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Picket Post Mansion Open House, Jan. 7 & 8

December 6, 2016 By Kim Stone 1,914 Comments

Picket Post House Open House January 7 & 8, 2017 from 9 a.m. – 4 p.m.

Admission is $20 each for adults and children, payable at the Visitor Center Gift Shop. Regular admission of $12.50 (beginning January 1, 2017) adults and $5 children is also required. Tickets are sold the days of the Open House only, and access to the Picket Post House is from the Main Trail, a walk of approximately one half mile from the Visitor Center. No advance tickets are sold.

Construction of the Picket Post House began in 1923 and took 14 months to complete. Colonel William Boyce Thompson founded the Boyce Thompson Arboretum and donated his house and the surrounding property to the Arboretum in 1928.  The Colonel passed away on June 27, 1930.

The mansion was built on land belonging to the Crook National Forest  (now known as Tonto National Forest) with a permit from the Forest Service. The Colonel later made an exchange with the Forest Service for land he owned in northern Arizona which deeded him approximately 293 acres of land. He also purchased an additional 108 acres to complete the Arboretum.

picket-post-shortly-after-completion-ps1-for-handout

Picket Post House in 1920s

The main building (the Main House) was constructed of two layers of red brick that were manufactured in a brick yard in nearby Superior.  The exterior is smooth plaster but with subtle, yet distinct, fan-shaped ornamentations that are clearly visible when the surface is observed closely. Jack Davey, a local contractor and brick mason, built Picket Post House as well as the Crider and Gibson houses at the Arboretum. He also built numerous brick buildings in Superior, including the smelter and other mine buildings. Jack Davey also won the bid for the original Administration Building (now called the Smith Building) and was awarded the contract on October 20, 1925.
All floors in the main building are constructed of oak, except for the large dining room which is made of Douglas fir. Mrs. Thompson’s house also has oak floors.

Picket Post Mansion originally consisted of three distinct buildings, with construction carried out in several different phases.  The first to be started and completed was the Main House. It contains a kitchen on the first floor with a dining room above, connected by a still-functional dumbwaiter. Each of the second story bedrooms has two entrances: one from the central portion of the house and one from an enclosed veranda that wraps around three sides of the perimeter of the building.

The second phase of construction began with the building of a smaller house for the Colonel’s wife, Gertrude, on the east side of the main building. At the same time, on the south side, a third building was built that served as the Colonel’s private residence, often referred to as “Colonel Thompson’s House” or “The Cliff House.” A tall rectangular water tower was also attached to the Colonel’s residence. While the Main house is of mainly masonry construction, the other buildings are  constructed of masonry and wood-framing, finished with matching lath and plaster.
One of the most endearing and infamous stories about the Picket Post Mansion is in regards to the Colonel’s personal elevator. Early stories circulated that the elevator went from the mansion to the floor of Queen Creek canyon, a feat that would have required drilling through nearly a hundred feet of solid rock.

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Colonel Thompson stands in front of the Main House in 1924 as construction nears completion. Notice the balled-and-burlapped trees near his feet that are ready to be planted.

In truth, the elevator was only three and a half stories high,  allowing the Colonel access to the roof of his residence on one side and to an adjacent rock viewing promontory he called the  “Eagle’s Nest” on the other. The elevator then carried him down three stories to the  first floor where a concrete platform  connected with an elevated path that skirts the west side of the building.

This path is formed and supported by a substantial rock wall that is clearly visible from the Arboretum grounds to the west. This impressive wall was built in 1929 by a Slovakian stone mason known as “Doby Tom.” From this vine and flower-covered path, the Colonel, who was now restricted to a wheelchair after a stroke, could be wheeled via connecting dirt trails down into Queen Creek canyon and other points in the Arboretum.

The elevator was contracted to be built by the Otis Elevator company in April of 1929 for a cost of $3395. Other building improvements were also made at the same time, including the enlargement of a wing of the Main House, the rebuilding of parts of the Cliff House, and a new, above-ground utility line that was required by the 220 volt motor that powered the elevator. Unfortunately, Colonel Thompson was only able to use the elevator for a few weeks after its completion before his death in 1930.  It is said that he enjoyed watching the sun set twice: once from a lower floor of his residence and then again, after a short vertical elevator ride, from the roof.

Many of the first plants for landscaping the Picket Post House and for the Arboretum were purchased at Armstrong Nurseries in Ontario, California and brought back in the Colonel’s private rail car, Alder, by Col. Thompson, Col. Thompson’s nephew Joe E. Thompson, and Arboretum Director Franklin Crider. Colonel Thompson grew up in Alder Gulch, Montana and he named both his private rail car and his yacht – thought to be the second largest private yacht in the world at the time – Alder, after his home town.

After lying vacant for 16 years, the Picket Post House was sold in March of 1946 to Walter and Ida Franklin of Globe for $40,000 after it became too much of a financial burden for the Arboretum to maintain and secure.
The Picket Post House then operated as a bed and breakfast.  One of its more famous visitors was Admiral Richard Byrd’s wife and two daughters in 1947, who stayed there while the Admiral was away on an expedition to the South Pole.  Again, due to the cost of maintaining the Picket Post House, it changed hands and eventually was acquired by Rick and Tina Rose.  Most people’s memories of tours were probably during the Rose’s ownership.  On July 15, 2008, Arizona State Parks purchased the property to make the Arboretum whole once again.

