Over half way through 2009 tour season

I had a huge thrill this past week when I got to shake the hand of Pinky Lucas.  Pinky and his brother Johnny owned Lucas Brothers Construction in the early half of last century.  They were hired by Myron Goldsmith, Mies’ project manager, to pour the concrete footings at the Farnsworth House.  Scott Lucas, resident Sodfather, emergency cashier and occasional tour guide is Johnny’s son and Pinky’s nephew (you may recognize Scott as my photographic yardstick).  Johnny has been gone for a while now, but at 92 Pinky has made his way back into the area and stopped by to pay us a visit.  It’s a thrill for us all to meet him, after all, he started this project!

We are officially past the halfway point in our 2009 tour season.  I’ve met so many wonderful and fascinating people this year, too many to mention, but now I am targeting a few.  We expect this year to result in about 9000 visitors, more than 3000 so far, but fall is always really busy.  We have been blessed by the company of more than 700 visitors representing 36 countries and more than 2300 from 42 of the 50 US States.  I am willing to provide free access to the first visitor to grace our doorstep from the missing 8 states.  It could be your lucky day if you are the first to arrive from:

Delaware, Hawaii, Idaho, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Vermont

We welcomed some local volunteers last Monday and we made a huge impact on clearing out some overgrown shrubbery that had blocked our view to the river.  I want to thank the wonderful folks from Jacob’s Well who spent about 8 hours chopping and hauling 10 dump truck loads of invasive plants from the rivers edge. Deena and Scott were wonderful to come in on their only day off as well. We have a lot of work left to do, but there is some obvious benefit to doing it. I took this really stunning photo of the Fox River Bridge (notice the abandoned piers of the old bridge beneath it).  This is a view I had never seen before because access to the river has been blocked by thick shrubs. Our visitors can now understand a bit better why we call the route to the house a river path.

Hope you can come visit soon.

Whitney French

Farnsworth House Site Director

Tags: Fox River Bridge, free, Jacob's Well, Pinky Lucas, states, volunteers