Ogden, Illinois, USA

Defining Main Street: The Post Office. You can buy local goods and services along Main Street, but one particular federal service has been part of the line-up since colonial times: the post office. A declining number still boldly display the name of the towns they serve. If your building has been stripped of its toponym, work to bring it back: Be like Ogden, Illinois. [2015]

Danville, Illinois, USA

Defining Main Street: The Fire Station. When we fall in love with a main street archtype and love services it performs, it is hard to cast it on the dumpheap of history. Fire houses, for instance, are often converted to other uses, turned into museums, or simply preserved for their exterior delights. [2015]

Chicago, Illinois, USA

Covid Behaviors: Eat in the heat (because it's still a little cold). On Randolph Street in Chicago, every friend group had a "hot house," a patch of artificial turf, and a masked-up waiter to make the Covid era a little more tolerable. Once again, automobile space was turned over to the people. [2021]

Carmi, Illinois, USA

What's that salience? (a) a beach ball, (b) a tourist attraction, (c) a hot air balloon, (d) Old Glory's stripes draped over a sphere, (e) a baby's rattle, (f) a welcome sign, (g) an example of toponymic semiotics, (h) a branding iron, (i) a water tower. More than one answer may be correct. [2022]

Grayville, Illinois, USA

What's the message of the water tower? Grayville's not so gray! It's colorful: right down to the showy red maple nearby. If Grayville were on the coast, you might think of a beach ball. You also might think it mirrored two trends: (1) using water towers as branding irons, and (2) using tessellations (this time on a sphere) to make a statement. [2022]

Carmi, Illinois, USA

No one drives down Main Street without noticing the rather bland prefab building that now serves as a grocery outlet. What makes it stand out? The little giant out front. He's the one who puts the super in supermarket. In America, size sells. [2022]

Chicago, Illinois, USA

Here is an example of acculturation without assimilation. The Amish came to America in the early 1700s. Three centuries later, they are still visually identifiable as "plain people." Yet, they have borrowed from "English" culture. See the cell phones? What unites them with the muscular dude on the end? The American flag overhead. [2021]

Charleston, Illinois, USA

February is all about the number two, and 2/22 is a palindrome too! Here is what a chain-saw artist created to help Charlestonians celebrate Lincoln's birthday. Locals call him "Tiny Head Abe." But why did the city have to put him behind a chain-link fence? Be sure to see tomorrow's post. [2017]

Chicago, Illinois, USA

Urban textures: Here's the feel of vertigo and unorthodoxy, the feel of the city known to "the creative class." Everything is relative and can be seen from multiple perspectives. As cities started to exist outside the box, right angles were replaced by obliques and curves, and windows by reflective surfaces. [2021]

Chicago, Illinois, USA

Odds and Evens, Ones and Twos, Singles and Doubles, Which one be You? Here are two sentient beings intent on showing no emotion. The setting: outside a sentient Starbucks where water awaits one and where one flat white awaits the other. [2021]

Chicago, Illinois, USA

If the weather is right, wade on in. What's great about the newest generation of fountains is that they invite interaction, and Chicago's Crown Fountain has been a crowd pleaser in this regard. Where does the water come from? Out of the mouths of real Chicagoans who pucker up periodically to pour fourth a "spittance" for the pool. [2021]

Chicago, Illinois, USA

As the first skyscraper north of the Chicago River, the Wrigley Building became the leading edge of vertical urbanism in the 1920s. Its size and stunning design visually dominated the Magnificent Mile for the next 75 years. Then, it got some competition from the Trump Tower and a high-rise condo nearby. Compare the view now with the skyline in 2006. [2021]

Chicago, Illinois, USA

What do we know about the new normal? That the Chicago River will continue to be colored green for St. Patrick's Day. How do we know it? Because even though the the great god Corona declared a cessation to the St. Patrick's Day Parade, his threats did not deter the great green river's once-a-year wardrobe change. [1995]

Charleston, Illinois, USA

Jimmy John's grew up with the millennial generation, which seems to have become the sandwich generation. JJs was founded in a garage on January 13, 1983, and broke away from the competition when it prioritized delivering to the local college market. Today, it shows up on every list of the 'top 10' sandwich shops in the country. [2017]

Lerna, Illinois, USA

♫ These Are a Few of My Favorite Things ♫ ~ Barns: Just as the family farm is passing out of existence, so is the traditional barn. Some, like this double-pen barn on the reconstituted Lincoln farm, will be deliberately preserved; most will not. Geographers love to figure out why building materials, designs, and sizes of barns vary from place to place. [2017]

Momence, Illinois, USA

Unraveling rural color codes: Ford tractors are blue; International Harvester tractors are red. John Deere tractors are green; Allis-Chalmers tractors are orange. Minneapolis-Moline tractors are yellow(ish). Case tractors are gray. What company made the tractor atop this silo? [1999]

Chicago, Illinois, USA

Famous cities have famous streets, and the signs that bear their names become iconic. Why not replicate those icons at the airport (in this case O'Hare) to say "welcome" or "welcome back"? Successful branding efforts replicate icons (and iconic personalities) that have become entrenched in popular culture. [2019]

Princeton, Illinois, USA

The caption for Princeton's Red Bridge (originally built in 1863) is provided by the sign over the portal: "Five Dollars Fine For Driving More Than Twelve Horses Mules Or Cattle At One Time Or For Leading Any Beast Faster Than A Walk On Or Across This Bridge". [2019]

Greenup, Illinois, USA

"Historic Bridge Re-Created": That's the headline in the picture frame. However, the last covered bridge to stand here was washed out in 1865! No one remembers what that bridge looked like, but the town folk didn't let bother them. They built a new bridge: The Jackson Truss Covered Bridge, perhaps the most solidly built of any new-generation span. [2017]

Charleston, Illinois, USA

Real Human Characters: That's what Superman looks like on the prairies of eastern Illinois. Might you guess there is a college nearby? [2017]