4-16-09

Grain Elevator Interior 1 - Photograph by cjb19772009 ©
4-16-09

Grain Elevator Interior 2 - Photograph by cjb19772009 ©
4-16-09
~~ Trespassers Beware! ~~
When you look at the sad state of
the buildings that are left at the Broad Ford
site, I hope you are all paying attention,
because it is no "walk in the park"
there. This is a wild area, where
poisonous snakes, various poison ivies, bee hives
and hornet nests are part of the landscape!
The next three photos show one of
the many very real dangers of wandering
around while the site is in its present condition
-- i.e., watery basements. As seen here,
these areas are without proper barriers to
protect wild animals, occasional hikers or secret
vandals, and you if you decide to go there, be
warned that serious consequences may await you,
your companions, and your dog! It does not matter
if your trek is an innocent excursion or a
planned graffiti mission in the dead of night. At
the very least, thirteen huge structures are now
missing at Broad Ford, and many of them must have
had basements that are now repositories of
sudden death! So, really, people! Pay
attention!
Our thanks to cjb for facing the
hazards of exploring the property and showing us
the many dangers!
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Watery Basement Portal - Photograph by cjb19772009 ©
4-16-09

Watery Basement Stairs - Photograph by cjb19772009 ©
4-16-09

Watery Basement - Photograph by cjb19772009 © 2008
Taken in
2008, cjb commented,
"The building that was above this is no
longer here. This is basically the basement.
Water has been accumulating in it for so long
that it is about 6 feet deep. It has since been
torn down and filled in." |
Go on to the third page of the Distressed
series, Broad Ford Distressed Summer,
or go on to the first page of Broad Ford Forsaken,
Inside Looking Out.
Go on to Broad Ford Views 2,
the first of several new pages in the Views
series.
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