Lucky Episode 13 of the podcast begins with the story of The Outermost House in Eastham, Massachusetts. The tiny dune shack known as Fo'castle was where author Henry Beston lived for a year and wrote of life on Cape Cod's Great Beach. But what of the shack after the book was written? We explore that here.
Take a trip way Back in the Day to Chuck E Cheese's 'where a kid can be a kid.' Born from the mind of a video game pioneer this chain has had its share of tremendous ups and downs since debuting in 1977 and is actually as strong as its ever been currently. Reminisce about pizza and skeeball and horrifying animatronic animals.
The capital of Connecticut, Hartford, is the subject of this episode's Road Trip. Learn some of what makes this city a great spot to explore, and a few of the lesser-known attractions.
Finally This Week In History shines a spotlight on St. Patrick the man, Nevada legalizing gambling which gave birth to the casino hubs of Reno and later Las Vegas, plus more fun topics!
Also be sure to check out my new livestreams called Without A Map Friday's at 5pm on Instagram which serve as a sort of postgame show for the podcast. Find them on IGTV and YouTube after they've finished.
Helpful Links from this Episode
Check out Episode 12 of the podcast here.
Lucky Episode 13 of the podcast begins with the story of The Outermost House in Eastham, Massachusetts. The tiny dune shack known as Fo'castle was where author Henry Beston lived for a year and wrote of life on Cape Cod's Great Beach. But what of the shack after the book was written? We explore that here.
Take a trip way Back in the Day to Chuck E Cheese's 'where a kid can be a kid.' Born from the mind of a video game pioneer this chain has had its share of tremendous ups and downs since debuting in 1977 and is actually as strong as its ever been currently. Reminisce about pizza and skeeball and horrifying animatronic animals.
The capital of Connecticut, Hartford, is the subject of this episode's Road Trip. Learn some of what makes this city a great spot to explore, and a few of the lesser-known attractions.
Finally This Week In History shines a spotlight on St. Patrick the man, Nevada legalizing gambling which gave birth to the casino hubs of Reno and later Las Vegas, plus more fun topics!
Also be sure to check out my new livestreams called Without A Map Friday's at 5pm on Instagram which serve as a sort of postgame show for the podcast. Find them on IGTV and YouTube after they've finished.
Helpful Links from this Episode
Check out Episode 12 of the podcast here.
00:00 Intro
Hello world! How is everybody doing out there? Welcome to the, In My Footsteps Podcast. This is lucky Episode number 13. I am your host, Christopher Setterlund coming to you from the vacation destination known as Cape Cod, Massachusetts. Though I'm representing all six States of the New England region. So how's everybody doing out there?
Spring is coming. It could be here by the time you listen to this podcast, it goes up on the 18th of March. So a couple of days later, we're going to get the actual official start of spring. Although you're starting to feel it. We just turned the clocks back. That was a lot of fun, especially when I forgot we were supposed to do it until I was awake at midnight and said, wait, it's not midnight it's actually 1:00 AM.
Now. I want to thank everybody for tuning into my, Without A Map post-game podcast live stream that I do on Instagram. Episode three of that was a dumpster fire. At first, I did two takes from a beach in Harwich and both times the wifi crapped out in the middle of the live stream.
And I was cussing out pretty bad in my car at the beach. Luckily, no one was around the third time, went off without a hitch, but that time I was at home and it was later at night, about eight 30. These, when I do them, they're on Instagram live. Then they go up on IGTV on the app, and then I put them up on Facebook, Twitter. I even put them on YouTube. So if you're ever interested, it's in my footsteps podcast. But they're called without a map because they're more free flowing. And I want to use these as a vehicle to interact more with you folks that are listening to the podcast. I want it to be more interactive than this here, where it's more of me not lecturing you, but giving you all my info and there's no feedback.
A lot of fun and exciting changes are going on. In my life as we go, I left my most recent job. I had spent three years working in retirement homes after kind of getting out of working in gyms because financially it really wasn't working. I'm going back in hopefully later in the spring to try it again. But I decided to leave my most recent job in a retirement home early to kind of escape. When you're not happy somewhere, you shouldn't force yourself to stay there. And that was kind of what happened at the end. It was a very toxic and unfulfilling environment, and there's no reason to force yourself to stay someplace that you're not happy, fully happy just for financial reasons. And I got to the point where I knew I could make it work without any problem for the next few months. And I made the jump, but that goes for anyone out there. Follow your passions. That's what this is all about is betting on myself. It's not just getting back into full-time personal training.
It's having more time. To do creative ventures, the podcast live streams. I just shot a bunch of 4k video for upcoming 4k New England videos. I'm really excited about I'm doing one right now. I'm editing. I won't spoil where it is, but check out that on YouTube, it'll be coming up in the next few days, which means in reality is probably already out when this podcast goes live.
