Maps demonstrate impact of Lewis and Clark journey

Maps demonstrate impactof Lewis and Clark journey
LOUISVILLE, Ky. -- When Meriwether Lewis and William Clark departed on their expedition in the American West 200 years ago, the best map they had was full of detail east of the Mississippi River and through parts of Canada.
The rest of the country, according to Aaron Arrowsmith's 1802 map, was emptiness until the Pacific coastline.
"Look at all the blank space," said Craig Buthod, director of the Louisville Free Public Library, pointing to the map that went on display in mid-October along with 60 other Lewis and Clark items. "There was no way to fill it in before the trip."
A post-expedition map that is also part of the exhibit shows the details the explorers provided -- the route the Corps of Discovery took from 1803 to 1806, the location of mountains and population estimates of American Indian tribes.
The exhibit, "The Literature of the Lewis and Clark Expedition," left Lewis and Clark College in Portland, Ore., in January on a three-year national tour. It stays in Louisville through the end of the year and moves to Boston in February.
For more information, visit the Louisville Free Public Library Web site at www.lfpl.org.
Mobil Travel Guide awardshonor hotels, restaurants
NEW YORK -- The 2004 Mobil Travel Guide awards gave five-star ratings to 30 hotels and 14 restaurants around the country.
The winners, which were announced Oct. 22, include well-known hotels such as the Four Seasons in New York and the Peninsula Beverly Hills as well as first-time honorees such as the Woodlands Resort and Inn in Summerville, S.C.
Four-star accommodations on the Mobil list range from the White Barn Inn in Kennebunkport, Maine, to the Ritz-Carlton in St. Louis, Mo., to Averill's Flathead Lake Lodge in Bigfork, Mont., and Lost Creek Ranch in Moose, Wyo.
For a complete list, visit www.mobiltravelguide.com.
The awards coincide with the release of Mobil's Regional Travel Planner books on the Northwest, Southwest, Northern Plains, Great Plains, Texas, Northern and Southern Great Lakes, the South, New England, New York, the Mid-Atlantic, Coastal Southeast, Florida, Canada and Northern and Southern California. The books are $18.95 each.
In 2004, Mobil will also issue a series of City Guide books on Boston, Chicago, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Miami, New Orleans, New York City, Orlando, San Francisco and Washington, D.C., along with specialty guides on subjects such as traveling with pets and "America's Byways," on 100 famous drives.
Computer Museum getsdonation of 1950s unit
BOZEMAN, Mont. -- A 1950s computer, with less memory than a musical greeting card, was donated to the American Computer Museum here.
"Here comes the beast," said museum director George Keremedjiev as six men squeezed the 1954 Burroughs 205 through the door. "This is very much like a dinosaur. This is the electronic equivalent of T. rex."
The computer is 12 feet wide, 8 feet tall and 3 feet deep. It weighs 3,100 pounds -- nearly as much as a midsize car. A blue-gray metal box with two sets of doors enclosing 2,100 vacuum tubes, it was originally owned by Pacific Power & amp; Light of Portland, Ore.
"It has enough memory to store one sheet of paper," Keremedjiev said. "Mr. Coffee has more memory and computing power than this machine."
But the computer was considered revolutionary in the 1950s.
It was used by insurance companies, banks and nearly every branch of the military for tasks such as billing, and although it took 16 people to operate, it was touted for its convenience and money-saving qualities.
Visit the American Computer Museum Web site at www.compustory.com.
Yellowstone ad campaigntargets snowmobilers
BILLINGS, Mont. -- Tourism officials who fear new rules for snowmobiles in Yellowstone National Park are confusing and discouraging winter tourists are launching an ad campaign in the Midwest, hoping to show snowmobilers there is still plenty of room to ride in the park.
Radio spots and newspaper ads aimed at letting people know "Yellowstone is open" are to begin later this year in cities such as Minneapolis and Milwaukee, said Sarah Lawlor, consumer marketing manager at Travel Montana. A strong contingent of the park's winter visitors each year comes from the Midwest.
Lawlor said the campaign is an effort to head off what many people fear could be a slump in winter tourism because of federal changes for snowmobiles in Yellowstone, Wyoming's Grand Teton National Park and the John D. Rockefeller Jr. Memorial Parkway that connects them.
Beginning this winter, snowmobilers will need to make reservations to ride in the park. It is part of a federal plan to control the type and number of machines entering Yellowstone and Grand Teton each day, largely to reduce air pollution and noise.
Under the plan, 80 percent of snowmobiles must be commercially guided and meet requirements such as a cleaner-running and quieter machine. The remaining machines can enter with a permit obtainable by making a reservation through Xanterra Parks & amp; Resorts, a park concessioner.
There are indications that advance reservations are down as much as 60 percent for hotels and winter packages, including lodging and snowmobile or snow coach trips, she said.
A call to preserve churchlinked to 'Blair Witch' film
BURKITTSVILLE, Md. (AP) -- Historic preservationists are making a last-ditch plea to save a rickety old chapel that became a magnet for vandals after the release of the 1999 horror movie "The Blair Witch Project," which was set nearby.
The Ceres Bethel AME Church, built in 1870 by freed slaves, is a part of the area's black culture long ignored by mainstream historians, preservation advocates say.
But vandals and nearly 20 years of neglect have nearly destroyed the two-room, wood-frame church in the rugged foothills of South Mountain, just outside the Frederick County hamlet of Burkittsville.
"Every six months, I put up new plywood, and every six months, they come back again," said the Rev. Richard Dyson, of the Mount Zion AME Church in nearby Knoxville.
In August, the nonprofit Frederick County Landmarks Foundation placed Ceres Bethel AME on its annual list of seven "most endangered sites," hoping to draw attention to its dilapidated condition.
"It's an important part of Burkittsville's history, and it's important to keep around," said Connie Stapleton, who compiled the list.
The church was the site of countless weddings, funerals and celebrations in the area's small black community before it was closed in 1984.
Now it attracts late-night partygoers, thrill-seekers and movie devotees who have splashed the interior with graffiti, smashed the altar, repeatedly torn protective plywood off the doors and windows, and littered the inside with beer cans, candles and even an Ouija board.
The unwanted attention mirrors the attention heaped on Burkittsville, a rural community of less than 200, which became a "Blair Witch" tourist destination overnight in 1999, even though most of the pseudo-documentary movie actually was filmed elsewhere.
The church is in the woods outside town, far from public view, but close enough for those seeking signs of the fictional Blair Witch.
Exhibit featuresGhanaian movie posters
"Outrageous Supercharge," an exhibition of 19 hand-painted Ghanaian movie posters, runs through January at Mass Museum of Contemporary Art in North Adams, Mass.
Painted on large canvas flour sacks, the colorful posters were created between the mid-1980s and '90s in the West African nation of Ghana. During this time, entrepreneurs brought the latest videos and VCRs to Ghana's rural hinterlands, where they set up makeshift movie houses.
The increasing availability of VCRs and videotapes brought an end to the practice.
Many of the posters are from the collection of African art scholar Ernie Wolfe III, who owns Ernie Wolfe Gallery in West Los Angeles.
For more information, call (413) 662-2111 or visit www.massmoca.org on the Web.
Combined dispatches