It is summer in Virginia state before the Second World War, Livan is easy and hot Blaze.
Where are you going to escape the fever?
Moore's Lake!
A popular swimming hall just beside the US Route One between Richmond and Petersburg was the most refuge evacuation place in the days of dogs and swimming dogs west of the Chesapeake Bay and the west of the Atlantic Ocean. It was Mecca where local people were seeking a major vacation destination for tourists for several hours of blessed relief. People were drawn with their fierce sand beaches, water slides, high diving boards where the giant girls gathered to see the show, and exquisite dance halls filled with night atmosphere with melodies of big bands. Everyone entering the bath house took another pin and used to swim and regain clothes later. Today, brass pins cherish them by many elderly people wearing them as lapel ornaments.
Tommy Clamp, whose parents purchased the lake and the surrounding cottage after working for the first owner RD Moore for several years, recalls that hundreds of families come back from North Carolina every year . People driving northern Florida soon learned that it would be an ideal night out. For locals, Moore's lake was seen and was a place to see. It was inevitable that we were responsible for unforgettable romance during sunny afternoons and night nights. Many people got married.
Sturdy brick and stone cottage built in 1929 Moore is typical of luxury when George and Lena Crump took over the business. They modernized them by adding bathrooms quickly. When depression was relaxed and tourists shouted to enjoy comfort and setting of Sylvain, they built many cottages in scented woods up to number 38. By 1941, they found their comfortable brick house in the restaurant.
When the Second World War broke out, when neighboring Petersburg's Camp Lee was revived (renamed to Fort Lee in 1950), some of the soldiers who were stationed there got their families It gathered in the cottage of Moore's lake. Some wives worked as waitresses in busy restaurants. We had diners three times each day and finished guests, local residents and defenders who worked in nearby military facilities into a cottage. In order to pay expenses, the elderly service families who stayed there contributed to war effort to serve as a bus boy, dishwasher, gardener, life guard.
Tommy Clamp, now 68 years old, was an infant. He stepped on a tricycle along a scenic lane to offer a delicious souvenir from a restaurant kitchen serving guests in Moor's brick cottage and Moore's lake, so he was closely supervised by daycare centers. He grew up in a large house built by his parents, learning to swim in the lake, thank for its beauty and unique environment. He did not get lost and chose to bring up his children there.
In 1970, he and his wife bought a cottage, an adjacent petrol station, a restaurant. The renamed Sylvester restaurant was destined to be the most popular place around a few miles. Together with the tasty prime rib dinner that pulls the crowd, the menu has a lot of seafood, delicious soup, croissant miso, stuffed potatoes and lavish homemade desserts, with double chocolate silk pies and hot fruit cobbles in it. did.
Moor's Brick Cottage has excavated cars and trucks away from the prosperous Jefferson Davis Highway until the start of construction of interstate freeway 95 and has solidified the fate of operation. Due to the appearance of highway nationwide, families discovered the temptation of open road. An airplane from Boston to Miami is no longer satisfied with the holiday far from home. The time we can run around the outdated two lane road is only a few. It was not long ago when Moor's brick cottage became extra when large motels and hotels appeared along the interstate to serve long distance travelers. The building was devastated, and those who came to swim took their chances without a rescue and rescue team. Today's lake is not an unmanned neighborhood swimming hole.
But Sylvester continued to prosper. Until December 2004, we procured local faithful customers until Tommy Crump sold their property to developers. Office parks and retail industries jumping to the land of bulldozers will serve Chester town. Tommy was watching with the discerning eyes, but all the rare cottages except two were destroyed and its rubble was used as a parking lot.
"There is an obligation to preserve these last two as part of history," he says. "I am protecting myself and moving to my property along the James River, I hope someone (or organizations concerned) will take the other and leave it in posterity.
I have not found a taker yet, so I am running out of time. Only ghosts of dead ghost will soon ride above the property still protected by the huge aromatic trees waiting for destruction under the name of progress.
