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AWARD WINNER Top 500 of over 10,000 entries. This little horse almost didn't happen. It started pouring rain just as he moseyed over to the fence. Location- Fair Hill Nature Center and Equine

Ontario Vortex Black White

This image was taken during the Vortex of 2018 from the Americas side of the falls. Niagara Falls, Ontario, is a Canadian city at the famous waterfalls of the same name, linked with the U.S. by the Rainbow Bridge. Its site on the Niagara River's western shore overlooks the Horseshoe Falls, the cascades' most expansive section. Elevators take visitors to a lower, wetter vantage point behind the falls.

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The Lonaconing silk mill, located in Lonaconing, Maryland, is the one of the last intact silk mills in the United States. Formerly operated by the Klotz Throwing Company and General Textile Mills Company, the complex is situated within the National Lonaconing Historic District.

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Employees at Klotz Throwing Company were unionized under the United Mine Workers (UMW) in 1917.

Fishing at Dawn

This image is a local AWARD WINNING photograph that was featured in the Maryalnd and Cecilc County Tourism Medias. While shooting bald eagles one cold November morning, these fellas arrived in the Susquehanna just below the dam. The Conowingo Dam is a large hydroelectric dam in the lower Susquehanna River near the town of Conowingo, Maryland. The medium-height, masonry gravity dam is one of the largest non-federal hydroelectric dams in the U.S.

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Like much of the Appalachian region’s heavy industry, the silk mill business in Maryland has seen better days. The Klotz Throwing Company was once a major employer for the tiny town of Lonaconing, but one day in 1957 it closed its doors, since production had become cheaper overseas.

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In the early 1900s, Duncan Sloan, a banker, overheard a casual conversation on a railroad passenger car that the Klotz Throwing Company was seeking a suitable site for a factory in western Maryland. Specifically, Klotz was looking to build a silk throwing mill that would wound raw silk into thread where it would then be shipped to silk manufacturers and woven into various textiles. The raw silk would be imported from Italy and other countries, washed, dried, and spun before being wound, or doubled, into skeins of thread.

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In the early years of the mill, raw silk and Douppinni, expensive silk that was used in the production of wedding gowns, were thrown at the mill. 6 The process involved the twisting and winding of silk into a yarn that was then used by knitters and weavers. Occasionally, the silk thread was broken due to the twisting and winding of the thread onto four-inch bobbins and the operator would tie the broken strands together with a silk knot. Other employees were involved in the steaming, dying and stretching of the silk, while others worked in the shipping department, sending the processed silk product to market.

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When the business closed, it was operated by General Textile Mills. Labor disputes, antiquated machines and the development of synthetic materials led to its demise. Few employees were left and the mill was shuttered on Friday, July 7, 1957. Some of their personal items are still enclosed in the old building.

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THE KLOTZ THROWING COMPANY, NESTLED in the mountains of western Maryland, was a silk mill that once employed about 300 workers full-time before shuttering in 1957. Miraculously, the factory remains eerily untouched: Worker cubbies still hold shoes, combs, tins of Noxema, and empty jars of apple butter from lunch breaks gone by.

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Employment began to increase as the Great Depression waned, but a lack of orders sometimes kept the mill from operating at full capacity for weeks. General Textile found its supply of raw silk disrupted during World War II due to the United States declaring war with a major supplier, Japan.

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Lanconing Silk Mill. Abandoned Factory. Production began to pick back up after the war, although raw silk was still hard to source. To compensate, General Textile switched to using rayon, a synthetic material that was cheaper to produce in bulk. 6 The company built an addition to the factory in 1946 to run additional synthetic materials.

Ontario Vortex

This image was taken during the Vortex of 2018 from the Americas side of the falls. Niagara Falls, Ontario, is a Canadian city at the famous waterfalls of the same name, linked with the U.S. by the Rainbow Bridge. Its site on the Niagara River's western shore overlooks the Horseshoe Falls, the cascades' most expansive section. Elevators take visitors to a lower, wetter vantage point behind the falls.

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Lanaconing Silk Mill Production began to pick back up after the war, although raw silk was still hard to source. To compensate, General Textile switched to using rayon, a synthetic material that was cheaper to produce in bulk. The company built an addition to the factory in 1946 to run additional synthetic materials.

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In 1978, Herbert Crawford and a partner purchased the former General Textile Mill when a company had expressed interest in restarting the factory’s operations. 5 11 Crawford attempted over the years to secure economic development grants to reuse the complex as a silk mill, and at one point, turned down a $300,000 offer from a salvage buyer for the machinery. 11 In later years, Crawford sought funding to preserve the interior as a museum, but a lack of funding and state initiative nixed any proposals.

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This image began as a photograph of a cactus. With some creative manipulation a beautiful piece of artwork was created.

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Afternoon rays stream through broken windows highlighting century old machines, wooden floorboards, peeling paint and thousands of bobbins in a 48,000-square-foot, abandoned factory.

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Built in the early 1900s, the Klots Throwing Company Mill, also called the Lonaconing Silk Mill, produced silk thread from raw silk. At its peak the company employed over 300 hundred people. Most of them were female and many were children.

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