So, as I say, at the start of each podcast, thank you so much to everyone who has listened to this podcast who has given me positive feedback or, you know, feedback in general, but let me know that you're listening and those that have shared it because that's what really matters sharing this podcast and getting more eyes on the videos on YouTube and ears on the podcast, through iTunes and Pandora, Spotify, Amazon.
I have learned it's all about growing your audience and being patient as you grow your audience. So not looking at. What you think you should be download what you should be getting for downloads or views and comparing that to other people. You've got to go with your, create your niche and get your foothold and not worry so much about the other stuff.
But I really hope you've been enjoying these podcasts. I'm trying to expand a little, a little bit what I do the first few episodes. We're all travel in history and a little nostalgia, which is great. I'm trying to branch out into more of everything that makes me who I am and sharing that with you and whether that's.
Embarrassing myself with some stories like I did with the manhunt story of falling in the dog, poop from episode 11 or whether it's sharing my love of photography, which will be coming up in episode 14. I've got a special interview with my friend, Steve who's a professional photographer. So stay tuned for that. Whether it's a little more in the fitness area. I tell a story in the next podcast about how I got back into running. This was about 10 years ago when I was in my early to mid 30's, for anyone that wants to be a runner or needs that little jab to get them going again. And I'm also going to share some general lifestyle types of topics, whether it's mental health, whether it's just following your dreams and things like that.
Because I think more of you can relate to more of what I'm talking about. So stay tuned for those as they come up in the episodes that are coming up in the next few weeks and months. But right now we've got episode 13, lucky 13 of the, in my footsteps podcast, we're going to take a road trip to Hartford, Connecticut. We're going to take a look back at the Outermost House, the book by Henry Beston and the actual house itself, the Fo'castle dune shack in Eastham. And we're going to go way, way back in the day. To Chuck E Cheese. Oh boy, you're going to like that one. And of course we've got this week in history and a lot more so let's get started.
This is episode 13 of the, in my footsteps podcast. And come on, let's go take a walk.
06:51 The Outermost House
Cape Cod has its fair share of historic homes. They're all over the place being that this is one of the oldest. European settled areas in the United States. It's only natural that there are homes dating back 300 or more years all over the Cape.
The Cape is also known for its shoreline change in erosion. Unfortunately, especially over the last century, beaches erode away some beaches, actually a Creek get bigger race point. And the Southern tip of Monomoy Island have actually gotten bigger over the last 20, 30 years. And despite this knowledge that the shoreline is always changing people have this dream of living out in the sand dunes. If you go up to Provincetown, there's the dune shacks of the peaked Hill bars. It's a nice, it's a long walk to get out there to these dune shacks. That'll be covered in a future podcast. It's a rarity when a historic home, out in the dunes and the shoreline change all come together.
So this is going to be a look back at one of the most famous homes. I guess you could call it a home. Ever on Cape Cod, it became so famous that it had its own book written about it. So this is a story of a home called Fo'castle, better known as the outermost house. And it became famous in the book written by author Henry Beston. The story of Henry Beston and the outermost house begins in 1925. He was a struggling author. And he purchased 50 acres of beach, about two miles South of where the coast guard station is in Eastham. If you're familiar with coast guard beach. He asked a neighbor named Harvey Moore to build a small two room shack out in those dunes.
It was 20 feet by 16 feet. It had a bedroom and a kitchen slash living room, a well was dug. And then an outhouse was Doug. And Henry Beston had his own little hideaway way out in the dunes. Two miles South of coast guard beach. And that's way out there, Google maps, look it up and see how far it is. Henry Beston was born in Quincy and began visiting Cape Cod when he was young to visit friends, he stayed at a lot of places down there, but had a cottage on salt pond and Eastham, which basically would overlook where Fo'castle would be built. So after World War I was when Beston came to the Cape with this desire to get away from it, all the lingering effects of being in world war I and being a struggling author, he needed something to kind of recharge his batteries.
His intention was only to stay at Fo'castle in 1926 for about two weeks, but he loved it so much out there. And he got this creative inspiration. That he ended up spending an entire year out there alone with his thoughts in the dunes between 1926 and 1927. And he wrote several notebooks worth of material, it was basically just like a journal and he had no intention of making it into a manuscript, but his hand got forced. So in 1927, he left Fo'castle. He proposed to his girlfriend who was an accomplished writer named Elizabeth Coatsworth. And it turns out that Elizabeth believed in him and believed in his manuscript so much that she basically drew a line in the sand and said, no book, no marriage.
So he cultivated his collection of notes into a book called the outermost house. The reason that he gave it, the title of the outermost house was best and believed that his shack out on coast guard beach was the outermost in the Eastern United States. The book was published in October of 1928. And Henry and Elizabeth were married in June, 1929.
So it all worked out. The book was a moderate success. It was released through double day and Dorin, and it was beston's eighth published book. The initial sales were good, so he went to Europe to promote it. And in the first few years after publishing the outermost house, Beston would routinely come back to Fo'castle in East ham and rekindle his love of the beach while he also lived in Hingham.
