Stratford, Virginia

Stratford Hall Plantation:  Rarely does a mill pond get a historical marker of its own.  Usually, the mill itself gets all the attention.  That's why it's refreshing to see a marker right beside the pond  that was crucial to the mill's operation.  It's also refreshing to see so much geography in the marker's text.  [2010]

Stratford, Virginia

Stratford Hall Plantation:  At Stratford Hall was born Robert E. Lee:  Don't you think his family plantation deserves a marker of its own?  Virginia's Northern Neck could easily market itself as the birthplace of American leadership.  Take that theme and go about re-designing the peninsula's historical marker collection.  [2010]

Mt. Vernon, Virginia

Too Much History:   All you can say is that it's the Virginia way.  When you cross the Virginia line, get ready to play Mussorgski's 'Pictures at an Exhibition.'  We don't have roadside markers, we have roadside galleries.  [2011]

New Kent, Virginia

Too Much History:   Don't even bother to read them.  The message is in their number.  What kind of a state has so much history it has to parade its markers along its verges in groups of five?  Virginia suffers from so much history, it doesn't know what to do with it all.  [1985]

Woodbridge, Virginia

Too Much History:   Geographers would attribute this example of placard proximity to agglomeration economies.  What economy is achieved?  You can read three markers with only one stop of the car.  Needless to say, you couldn't read all three (or even one) on a pass-by.  [2011]

Essington, Pennsylvania

Eternal Life on the Landscape:  Governor of New Sweden, Johann Printz, was the William Penn of his time.  With a full-form statue, Printz takes his place as one of the main characters in the European colonization of the Atlantic seaboard.  The text beneath his feet reads like a resume for his next position.  [2008]

London, England

Eternal Life on the Landscape:  Paul Julius Reuter, founder of the eponymous news agency, died in 1899, but a full bust in front of London's Royal Exchange keeps his memory alive.  His pioneering work in gathering and transmitting news turned heads towards London and helped to make it the city it is today.  [2009]

Washington, DC

Eternal Life on the Landscape:  The name is Lajos Kossuth, and his visage leaps off the wall of the Kossuth House in a bas relief sculpture.  From his niche, 'the father of Hungarian democarcy' has been watching over the Dupont Circle neighborhood since the 1930s.  Democracy has a history and Kossuth is part of it.  [2012]

New York, New York

Eternal Life on the Landscape: On the landscape, immortality comes closer when a picture supplements the name.  Richard Tucker Park, on Broadway, honors the legacy of a world-class tenor in a world-class city.  It is so American to extol individual achievement in our historical marker programs.  [2012]

Cincinnati, Ohio

Eternal Life on the Landscape:  Hank Williams will live forever in downtown Cincinnati, where "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry" was recorded at the Herzog.  Erecting a historical marker is one way we keep people around long after they have passed.  Of course, this isn't the only marker on which Williams' name appears.  [2012]

London, England

Tower Hill Sundial:  The Wooden O is what Shakespeare called the Globe Theatre.  Now, it has been commemorated under foot in London's Bronze O, the outer ring of the Tower Hill Sundial.  Roadside markers present "history in a square."  Here's variation on a theme:  history in an O.  [2009]

London, England

Tower Hill Sundial:  Laid into the outer rim of the sundial are bas reliefs that mark events in London's history.  The original city walls were completed in 220 AD and restored in 896.  Only one thing happened in between:  St. Paul's was built.  Who chooses what to memorialize on a timeline like this?  [2009]

London, England

Tower Hill Sundial:  Two time tracks rim the Tower Hill Sundial: one marks the hours (Roman numerals) and one marks the centuries (bronze bas reliefs).  London Transport (see the Underground marker?) unveiled the timepiece in 1992.  Around its base are bronze bas reliefs that depict, century by century,  the evolution of the city's landscape. The full chronology is laid out at <http://www.streetsensation.co.uk/history/sundial.htm> [2009]