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Roadside oddities like the "shoe pole." Have you ever written about that? It's not too far from Cape in Perkins MO.

Old watertowers. Don't care much about the golf ball on a tee ones, unless they are painted cool.

This is the Mt.Nebo Evangelical United Brethren Church,later United Methodist,my cousin Mickey was baptized in in 1964. This was built in 1872 by her 3rd great-grandfather. She is deeply involved in history as my father is,and they are trying to save this church. It stands next to the cemetery south of Dahlgren,Illinois in Hamilton County. It was started by the Brock,Lambert,Seal,Shaffer,McCoy,and many other families in 1870. My dad picked these out,and he said he would become a contributor,as he and my cousin Mickey are photographers and historians and are into landmarks. They are definitely behind landmarkhunter.com

Two sites worth a look. Both do a pretty decent job of covering their chosen subjects, some of which have already been mentioned.

http://www.ohiobarns.com/index.html

http://www.dalejtravis.com/

I'd like to see the sprawling historical institutional buildings like hospitals, military property, religious schools. Also once important industry. You new site sounds almost as addictive!

Old barns (especially the round ones), old train stations/depots, old courthouses, old schools. Any of these would be great.

How about churches? The old, forgotten, wood structures that can be found on the rural county roads, and have the classic features, such as wood siding, rusted steel or wood steeple top, gothic-shaped stained glass windows, and even the occasional graveyard. There are three that I can immediately think of in St. Louis County, Minnesota. One is St. Paul's Lutheran Church in Angora, along CR 22, which is still being used today. A Google link to see this church is:

http://maps.google.com/maps?ie=UTF8&q=Cook,+MN&hq=&hnear=Cook,+St.+Louis,+Minnesota&ll=47.784738,-92.729266&spn=0,359.99176&t=h&z=17&layer=c&cbll=47.783588,-92.730034&panoid=Ff15NY5rHf93Uk_P0Y3Z3Q&cbp=12,205.83,,0,-12.72

One church features a century-old graveyard, and is located on CR 500, about 1/4 mile west of the Littlefork River pony truss bridge featured on this website. The third is a Russian Orthodox church on CR 5 near Togo.

I also like the idea of water towers.

Mike, there are a few dams already listed up here, and at least one set of locks that were posted in conjunction with historic bridges, in Dane County, Wisconsin.

http://bridgehunter.com/category/tag/dam/

http://bridgehunter.com/wi/dane/bh43537/

Tom, I agree with you. Shown below are two segments of the original Lincoln Highway that still sport their original brick paving. There are other segments of brick paved segments of the original Lincoln Highway in Ohio, near Ligonier, Indiana, Mount Vernon, Iowa and near Boys Town, Nebraska.

The first segment is sometimes called the Yellow Brick Road. It is located within the city of Pittsburgh. The second segment is located in Ohio, not far from Canton. (I took these photos during the Lincoln Highway Association conference in 2004.)

The brick segment of the original Lincoln Highway in Mount Vernon, Iowa, leads up to the 10th Avenue Bridge.

http://bridgehunter.com/ia/linn/8410/

There are also a number of gorgeous old courthouses that would qualify as landmarks. The last picture is of the old Wyandot County Courthouse in Upper Sandusky, Ohio. (Does anyone know why Upper Sandusky is below Sandusky?)

How about old school houses?

Here are a couple of prime examples.

Another vote for dams and locks. The Green River in Kentucky was canalized in 1834, and operated till the collapse of Dam #4 in 1965. Only #1 and #2 still operate, and that's just to get coal upriver to the power plant at Paradise. I have photos and locations of the ruins of all the other old locks and dams upriver, to include what's left of #4.

Interesting tidbit...the locking system on #4 was NEVER updated. When it closed in 1965, it still used the wicket/turnstile method of locking, just as it did when it opened in 1834.

This topic raises all sorts of ideas/questions. There’s a lot of interesting and or historic stuff out there, where to draw the line as to what to include in this new site seems like it could be a major obstacle. Myself I’m interested in anything that has historic value, even things that others might not consider historic in any way. In other words if it’s old and abandoned I’ll probably like it.

In fact I prefer old and abandoned. Sure, a nicely restored historic item is worth seeing, but usually something like that already has all sorts of advertisement, websites and whatnot.

I’d like to see someplace dedicated to things that have been overlooked or have been hidden for years where the majority of the public might never see or even know existed if it weren’t for people like us.

It might be nothing more than a section of old highway, overgrown with weeds, or maybe a small unmarked cemetery located in a grove of trees. An old mill dam across a stream?

I once found part of a railroad car partially buried in a ravine, with a load of scrap metal that included sheets old soda cans that were printed but had never been cut out. You would have thought I found a gold mine.

I’m sure there are a lot of you out there that have similar findings and I’d like to see them.

A web site that allowed us to show some of our more unusual findings would be a welcome addition.

[raises hand] Old highways? Sure! Railroads? Well, I dunno about the railroad themselves, there are some great railroad museums out there, too, although each one could be a site all by itself. There are some beautiful old railroad stations that are certainly landmarks. Lighthouses are also most interesting although there are probably a lot of lighthouse sites out there already, too.

Not to mention, the fascinating, the unusual, and the really strange.

1) The old C&NW Station in Green Bay, now a micro brewery.

2) Lighthouse in Lake Park.

3) Old railroad station that serves the North Freedom Railroad Museum.

4) Union Station in Kansas City.

5) The restored collection of a self-taught artesan at Prairie Moon.

6) Police Fortress in Goshen, Indiana, on the historic Lincoln Highway, used to defend Goshen's banks from John Dillinger and other depression-era bank robbers.

There's a lot of fascinating stuff out there. [/raises hand]

For me, abandoned roads.

...and perhaps some facts on some historic highways and railroads would make this site rather interesting. A person would have to categorize them very carefully so that the reader is not confused when looking at the site for the first time.

Good luck. :-)

JS

Heck i just like finding the historic landmark plaques. and pretty much any civil war battle field makes me happy.

I vote water & fire towers, dams & locks, mills, lighthouses, radio & TV towers and train depots.

Michigan's infamous Ypsilanti Water Tower. Make of it's strange shape what you will: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ypsilanti_Water_Tower

To start out with....three beautiful historic "standpipe" water towers are in St. Louis... see and read here..... you may have to copy and paste....

http://www.builtstlouis.net/watertowers/watertowers1.html

Historical landmarks, fire towers, TV towers (my specialty), mountain high points, old railroad stations, historic city halls, caves, etc.

Dams and locks systems, lighthouses, major stadiums and maybe larger WPA projects.

Landmarks: LIGHTHOUSES

Landmarks: Water towers.