Beston, Elizabeth and their two daughters would eventually move up North into Maine. They bought a parcel of land called chimney farm in the town of nobleboro, Maine in 1931. And by 1933, they had permits finally relocated up there. So his visits back down to Fo'castle were few and far between, but what came of Fo'castle after Beston left and moved to Maine?
So in March, 1931, a large nor'easter slammed Cape Cod and destroyed two cottages out on the East ham dunes and pushed another into the Nauset Marsh. So Fo'castle wasn't the only dune shack out there. It was just seen as the furthest one out outermost and another storm came in January, 1933 and washed away so much of the beach that Fo'castle, the house was only seven feet from the edge of the Bluffs.
Beston was concerned from up in Maine, but they moved the house back. So it was safe, but the years passed and the erosion continued. The erosion rate out there at coast guard beach is an average of 3.3 feet per year. And that's based on data from 1865 to 2015. So this isn't just a recent thing. We're talking 150 years and that's an average, that's not counting big, big storms. And we'll get to that because that kind of was what did in Fo'castle. During the summer of 1948, the outermost house was moved back 200 more yards from the water and it was reinforced and reshingle to protect it. And the funny thing is that when they move the house back, they actually turned it. So when Henry Beston came back and visited later on, it didn't face the way that he remembered. And he actually joked at somebody had moved the ocean.
Beston may have grown distant from Cape Cod, but he still remained connected. He retained ownership of the outermost house throughout the 1950s. And though he was rarely there he allowed friends to stay there. And in 1959, he donated the shack and the 50 acres that he still owned to the Massachusetts Audubon society. And in 1961, the national seashore was created. And three years later in 1964, Fo'castle was designated a national literary monument by the United States government on October 11th, 1964, Henry Beston day was celebrated at the Cape Cod national seashore in conjunction with the Audubon society.
This would be best in his last trip to Cape Cod and his last viewing of folk castle. He died April 15th, 1968, only a few weeks shy of his 80th birthday and his death renewed interest in the outer most house. So by this point, the outermost house Fo'castle was over 60 years old and so people started doing the hike out there to see it and gaze upon it in doing research for this piece on the podcast, I found a lot of photos, people took of Fo'castle during the 1970s, especially on flicker. A lot of people on that site have their own personal photographs up there. And it's good that people got these photos because it was something totally unforeseen that's spelled the end of Forecastle between February 6th and 7th, 1978.
One of the most historic blizzards in the history of the country caught the region mostly by surprise the blizzard of 78 tore through new England, but especially hit hard was the outer Cape, the high tide of 16 feet tore through the outer Cape, briefly making the area North of Fort Hill in Eastham an island.
Coast guard beach was just destroyed. There was a 350 space parking lot that collapsed and forever change the way the beach was viewed. And if you want to learn more about the blizzard of 78, I covered it more extensively in episode 9 of the podcast. But basically what happened was the outermost house was claimed by the sea.
It was pulled out into the ocean and pushed back into the Marsh, which essentially tore it to pieces. There was nothing left. Sadly Fo'castle was claimed by the very sea that Henry Beston romanticized in his book. And there are no remains. There are pictures, and you can actually see pictures from the blizzard of 78 when it got destroyed.
But since 1969 alone coastguard beach has lost over 300 feet of shoreline. Meaning that where the outermost house was originally built way back in 1926 is way out in the ocean. Now. Luckily the outermost house book itself is available widely everywhere. You can get it on any website that has books, any bookstore, and check out Henry beston.com, which is an excellent all encompassing website about the author's life.
And with spring arriving, get out there and enjoy the beaches because the shoreline is always changing here today. Gone tomorrow. Did any of you ever get to visit the outermost house folk castle way back. It's been gone for 43 years, but I don't know if anyone visited it. Anyone read the book? The book is great, but that's a brief history of the actual outermost house, Fo'castle, which used to reside in the dunes of Eastham as a kid.
16:32 Chuck E Cheese
There's few things better than pizza. And as a kid of the 1980s, there were a few things better than going to the arcade. So what's better than combining pizza and the arcade. And then you combine it with horrifying animatronic animals. Well, it ends up being one of the icons of the 80's that only lasted a little while on Cape Cod, but it's still actually going strong.
Surprisingly, it's a place to go crazy and have fun, celebrate birthdays and other milestones and achievements in school. It can only be one place. What is it? That's right. Chuck E cheese. This was one of those places high up on my list of things to talk about on the podcast when it comes to going way back in the day and the eighties nostalgia, Chuck E cheese, right at the top. Whether it's that jingle that you just heard, or the images of the gigantic animatronic animals, the huge mouse that would greet you at the door.
But I was shocked in doing my research for this segment. Chuck E cheese is actually still going strong. And as of June of 2020, there were still 612 Chuck E cheeses in the United States, there were a lot of surprises I found out about. This place where a kid can be a kid. First thing that I had no idea was that the franchise itself was created by Nolan Bushnell, who was the co-founder of Atari, the video game company.
