One of my many cousins from the Twin Cities called Brussels Sprouts "...those little green things" and he loved them. None of us other kids could understand how or why. Doug
A Tennessee Copper Company train bringing copper ore out of the mines near Ducktown, Tennessee. Fumes from smelting copper and the release of sulfuric acid have destroyed all vegetation causing the erosion of the landscape. Looks almost like parts of Utah. Marion Post Wolcott photo, September 1939. Library of Congress Collection.
I must have been one of those... I had a Mom that knew how to prepare them. Preparation is everything. I also ignored all the propaganda against Brussels sprouts. My first thought. Then I read "Tennessee Copper" on the engine, and my brain went "huh?"
That is a great picture Russell! Thank you for finding it. That area was like that into the 70's at least. As bad as it looks, if you were to visit that area today, you would never believe it looked like that. Last time I was in that are was in the mid 90's and there were only a very few small barren spots left. I'm not 100% sure on my dates but I believe I took this shot in the late fall of 1992 near Copper Hill TN just outside the smelter that pretty much dosed the area with all those fumes.
The Sudbury, Ontario area was much like that into the 70's too, with all the mining going on. I was there some years ago visiting the museums (like Science North, Big Nickel, and Capreol and its "Bullet-nosed Betty") and you would never believe it once looked like the Moon, dust and slag everywhere. Very green now, with marshlands, fields, woods, only the big tall stack sticking up into the sky to remind one that the place is all about nickel.
My family drove through there in 1962 when we were moving from Alaska to New Hampshire. Wow, what a desolate moonscape it was back then.
Yeh, Mother Nature abides us humans for a while. But as soon as we leave, she says, now that they've gone, I have to get back to work.
I pulled up a Google Earth view and was quite surprised by the fact the landscape was looking decent. I had not expected to see other than total destruction. I could see that something had definitely happened, but it was not blatantly obvious.
Hard to get any work done on our car when they are shuffling the consist at the Austin Steam Train Association. https://youtube.com/shorts/LZsfCrDb8FE?feature=share
Sound, no picture. Might be my mid-twentieth century UNIVAC. I got it cheap off a coyote. There's still a part of an Acme sticker on it.
