Photos and Content On This Website
Copyright Ó 2006-2008 by Robert Turner
All Rights Reserved.
No photos, content, or other items from this website may be copied in any manner whatsoever, including but not limited to in writing, storage in a retrieval system, or using it on another website, without the prior written consent of the owner.
How to Navigate From Page to Page on the Website
We tried to make our site easy for visitors to navigate. First, choose the main topic you want to read about by clicking on one of the main menu topics on the left side of the page. It looks like this:
HOME
ADVERTISING
AERIAL
PHOTOS
Clicking on the main menu (but not this demonstration version), will take you to the main page of the named topic. Once there, you will see a sub-topic menu that looks like this:
If the topic requires more than one page to cover, one or more of the numbers in the sub-topic menu will be blue. When you click on a blue number, it will take you to another page within the same topic. You can change pages by simply clicking another blue number, or return to the topic's main page by clicking "Subject Main".
The sub-topic menu above is for example only and does not carry you to other pages, but the one at the top of the page will. If it were a real menu, clicking on SUBJECT MAIN would take you to page 1 of the topic. Clicking on 2 or 3 would take you to other pages. If a number is black, it does not contain information and will not carry you to another page.
For Visitors Using Dial-Up Connections:
By its very nature, this site contains lots of photographs. We minimized photo resolution as much as possible to provide faster load times, but due to their content certain pages contain many photos or large photos.
These pages load very slowly on dial-up connections. Therefore, on the main pages describing them, we marked graphic-intensive pages with (LG) to indicate "Large Graphics."
Website Graphics:
We wanted to enhance the website's appearance in the 2008 update, so we added a few simple, but standardized graphics to each page to provide a uniform site appearance and dress it up a little.
However, since our site depends heavily on historic photographs and many articles are very long, we also wanted to respect our many visitors who live in rural areas and can't get broadband internet.
Therefore, we purposely used a minimal amount of very simple graphics -- just enough to do the job, but not enough to unnecessarily slow down our dial-up visitor's downloads. We refrained from using animation and certain other things that would have been more attractive, but were not necessary to tell the stories in favor of reducing download size.
Page loads are slow enough on dial-up connections when we simply include the things you come to see.
Where possible, we also used larger type to make pages more readable for small children and older adults.
Viewing this site:
We designed this site on a 17" monitor at 1024 x 768 screen resolution. You can view the site at lower or higher resolutions, but will not have to slide your screen back and forth if your monitor is set to 1024 x 768 or higher resolution.
Because many CRT monitors are still in use, screen backgrounds were optimized for CRT monitors, and do not show well on LCD monitors. We could not make the backgrounds as dark as required for an LCD monitor without making the text hard or impossible to read on a CRT monitor. You can darken your LCD monitor to view backgrounds and other light objects if you choose to do so.
About opinions stated on this website:
I basically try to stick to historical facts documented from period newspaper accounts and government records. However, from time to time, I state personal feelings about certain things, like the fact that far too much of our history has been allowed to slip away.
Please be advised that any opinion stated on this website is strictly my own and is stated without prior advisement or input from anyone else. At times, I may be in 100% agreement with the opinions and positions expressed by the Titus County Historical Commission, members of our local government agencies, and others in the community.
However, at other times, I may disagree with those opinions about the best course of action. Nothing said on this site is done to cause dissent, dissatisfaction, or other problems, and I accept 100% responsibility for anything in the nature of a personal opinion said on this site because they are my own.
About building histories and origins:
We are at a distinct disadvantage in trying to build a history of many of the town's early buildings. Microfilmed newspapers begin in late 1923 and go through 1967. Many of Mt. Pleasant down town buildings were erected in the latter 1800's or very early 1900's. Therefore, we cannot use newspaper articles to trace their origins and no tax records are available for the very early years. We will do the best we can with the information available to present as thorough a history of some of the older buildings as possible.
About addresses shown on the website:
Many Mt. Pleasant street names were changed when the first city map was printed in 1929. We are still trying to pinpoint the locations of some streets mentioned in news articles printed before then. We added a cross-reference showing current and previous names where possible so visitors can locate the streets referenced in historic news articles.
When possible, we try to refer to a location in terms similar to "the east corner of Second and Madison Streets" rather than "the Hill Enochs building" so that locations mentioned in various stories will remain accurate for as long as possible. Regardless changes in owners and addresses, the building's location won't change.
We have several reasons for doing this. First, newspapers, books, and other documents printed several years ago refer to buildings as "where XYZ is now." This description was fine when they were printed, but "XYZ" is no longer in business, and in many cases the building has been occupied by someone else for many years. This makes the buildings hard, if not impossible, for younger visitors to locate.
We commonly use descriptions like "currently 123 Main Street." Many buildings were re-numbered with the implementation of the 9-1-1 system, which requires uniform street addresses. The address we give may not have been accurate for the location years ago, but we don't expect it to change again anytime soon. Irrespective of who may occupy the building in locate the building if they choose to do so.
About references to the Sanborn maps:
You will notice many references to the Sanborn maps throughout this website. The Sanborn Map Company, based in New York, made maps of many United States towns for many years. The large-scale maps maps show each building in a downtown area and were designed for fire insurance companies' and rating agencies' use. Among other things, the maps show if a building was frame or masonry, and the general nature of the business that occupied it when the map was drawn. (The map will list "hdw. or hardware" to indicate that a hardware store occupied a certain building, but not the trade name as "Joe's Hardware Store.")
Sanborn maps were updated about every five years, so are one of the better sources to determine when a building was constructed or to indicate types of occupants in a given year. They also can be used to determine changes in occupants during the five years between maps.
About our name on most photos and illegal copying of our content:
Placing our name across every photo detracts from the website, and doing so was not our original intention and is not our preference. We asked for, and were granted, permission to use every photo on this site and we greatly appreciate the owners for letting us use their photos. We spent lots of time and money finding, collecting, scanning, returning, and digitally enhancing the photos shown on this site, not to mention doing the background research necessary for the articles and writing them for you to enjoy.
In addition, we spent lots of time and money to purchase a quality digital camera with several lenses and drive back and forth over the county, particularly with gasoline at $3.00 per gallon, taking current photos to illustrate topics on the website.
Unfortunately, some people who are too lazy to do their own work want to use the results of our hard work for their own gain without our permission and without expending any time (or money) themselves. Therefore, to protect ourselves and the photo owners, we branded each picture so it will be highly obvious if they are used anywhere else.
We are truly sorry to have to take such measures, which detracts from the photos and annoys our many ethical visitors. However, we felt this is necessary to protect our work and the photo owners from the few website visitors who are too lazy to do their own work. We have also taken other methods to protect our content and copyrights to allow us to pursue legal action against anyone who misappropriates content from this website, and will do so any time we find our content being used without our permission.