The first Chuck E cheese opened May 17th, 1977 in San Jose, California. It was named Chuck E cheeses, pizza time theater. They chose the Chuck E cheese name because it was close as far as cadence to Mickey mouse, Chuck E cheese, Mickey mouse. That's they said the kind of give. Off that same sort of vibe. And this was meant to be the all encompassing kids Playhouse, basically with your favorite food pizza, with video games and the arcade soda and the bright colors on the wall and the different animatronic animals we'll get to those.
It seemed and felt like a place that a seven or eight year old kid would draw in crayon and say, this is what I want for my birthday is to go to a place like this. And Chuck E cheese became a big hit. In 1981, Chuck E cheese actually made more money as a franchise than McDonald's or pizza hut, which I couldn't believe.
I don't know how many of you out there went to Chuck E cheese. I'm not talking more like today, cause it's still around, but the eighties, the heyday, any of you that are my age. Little older, little younger. If any of you went to those Chuck E cheeses and what your first memory is, because I'll tell you when I think of Chuck E cheese, I think of those animatronic animals, the musicians and the stuff of nightmares.
There was basically like a hillbilly band, Mr. Munches make-believe band. They all sat and played instruments. They had, Mr. Munch was like a pizza loving monster, and they had other animals there, like Jasper T jowls, who was a dog and they would play, but they were just very stiff and jerky in their movements and if you're a seven, eight year old kid in these things are just kind of spazzing out in front of you and not the mouse moving don't match up to the music or the lyrics. This can be terrifying. That can be summed up to me with the King.
So the King was the big lion that was dressed as Elvis with the big sideburns. He was a nine foot tall lion and an Elvis Cape. And I'm telling you, I went to Chuck E cheese probably 35 years ago, and that is still in my head. I can close my eyes and see that. Just like giant lion towering over me and singing quote unquote, Elvis, but it worked and was successful. The interesting part of the Chuck E cheese story goes in 1980, a place named showbiz pizza opened and showbiz pizza basically was an offshoot from Chuck E cheese.
One of the co-founders along with Bushnell. Basically separated and created something almost identical. And of course there were tons of lawsuits back and forth, but it turns out that Bush Nell's connection with Atari in the video game universe would actually be not the downfall of Chuck E cheese, but the downfall of his involvement.
There was a huge video game crash in 1983 that almost killed the industry. If you go back to episode 1 of the podcast and I talk about the creation of the Nintendo entertainment system, I talk about it more in depth there. So what happened was Bushnell and Atari. They lost a lot of money and he had to file for bankruptcy while Chuck E cheese had to file for bankruptcy in late 83, early 84.
And the irony is the Chuck E cheese that ended up opening on Cape Cod in Hyannis opened in August, 1984. After the company had filed for bankruptcy. Talk about being snakebit. But the company Chuck E cheese was bought by showbiz pizza, the offshoot, and was absorbed in. So in a weird sort of way, it ended up back home.
Chuck E cheese was back to the same people that had started it. The co-founders bought it back and they kind of streamlined it some and despite delays and there being kind of opposition on Cape Cod to the Chuck E cheese, it opened that summer in August in what is now the staples Plaza. It was tucked in the corner, kind of where TJ Maxx is for those that live on the Cape.
And at the time the Chuck E cheese building, it was a 17,000 square foot entertainment complex, which was the largest of all the new England franchises. It was a lot of fun going there. I mean, I would have been seven, eight years old. That's why I keep referencing that age group. That's how old I was when I went and it was fun. They had games, ski ball whack-a-mole they had the ball pit. You get the little tokens, a little golden coins. Ironically, when I was researching this, I thought the Chuck E cheese and Hyannis had been there maybe 10 years. It turns out it lasted about two and a half years. It was closed by the spring of 1987.
I was shocked. But the thing is that when it was at its lowest Chuck E cheese, With the debt, they were losing close to $20 million a month, like in 1984. So I could see where anything less than total off the charts profits would mean that a place would have to close down. So as it went on with showbiz pizza time and Chuck E cheese, the merger, they started closing down the least profitable, Chuck E cheeses, and restructuring.
And that's what happened. The Hyannis one on Cape Cod was axed. And in the nineties, they continued to rebrand and change things to keep. With the times in 1995, there was a big remodeling to kind of help Chuck E cheese against more modern kids, entertainment, places like discovery zone. And then it's a got into the 21st century. They even remodeled Chuck E cheese himself, the mascot made him look more contemporary. Instead of being that kind of fat gray mouse with the big head in the red hat, he was more like a skater mouse and all of this remodeling. Actually increased profits. Like I had said, there's more than 600 locations now, and it's not like it's gone backwards.
It's actually gone up in 2003 They opened their 400th location, 2005. It was their 500th. So Chuck E cheese is actually growing in the country. Despite the fact that on Cape Cod, it was just a blip on the radar by 2015, the animatronics had all, but been eliminated from Chuck E cheese. Which means that the current generation of kids won't be scarred by things like the lion, the King towering over you and singing.