As the mansion stands today, it consists of two separate buildings totaling 7,287 square feet.  The two story main residence contains 6,402 square feet and  Gertrude Thompson’s house contains 885 square feet.  All of the other buildings, including the Colonel’s personal residence and the attached water tower and elevator, were destroyed in a fire on June 8, 1960. Although nearly all of the original furnishings are gone, many of the “built-in” features of the house still remain. Some of these include wooden bedroom doors that open into the veranda, built in shelving, fireplaces, light switches and other hardware, a working dumbwaiter, a warming oven and lighted servant’s buttons in the butler’s pantry, steps carved out of rhyolite bedrock that lead to the eagle’s nest, outdoor masonry steps, and other hardscape features outside of the buildings. Nearly all of the carpeting, window, wall, and ceiling treatments, as well as current furnishings, were added after the mansion changed hands in 1946.

Renovations to restore the Picket Post House have not yet begun, but the interest in this historic structure has led the Arboretum to open it to help raise funds for its operations. We hope to have the house fully renovated well before our 100th anniversary in 2029.

Here are some images from the December Open House. Click on any image to open a lightbox slide show.

 

 

 

 

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Filed Under: Events, The Arboretum, Trending Tagged With: alder, architecture, arizona, arizona history, boyce thompson arboretum, boyce thompson institute, castle on the rock, cliff house, col. thompson, elevator, history, mansion, mining, mining magnate, picket post house, william boyce thompson

“Are you shooting in RAW?”

November 23, 2016 By Joseph Pacheco 517 Comments

Whether from an excited friend or random stranger on the trail admiring your brand new DSLR it is bound to occur. The phrase that basically means asks you if you’re a “serious” photographer which is,

“Are you shooting in RAW?”

Usually when we press, click, or tap to snap a photo with a digital camera of any kind there is a process that occurs almost instantaneously. The camera focuses light through a lens onto a sensor that absorbs light and records it as data which is then interpreted into an image by a processor. At this point you can see the image on your screen! This is fantastic for many of us as the end result is an immediately shareable picture.

But what happens when you shoot in this fabled RAW mode that is available on your camera? Well, it simply means that instead of an image processor developing the photo for you, you do it yourself with the raw data the camera sensor has collected! Still don’t understand? Let’s see if we can illustrate this better…

Sponge on paint

A camera sensor is like a sponge and light is like paint. When the sensor absorbs light it has a certain depth to it much like the sponge does having absorbed paint. Ultimately the end result in both cases could be seen as an absorption of information.

Sponge dabs alt

Now having saturated our sponge with information we could press it onto some paper and get a deep imprint of the paint, We could also gently dab it for a shallower imprint; Depending on how we press the sponge we have a specific result based on the same information. This would be much like developing a digital image from raw data. You would tweak settings in a processing program and get the result you want from the absorbed information. Adobe Lightroom is probably the most popular program for this. It is available for home computers, however, I will briefly demonstrate it on the Lightroom smartphone app version:

capture

Comparing these two screenshots we see that the shadows were able to be altered. The camera had absorbed light from dark areas, but the processor interpreted the image in a way I didn’t prefer. With a quick tweak I am able to make my  photos do what I intend with the light my sensor recorded. This capability is why shooting in RAW excites people so much. You have more control over how well your photo turns out after it has been taken.

Hopefully this helps some folks grasp what this whole “RAW” thing is and why it may or may not be for them. For those who are interested the Arboretum has a Lightroom Users Group that meets monthly. Keep an eye on our newsletter or check the events page at our website for upcoming meeting dates.

 

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Filed Under: Mobile Tech, The Arboretum, Trending, Uncategorized Tagged With: adobe, Arboretum, arizona, cam, cellphone, DSLR, file, format, handycam, lens, light, lightroom, mobile, photography, RAW, simple

Pokémon GO: An Enviroment for Learning

August 23, 2016 By Joseph Pacheco 1 Comment

IMG_20160823_152721In the world of smartphones and virtual applications we have come to a new universe to explore. Augmented reality is finally gaining traction as Pokémon GO, one of the most downloaded mobile game apps of all time, has changed the way people interact with their environment and each other.

Make no mistake, there are many variables to consider when it comes to disruptive technology and Pokémon GO is no acception. With news stories about people stumbling upon corpses, or walking into traffic being quite prolific in the news and on our social media feeds, it is easy to feel it could do more bad than good. Of course this isn’t truly the case as many positive things come with new technology. In the case of Pokémon GO we at the Arboretum have found that the game’s developer has gone to great lengths to include real-world data in the game which opens up a slew of opportunities for knowledge transfer.

gym

Much of our signage in the park has been designated as locations for players of the game to not only make gains in-game, but also serve to include the tangible environment as a part of this. Points along the trail have been  highlighted as beneficial to visit for users seeking to get ahead. This acts as a prompt for individuals and groups to take part in learning is present on more than one platform.
Take for instance this sign about salt content in soil. The game prompts users as to the presence of information.

With the creativity of educators this can be pushed even further as it would offer students incentive to pay closer attention to the environment. In tandem with this point of interest is may be an in-game “gym” which is a larger area of interest to all who play the game. These gyms areas are essentially rally-points which tend to be in an area with seating and space; they’re perfect for harboring a group as a potential audience for an interpretive guide or a teacher to present.

Hopefully service providers to extend their reach to parks and garden as often they are not completely covered. The Arboretum out here in Superior, Arizona for the moment seems mostly compatible with only those on Verizon and T-mobile networks. We fully anticipate educators and those who operate in interpretive capacities will be looking closely at augmented reality apps to better information transfer. It is very exciting. It definitely doesn’t end here. If you would like to give it a try Pokémon GO is available on smartphone devices in both the Apple store and Google play. 

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Filed Under: Trending Tagged With: android, animals, apple, Arboretum, arizona, aumented, bulbasaur, cool, disruptive, enviroment, future, Go, google, guide, interpret, interpretation, iphone, learning, pikachu, plants, Pokemon, pokemongo, reality, smartphone, teaching, tech, technology, trail

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