Author: Ms. R.

Straddling the border of Nobleboro and Newcastle near the Maine coast, the Damariscotta Mills fish ladder is an unexpected local landmark—a centuries-old effort to protect the alewives that travel each spring from Great Salt Bay to the fresh water of Damariscotta Lake, where the fish spawn, that is still an economic engine for the small towns today. This story began with the alewife, an anadromous—or migrating from the sea to rivers to spawn—species of herring slightly larger than a……

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Keystone Gallery is a combination fossil museum, art gallery, and gift shop. The museum contains an extensive, scientific collection of local Kansas fossils. The area known as western Kansas was once covered by a great sea. Various examples of this time period can be found at Keystone Gallery. Many of these fossils were discovered in the nearby areas of Monument Rocks, Little Jerusalem Badlands State Park, and in other remote surrounding areas.  Fossils include prehistoric fish, turtle, and bird……

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This historic site contains the ruins of Federal Mill No. 3, which was once a large smelting plant used to refine lead as part of the extensive network of lead mining in this part of Missouri known as the “Lead Belt.” The site was donated to the state parks in 1975 by the St. Joseph Lead Company after it was decommissioned. The site contains 18 buildings including the powerhouse, crusher, and machine shops in various stages of rust and……

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The Stearns History Museum is home to archives, exhibits, and more dedicated to the history of central Minnesota. Originally established as the Stearns County Historical Society in 1939, the museum broke ground in 1982 and is still in the same location today.  The museum features permanent as well as rotating exhibits, events, activities, and much more. The history of granite mining in central Minnesota, fashions from the past, and antique toys all call the museum home.  The museum is……

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Ask any Brit what the largest airport in the U.K. is, the answer is always going to be Heathrow or Gatwick. This was very nearly not the case, as during the ’60s and ’70s, this quiet corner of Buckinghamshire countryside was threatened with extinction, so the villages fought back.  In the 1960s, the government assigned  High Court judge Eustace Roskill to look into appropriate locations for London’s third airport. By 1969, the Roskill Report was published, the report concluded that the area surrounding……

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Isaac Brower, a surgeon from rural Indiana, spent much of the mid-19th century in Fiji, promoting American interests in the region in some vague capacity, running cotton plantations, and hoovering up local artifacts. But he never set foot in what is now the island nation of Kiribati, some 1,300 miles from Fiji, according to Stéphanie Leclerc-Caffarel, a researcher at Paris’s Musée du quai Branly who is writing a book about Brower. So no one’s sure how he acquired the……

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The most well-known inland diving site in the United Kingdom is Stoney Cove, which boasts the largest inland wreck. However, this quieter quarry near Lancaster is the final resting place of a behemoth within its waters that challenges that title.  The former limestone quarry is about 25 meters (82 feet) deep at its deepest point and boasts quite a range of attractions within its waters, including a minesweeper, helicopters, a Cessna, and there was even an oil rig which……

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Listen and subscribe on Stitcher, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and all major podcast apps. In this episode of The Atlas Obscura Podcast, we visit Timbuktu, Mali, where a collection of documents highlights the intellectual legacy of an ancient civilization based in the region. Our podcast is an audio guide to the world’s wondrous, awe-inspiring, strange places. In under 15 minutes, we’ll take you to an incredible site, and along the way you’ll meet some fascinating people and hear their stories…….

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THIS ARTICLE IS ADAPTED FROM THE APRIL 24, 2022, EDITION OF GASTRO OBSCURA’S FAVORITE THINGS NEWSLETTER. YOU CAN SIGN UP HERE. Earlier this month, I found myself driving through the winding hills of São Miguel, a small island in the Portuguese Azores. When I reached my destination, I was hit with the smell of sulfur and the warmth of steam. They were coming from fumaroles, holes in the ground that hissed with the same volcanic activity that once created……

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