When it looks like it's going to tip over and fall on you. And the irony is that with COVID having gone on for the last year, Chuck E cheese is actually selling its pizza through grub hub and door dash and Uber eats, but they're going under the pseudonym brand. Pasquale's pizza and wings. So it's not like you would look and say Chuck E cheese is sending out pizza. It's actually a pseudonym name, but it's Chuck E Cheese's pizza that you can get through grub hub and such.
And that's basically the story of Chuck E cheese. Did any of you go there in the eighties? I mean, today it's a lot different, but did you go there? Have pizza play skee-ball did you play Pac-Man or missile command? Did you kids scared by the animatronic animals? I still remember. I think I may have gone once or twice, but I still can remember it. I can close my eyes and see the King and be terrified. And for anybody that wants to go and rekindle their youth and go to Chuck E cheese. The nearest one to me is in Dartmouth, Massachusetts. So that's about an hour from me. So yeah, it's still possible to go be where a kid can be a kid. Hope you enjoy it. A little memory of Chuck E cheese.
25:56 Road Trip Hartford, Connecticut
Road trip time again, this is where we take a little trip around new England to one of the hundreds and hundreds of amazing cities, towns, villages, places that make this region just so amazing. This time, we're going to do one of the capitals of one of the six States. There's only so many capitals to go around some trying to parcel them out throughout the podcast.
This week, we're going to do the capital city of Connecticut, and that is the city of Hartford. Hartford is the eighth largest city in new England population wise with a population of 122,105 people as of 2019. The funny thing is despite being the Capitol, Hartford is not even the largest city in Connecticut.
It's actually fourth behind Bridgeport, new Haven and Stamford. The city of Hartford was first settled in 1635 by Thomas hooker, John Haines, and a group of about a hundred followers. From the Massachusetts Bay colony. So the people that first came over and settled in Plymouth in the area, it would be incorporated as its own town in 1784.
Hartford lays a hundred miles Southwest of Boston, about 120 miles Northeast of New York city. So it's not necessarily centrally located in new England, but it is. I mean, it's in between Boston and New York. So that's a pretty good pipeline right there for those long time. New Englanders and long-time sports fans, a painful memory is the fact that Hartford used to be home to its own hockey team.
The Hartford whalers. The whalers started in the world hockey association in 1972, moved to the NHL in 1979 and continued playing until 1997, after which they moved down to North Carolina and became the Carolina hurricanes. But I won't dwell on that. That'll be another episode of the podcast. We'll have a more in-depth history of that team.
Hartford is home to some famous literary figures, including Mark Twain, who wrote Tom Sawyer and huckleberry Finn. And Harriet Beecher Stowe who wrote uncle Tom's cabin, the Mark Twain house and museum at three 51 Farmington Avenue is where you can go to discover all about him. It was home to he and his family between 1874 and 1891.
So there's a definite connection, although it's temporarily closed due to COVID when you go there, the museum has lots of exhibits and artifacts and they're always updating it. And you can visit Mark Twain house.org to get updates because hopefully COVID will be lessening. And by the time, you know, summer later in summer comes, it'll hopefully be open in some shape or form.
There's the Harriet Beecher Stowe center at 77 forest street. It is actually going to be opening three days a week, starting April 8th of this year. So you'll be able to actually go to that one. And again, there are many exhibits and artifacts that celebrate the life of this incredibly talented literary personality and also a very important abolitionist.
So that's another spot to visit me going to the state capitals. I'm a big fan of the actual Capitol buildings. I enjoy the way they look in the architecture. So that naturally that's a spot. I will go. Luckily for anyone that's visiting and is not a big fan of the state capitals right next to Hartford's Capitol is Bushnell park, which is the oldest publicly funded park in the United States it's 37 acres in the shadow of the state Capitol. The park itself was first proposed in 1853 by Reverend Horace Bushnell. And when it was put into service, it was named for him. One of the highlights of this park is a carousel, which was built in 1914. It's got one of those old school Wurlitzer organs. You can hear it in your head, the songs the carousel makes. There's 48 wooden horses that revolve around this carousel. I know you can hear it right now. I can't describe it, but you know what it is, that music and that's a great throwback to simpler times.
After you're done venturing around the park and the historic site. You can have a bite to eat at Salute an Italian restaurant at 100 Trumbull street, suite number two at one, the TripAdvisor travelers choice. So that naturally puts it at the top of the list of places to go. So you'll probably have to call ahead obviously with COVID they do take out and now they do delivery service with Uber eats.
You can visit Salute hartford.com and get more information about that. You'd probably be likely to do a trip to Hartford as a day trip if you're coming from most places in new England, New York, New Jersey. But if you're looking to spend more than a single day there, I would definitely recommend the Goodwin hotel at 1 Haynes street. Not only is it basically the premier. Hotel in the city and it's a luxury boutique hotel, but it's also been there, there for a long time since 1881. And it's been prestigious from the start, since it was opened by two brothers, James and Francis Goodwin. And they had celebrity guests from the start, including JP Morgan, who was one of the richest men ever in this country.
