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Water and Me

Water and Me

Tag Archives: Avalon

Looking For A House

02 Monday Jul 2018

Posted by Ronald Parks in Baltimore, Eastern Shore, water history

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

Avalon, Baltimore, Gunpowder Falls, Houses, Loch Raven, Montebello, Pretty Boy, Public Works, Realtors, water history

With retirement not too far away, Kathy and I have been looking at houses the past couple of months. Some have been fairly nice, others would take too much work and still others have since been knocked down!

Of course, working for the Water Department for 37 years, why not live on watershed property or any other house owned by the City of Baltimore?

This first house was right here at the Montebello water plant. The only thing left to this house is the BBQ chimney.

Info on the house and its occupants.

Another house on the Montebello Grounds. I had actually met people who lived here. This too was knocked down.

Info on house. Nice house for a labor foreman.

And the final Montebello house.

Info on house. This is a duplicate of the Armstrong house, that the preservation people are holding up construction on a new chlorine building, but where were they when this house was razed? I guess a youth baseball field makes it ok to knock it down, but not a water process building??

Time to ride up to Loch Raven, to look at some houses:

Info on house.

This next one looks nice – also looks familiar.

Info on house.

Another nice one.

Another laborer’s house.

Moving up the Gunpowder River to check out some houses up near Prettyboy Reservoir.

A fixer upper with chickens.

This one looks like a scary place to raise kids.

Doesn’t appear to be a City employee, but still City property.

I doubt if Jimi lived here, but nice. I guess the owner was tired of people asking where the dam was so he put up a sign.

Info on house.

We leave the Gunpowder area and head back to the City, Roland Park. I like this one. A little skinny but nice. Wish the realtor would have posted some interior pics!

Property info. This guy resigned but is still living in the house.

We left there and headed back over near Montebello. Got a text from my agent saying that a house just came on the market over at Clifton!

Darn! Too late – turned over to the Park Board!

We now head west out of the city towards the Patapsco river. Avalon.

Not sure about that porch and what’s with those small upper windows??

This one looks like the Davidson house above, but it comes with children.

Info on house.

More searching took us to a couple more.

These were double occupancy, I really don’t want to live next to someone that works at the water department! This one below is a semi-detached.

The next house was unbelievably dirty. I felt sorry for this little kid, whose father worked for the City Comptroller.

It does have a mill though.

Info on the house.

A big house on the market, over on the west side – Arlington.

Looks like a school next door – don’t need the noise.

Patapsco State Park Bloede’s Dam

25 Monday Jun 2018

Posted by Ronald Parks in Dams, Floods, Hiking

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Avalon, Baltimore, Bloede Dam, engineering, Hiking, HISTORY, nature, Patapsco, photography, Public Works

Sunday was a nice day for a hike so we seized the moment and headed to Patapsco State Park. Because of all the flooding and the on-going construction to remove the Bloede’s Dam, a lot of the areas were closed off, which meant the same amount of people trying to cram the smaller accessible areas. Good thing we went early. Other than some parking at the Avalon side, the only other parking was on River Road near the swinging bridge, which was also closed off.

So we parked and took this trail.

I remember seeing this a few years ago. still not sure what it is. I think it may have been a water fountain, that by river pressure through a pipe, supplied water?

A Maryland Department of Natural Resources Geological Survey marker off the side of the trail.

The devastation from the flooding was unbelievable. This area is a few miles downstream from Ellicott City. Part of someone’s fence.

Part of a car.

Trees wrapped around trees…

Or just snapped off

Snap…

Debris everywhere, unless maybe brought here by a fisherman? Did find a bunch of sea glass (or stream glass!)

Heading to the dam, which is just under a mile away, we can see some construction debris on the other side.

Along with some debris you really don’t want to see in a stream.

Approach to the dam and construction site. From what I read, they are moving the sewer line, putting the Grist Mill Trail over it and removing the dam. 

The fish lift. Trees in the fence. 

The sewer line that needs moving.

Another view of dam.

Above the dam. The construction site, which a lot was washed away in the flood. I like how in this photo the sky is white but the reflection is blue.

On top of dam abutment. Debris just rolled right over the fence.

 

 

Historic photo of dam about 1907. Good history on Wiki.

These two photos courtesy of Baltimore County Public Library and Wikipedia.

If you read the Wiki article you can see that this was a world’s first hydro dam, 1906.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloede%27s_Dam

 

 

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