Odds n Ends (p1)
The Atlas Powder Plant is enormous, covering over 1800 acres and consisting of over 240 buildings. Its easily the largest site I have ever explored for CCE; requiring over five hours, 400 photos, and (so far) 15 posts to cover. But I’ve only just scratched the surface. Besides the dozen or so buildings I’ve covered in depth in the last few weeks, I also managed to photograph a vast collection of odds and ends that were scattered about the site. These are ruins that I only briefly explored, or items that caught me eye hiding in the trees and along the trails. Before wrapping up the Senter series, I thought I’d take a few posts to share a little bit of everything else.
Starting us off is this yellow building, found on the safety side of the plant across the street from the power house. This was the plant’s laboratory, where new products and new techniques for explosive manufacturing were researched and tested. The years haven’t been kind, but the structure is still standing intact.
Sitting nearby the laboratory is this wood structure that hasn’t survived as well. There are several small buildings like this scattered about the site, all in various states of collapse. This one could of served almost any purpose.
What’s most interesting to me at Senter is the ruins of modern civilization - utilities and services that we all take for granted today. Here is one of several old telephone poles that have fallen over after decades of neglect. The copper wires that once hung off of them were no doubt removed for scrap several years ago.
Here’s one that is still standing, hiding out among the trees along the Powder-line side. I almost didn’t see the thing, it was so well camouflaged within the trees.
Here’s a closer look at one of the poles, showing a hand carved wood connector that once held ceramic insulators on which the wires were strung. The insulators have long since been destroyed.
Another piece of infrastructure at Atlas was the elevated pipe race, as you can see here in this old photo from when the plant was operating. Along these raised platforms would run pipes which carried hot water, mixed acids (for the NG houses), refrigerant, and compressed air to several buildings. They criss-crossed the entire plant, and remnants of them can be seen everywhere.
Here’s a piece of the wood catwalk that ran along with the pipes, now sitting on the ground.
And here’s part of the structure that once held those walkways and pipes up in the air. It looks as if the top portion snapped off, but I couldn’t find evidence of it anywhere. A line of these supports sat along an earth berm which ran down to the NG house from the safety side. Portions of it can be seen from the road if you look hard enough.
And the pipes themselves, at leas what remains of them. You can see the metal hangers still attached to one end of it.
What I believe was also part of the pipe races, we found these things everywhere. This one is still attached to a pole, and you can make out what looks like a bracket on the end. I think the pipes hung down from these guys. In almost every case, these guys were already on the ground having fallen down years ago. This one was standing up near the NG Store House.
To be Continued….