And he would stay there during his visits to Hartford. Visit Goodwin hartford.com to get more information about that spot. If you want to stay there, that's all the well-known stuff for me. When I go to places, I try to get to that layer underneath, like peeling back the layers of an onion what's deeper inside. So for Hartford, they've got some lesser known attractions. There's Hartford's ancient burial ground, which has tombstones that go back to the mid 1600's. And the story is that they basically, they had a certain size for the cemetery and once they ran out of room, they started burying people on top of each other.
And there's no rhyme or reason to these tombstones family isn't buried next to each other. So there are stories of paranormal activity there. If you want to check that out, it's at 60 gold street. Another lesser known attraction is the lady Katherine river tours. They do cruises on the Connecticut river with one of the embarking points in Hartford. So you can pick up the cruise ship there and take it up and down the river. Again, as with everything I've mentioned before in Hartford, you're going to have to check as far as COVID precautions go. But the neat thing about this cruise that they bring you down the river and you'll get views of New York city too.
So it's a way to see the city of Hartford see New York city, but from the water and not in the congestion, necessarily check out lady Kate cruises.com to get more information. If you're interested in that. And if you want to venture a little bit from the center of the city, you can go to West Hartford to the oldest public Rose garden. Elizabeth Park was opened in 1904 and was the first Rose garden as well as now being the oldest in the country. A lot of, it seems like something out of a fairy tale. You walk around, it's got, you've got to go when things are in bloom, obviously, but there's this series of Rose archways, where the roses roses can kind of wrap around things and they make it, I mean, my Nana had a Rose Bush in her front yard that basically engulfed a split rail fence.
So these things are very nicely manicured and I'm sure has been a spot of many proposals. It's 101 acres and has more than just roses, but that's kind of the big selling point. As I say, with all of these road trips and any place that you want to go to, rather than just listening to the things that I've shared and the places that I think you might be interested in.
It's always better to just get in your car and drive kind of point the car and go somewhere. That's how you find the lesser known places that end up becoming the big moments of any sort of trip, because it's always fun to go to a place that someone points you to and say, Oh, that was great, but it's even better to find a place nobody told you about and then it's awesome. So for more information about Hartford, Go to CT, visit.com. You can also go to hartford.com. Those sites will give you way more information than I can share in this kind of condensed podcast segment. But that'll do it for this road trip. Let me know if you go to Hartford, what you think you go to the Rose garden, just outside of the main city.
If you go to the cemetery, Mark Twain house, all of that great stuff. And I'll be back again. With another road trip to another amazing city town village that new England has to offer.
35:04 Sponsor Wear Your Wish
I want to just take a moment before I go on to remind everyone to go and check out Wear your wishes.com that is the company run by. Katie marks. My sister, I interviewed her for. Episode 11. She gave an in-depth very inspirational and emotional interview on her journey as single mother to business owner. And now the launch occurred February 28th and Wear your wish is open for business, clothing, and apparel. Go to there now and enter your email on the site Wear your wishes.com to be in the entry for a free hoodie. They've got so much more to come, but they've started launching they're open for business.
The Wear your wish brand is built around wishes and desires and dreams, the where your wish, the 11-11, making a wish. When you see those numbers on the clock or anywhere, I will tell you for a fact that in the time, since I have interviewed her, I've had numerous 11-11 occasions, not just on my clock, but going to the store and getting a receipt from my total and it's 11, 11, $11.11. There's so much to see, go to the site. Don't just take my word for it. Go back and listen to episode 11, listen to the interview. Go watch the interview on YouTube. That's the more uncut one I have to try to condense these for the podcast Wear your wishes.com is where you go get started. There's so much more to come. But I wanted to give a little reminder for everyone to just go check it out. It's going to be big 2021 is going to be big Wear your wish at Wear Your Wishes.com.
36:50 This Week In History
It's time for this episodes this week in history segment, where we look back at some of what was going on. Interesting stories that were going on this week in the past. So let's dive right in to what was going on locally 106 years ago this week in history, March 15th, 1915. Work begins on a new field in Austin for the Boston Braves baseball team. The Braves were actually the first Boston based baseball team ahead of the Red Sox by about 30 years. And the need for this baseball field came around because in the 1914 world series, the Braves had to actually play in Fenway, which wasn't their home field and they won the world series, sweeping the athletics.
