Lest We Forget
This virtual will take you New Hampshire's largest mural, "Lest We Forget," in downtown Manchester. It was painted by Gordan Carlisle in 1987 (click here) and is 3,384 square feet huge. It depicts Manchester's "past, present, and future."
Manchester is a mill town. It was one of the largest mill towns in the world. At its peak in the early twentieth century, the Amoskeag Manufacturing Company was the largest textile producer in the world with 30 mills in operation, 17,000 workers, and 8 million feet of floor space. Amoskeag continued to add mills and spindles to reduce the cost of making fabric only to discover that the textile industry throughout the world had too much productive capacity for the market, and the New England mills were the ones to lose out.
The fact that there were frequent injuries and deaths in the mills points out the cruel realities of the Industrial Revolution. There were long hours, and child labor was common. The mills closed on Christmas Eve, 1935. (History lesson from here and here.)
This mural honors the men and woman who worked in these mills and made the town what it is today, the largest city in northern New England.
A large city needs large buildings and large bridges. You can see the Notre Dame bridge in the mural and some of Manchester's high rises off on the right. Sadly, you won't see the Notre Dame bridge crossing the river, it was demolished in 1989. Curiously, it also seems to have burned in 2003 (click here) and I really can't explain how a bridge that is no longer there could burn. One would think the ASCE would get it right, but I don't know...
The Cache
I was working on Bronze and Stone when I saw this mural just out of the corner of my eye. I said "wow" and called the rest of the family over. Of course I thought about a cache but frankly, there is a busy street on one side, a small alley on the other and a small parking lot facing the cache. I could stick a micro here, but what's the point? You should spend you time here looking up at the mural, not in little cubby holes. (Note, I don't have anything against urban micros, I've even placed one myself, but this spot doesn't need one.) Anyway, I digress.
After you are done enjoying the cache, take a photograph of the mural and make sure your GPS receiver is in the photo. Please post the photo with your log. If you do not have a digital camera, please email the parking space number that is directly under the mural title.
When you are done, you might as well walk over to Elm street, do the two urban micros Greetings from California Number 1 and Number 2 and after you find #2 cross Elm again and stop by the Purebred Hot Dog Eatery and have a dog and some poutine. I first tried poutine in Montreal and was pleased as punch to see it here. (Manchester has a large French Canadian population.) Just order a small serving, you won't be able to finish it all. Just order it and enjoy. It is not Atkins friendly. If you want to know what it is, decrypt the hint.