Team owner. James Gaffney had actually purchased the Allston golf club on Commonwealth Avenue in 1912, and nothing had been done with it. And now you've got a world series winning baseball team. They need their own nice new state-of-the-art stadium. So Braves field is what it was called and it was the first ballpark to see more than 40,000 fans located one mile West of Fenway. It took five months to complete. And the first game that the Braves played there was against the St. Louis Cardinals on August 18th, 1915. Surprisingly, the Braves were the number one baseball team in Boston for the first 35 to 40 years of the Red Sox existence until Ted Williams came along and it kind of shifted the fans over to the AL side. The Braves tried. They even brought in Babe Ruth in 1935 at the very end of his career to try to gain some fans as they felt it was starting to slip away. After the 1952 season, the team owner, Lou Perrine announced that the Braves were moving to Milwaukee to become the Milwaukee Braves. And the next year in 1953, Boston University purchased the stadium and converted it into a football field. But this week in history, construction started on the Boston Braves, new baseball stadium in Allston.
Nationally this week in history, 90 years ago, March 19th, 1931, the state of Nevada legalizes gambling, which obviously paved the way for Las Vegas and all the casinos that have come after. The irony is that when Nevada was a territory in the 1860s, there were actually stiff penalties for any sort of gambling that was caught out there.
They tried a few times to legalize gambling, but it failed after Nevada became a state in 1864, they were trying to get steps to decriminalize some forms of gambling to make it at least less. Less costly. If you got caught gambling in the early 1900's, the gaming laws relaxed by 1919, there were cities and counties that had licensed card rooms where you could play cards, games like bridge.
And in the 1920s, Reno became the state's gambling capital with legal card rooms and some clubs that had some secret illegal games. The great depression was what basically spearheaded the movement to legalize gambling in Nevada. And it was a way to bring money into the state. So in 1931 state assemblyman, Phil Tobin introduced the bill, which would allow for wide open gambling in the state.
The bill passed on March 19th, 1931, and it made gambling legal in Nevada, which is amazing. When you think about Las Vegas today, to imagine that gambling was ever illegal. But it was up until 90 years ago.
This week in history in world news this week in history, 1,560 years ago, March 17th in the year 461 St. Patrick dies in Saul Downpatrick Ireland. And obviously St. Patrick is memorialized on St. Patrick's day. But the man himself was a Christian missionary, Bishop and apostle. He was captured and enslaved at the age of 16 by Irish marauders. And for the next six years, he worked as a herder in Ireland and turned to a deepening religious faith for comfort.
He returned to Ireland in the year 433 and began preaching the gospel, converting many thousands of Irish. And he built churches all around the country. For 40 years, he lived in poverty. He taught, he traveled and worked tirelessly after his death in 461, he was made the patron Saint of Ireland and his name is brought up many legends. Like he was said to have baptized hundreds of people on a single day. And to have used a three leaf Clover and an art he's often portrayed trampling on snakes in accordance with the belief that he drove the snakes out of Ireland. The day of his death became a religious holiday with church and celebration with food and drink.
And ironically, the first St Patrick's day parade didn't even take place in Ireland. It took place here in the United States in 1601. It wasn't until 1995, that the celebration of St. Patrick went global when the Irish government began to promote St. Patrick's day as a way of driving tourism to the country of Ireland.
And now March 17th has seen, you know, St Patrick's day is a big day of celebration, but it's less about St. Patrick, the man and more about parties and parades and green beer. But this week in history, way back in 461 St. Patrick, the man passed away in Downpatrick Ireland.
This week in history, 36 years ago, March 15th, 1985. The first internet domain name is registered and it was symbolics.com. Symbolics Inc was a computer systems company based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The company was founded in 1980 and went out of business in 1996. The funny thing is that symbolics was not the first to create a domain name. That went to Nordu.net, which was a Scandinavian research collaboration. They created the domain on January 1st, but the thing is that once registration of domain names was permitted, symbolics got there first. In the beginning, it was difficult to register a domain name up until February, 1986. Domain registration was limited to companies with access to a RPA, which is address and routing parameter area, but then things loosened up.
And even after that, it was not a mad dash to create domains. By 1992, there were still fewer than 15 thousand .com domains registered. Compare that to the end of 2019, where there were 359.8 million registered domain names, but 36 years, years ago, this week symbolics.com became the first, first registered domain name.
We finish things off with a little time capsule. We're going to have the oldest one so far. We're going to go back to Saint Patrick's day, March 17th, 1961. The number one song in America was surrender by Elvis Presley. This was off of his album, something for everybody. This was one of 30 number one hits that Elvis had during his career. And they were compiled on a number one hits album in 2002.
The number one movie in America was the absent-minded professor. It started Fred MacMurray and it's about a professor that developed something called flubber or flying rubber. And there was a sequel son of flubber. There was a remake called flubber with Robin Williams and the movie was based on a short story from 1922 by Samuel Taylor called a situation of gravity.
The number one TV show was wagon train. It aired from 1957 to 1965 and starred ward bond as the wagon master. But he was replaced after his death in 1960 by John McEntire, the series Chronicle, the wagon train, as it made its way across the country from St. Joseph, Missouri to Sacramento, California. So popular was the show that there would be big stars that came on to be. Part of these wagon trains that they would meet along the way. Some of the stars that were on the show included Ronald Reagan, Bette Davis, Ernest Borgnine, Jane Wyman and Lee Marvin.
60 years ago this week with the time capsule, if you were looking to go to see that number one movie, the absent minded professor, the price of a movie ticket was 77 cents. When adjusted for inflation, it's $6 and 74 cents. So when you think about it, although it's been difficult to go to the movies over the last year with COVID, but the average price for a movie ticket currently, according to Hollywood, reporter.com is $9 and 26 cents. So it's actually more expensive even with inflation. It was cheaper back then, but there's a little time capsule and that puts a bow on this week in history. Tune in again, the next episode for more of these stories, as we look back in time, what was going on all those years ago.
46:43 Closing
That's going to wrap up episode 13, lucky 13 of the, in my footsteps podcast. Thank you so much to all of you who listened, hope you enjoyed it. Hope Chuck E cheese brought back some memories for those of you that went there. I really appreciate everyone who's taken a few moments to listen to even a few minutes of one episode. I really appreciate it. Growing the audience is the big thing, like I've said many times, and that's how it happens. Tune in Friday, likely at 5:00 PM for my next, without a map live stream podcast, post game show. We'll see how that goes. I don't know if I'm going to go to a beach or somewhere outside and try to do this one because last time as I said, it crapped out twice and these things are supposed to be live and supposed to be one shot deals. And by the third time I did it that night, I had everything kind of rehearsed. So it was cheating a little bit. Check out my blog on blogger.com. It's also called in my footsteps. I put up there the most recent article is all about my three-year journey. When I had to get out of the fitness industry and had to go back into cooking for a stable job to kind of save money. It's a long story. I call it taking a three-year wrong turn. And now I'm back out on the highway, heading towards where I wanted to be. So it's very interesting. Check it out. As I said, at the top of the podcast, go and subscribe on YouTube. Christopher Setterlund, it's easy to find. I just put up a new 4k new England video that is about Gurnet point, which is off of Plymouth.
It's like the Plymouth Duxbury line. It's a private community out there. And my buddy, Steve that's, his family has a home out there. So it was a way for me to get out there, see it, shoot it, and then share it so everybody can see it without having to go and bother these people at their, their homes and private property.
Find me on Twitter. Chris Setterlund is my handle Instagram, like I said, Christopher Setterlund is the main one. That is my personal page with all my photography, with my Canon rebel, that's also where I do the live streams. Mainly because I have way more followers on that page than the actual in my footsteps podcast page visit my Zazzle store, Cape Cod living. It's got my Massachusetts after dark calendar, featuring a lot of night photography from around the state. I'm already working on one for next year. I've got a couple of cool spots. I've shot. So that'll be coming. There's also a little bit of podcast merge. I'm delaying making any more merchandise just to see how people enjoy what's up there already.
Stay tuned next week for episode 14. Which will be a little diversion from typical podcasts. I'm going to have a special interview with my buddy, Steve, Steve Drozell. Who's a very accomplished photographer. And we're going to talk about getting into photography, some of the basics of photography for anybody out there who's interested. We're going to call it dedication to the craft. That's our kind of our name for getting the shot come rain or snow or dangerous situations. And then going from there, I'm going to talk about some of our big time. Road trip photography trips. So those will be interesting. This'll kind of kick it off.
I'm also going to talk about getting into running. I got back into running 10 years ago after being out of it since probably freshman year of high school. So this will be an interesting way for anyone that is interested in running or is looking to do something for the spring time for fitness. I can help with that and share my story of, I would definitely was not a runner when I started up again, I was 33 years old, so that'll be fun.
So that's coming next week. We're going to go way, way back in the day to when I had my little Fisher price record player, when I was five, six, seven years old, and the records I used to have. This'll bring some laughs and probably some shock to some of the people listening. So that'll be a fun little trip down memory lane.
And there'll be this week in history, of course, including the day that the Boston Patriots became the new England Patriots, all that, and more next week, episode 14. And remember to take time for yourself for your mental health, your sanity COVID the pandemic is definitely coming to an end. We see the light at the end of the tunnel, but my God it's been over a year and it's like, enough is enough and your own mental health is most important when it comes to all of this, find the things and the people that make you happy and focus on them. And soon enough, we'll all be able to get back together. I can't wait to be able to have. The big gatherings with the family and hang out with a bunch of friends. It's been a long time, but until then, focus on yourself. Your mental health means a lot. I'll be talking a lot more about that as we go along about just mental health. I've had my own bouts with depression. So I want to make sure that I share that with people so they know they're not alone and check out my, as I said, my blog on blogger, the most current one about getting back on the right road. I talk a lot about that. So go and check that out.
Remember in life, don't walk in anyone else's footsteps. Create your own path, find what makes you happy and follow it. And thank you to everyone who has listened. Thank you to everyone in my life that has supported me. I appreciate all of you take care of yourselves and I will talk to you all.