[Sean Leary]

I have changed my mind about three times about the angle of that photo based on the back and forth here.

Sorry, I may have missed it but what do we think the horizontal line is on the right side of the photo an inch below the horizon?

[JESII]

I personally think it's Atlantic Avenue, outsde the fence and across the railrad tracks at about the first fairway/green area...but could be swayed by Mike's ext analysis to think it's the road inside the gates over by the 18th hole.

[DMoriarty]

1. Cirba claims that the 3rd tee is visible in the photo in the Brown book, but not in the photo in the Shelly book.   As of a few days ago, Cirba had never seen the photo in the Brown book, and I assume this is still the case, so I have no idea how he thinks he can make relative comparisons between the two photos when he hasn't even seen one of them.  "About 10-15 yards are truncated . . . "   Did he just make that up?  Presumably, he is contrasting the photos based on the differences in the captions between the two photos and by making the stretched assumption that the Shelly book intentionally cut off the the third tee from few, cropping the photo at exactly the small space between the second green and third tee.  While this is possible, I guess, it doesn't seem to likely.   Did Shelly even know exactly what he was viewing?  I am not so sure, given his comment in the caption:  "What a wasteland it seemed to all but George Crump."

2.  He continues to claim that there was a tree line adjacent to the third tee, as if this were fact.  However, he ignores that the 1920 aerial shows that at least a small section of trees had been cleared immediately adjacent to the third tee, and that in the 1930 Aerial it looks as if a large section adjacent to the third tee had been cleared.   And in both the aerials it is impossible to tell how much of the trees near the third tee are new grown, planted since 1913, and what was already there.    And if there were trees where Mike thinks they should be, then I doubt the 2nd green would even be visible in the Shelly book --there is quite a bit of land (much more than Mike's "10-15 yards") to the left of where Mike has placed the green.  Enough so that if his theory of the treeline is correct, then we ought to see it.  

3.  He points out what he calls "the one large, bushy tree" and claims that "what looks to be the same tree" is visible in the 1920 aerial. It looks to be the same tree?   How so?   This seems more wishful thinking than critical analysis.   First, it isn't even "one large, bushy tree."   It is two trees at least.  Second, it looks larger, a different shape, and in a different location than the dark blob in the 1920 Aerial.  Third, even assuming the 1920 blob was large enough to be visible in the 1913 Aerial (an assumption I am not willing to make) there are a number of other trees visible in the 1913 photo that could just as easily be that tree.  Fourth, look at the distance between the tree in 1913 photo and the ravine and compare it to the distance from the green blob to the ravine in the 1913 photo.  The former seems to be much further away from the ravine.

4.  He claims what we have been calling a sandy road comes "from the right before rising up the hill." Then, apparently based on this sketchy interpretation, he assumes that the road shown is the current road that wraps around the lake, and assumes it was always there.   In the Brown book this sandy line looks like it came from the left, not the right.  One can possibly see the ground from all the way to the road, yet there is no road where Mike thinks it goes.

In short, his interpretation and reasoning is tenuous at best.   I don't know where the green was located, and Mike's reasoning does nothing to clarify this issue for me.

I have no idea how Jeff Brauer can claim that he thinks Mike got it about right.
Has he seen the photo from the Brown book?   Does he know how much land is cut off?  Does he agree that it is only 10-15 feet?  Does he agree that he can tell the road comes from the right at the bottom of the photo and wraps around the lake.   Can he really tell that the supposed "one large, bushy tree" is the same tree as in the 1920 aerial?    Can he even make out the other large trees in the 1913 photograph?  Does he agree that there was a solid tree line bordering the 3rd tee.  

Unless he has information I don't have, then I think Brauer's endorsement of Mike's analysis is just more wishful thinking.  

[Sean Leary]

I personally think it's Atlantic Avenue, outsde the fence and across the railrad tracks at about the first fairway/green area...but could be swayed by Mike's ext analysis to think it's the road inside the gates over by the 18th hole.

Thanks.

The fact that the white road looks like it goes downhill confuses me the most. I have only been there a few times but the only part near there that would make sense to me in terms of being downhill is from the inside elbow of the dogleg on 4 down to the 4th tee. I am sure I am wrong on this.

[DMoriarty]

I just looked at my post above and noticed I am referring to source material you guys don't have.   I hate to be like TEPaul, so I will post some semblance of the photo from the Brown book when I can. 

[Mike Cirba]

David,

I realize part of your legal training is to try to get people to cast doubt on what they see what their own eyes.

Still, when you talk about clearing next to the tee on #3 I'm not sure that's what I see...I do see a road going off into the woods from there in the 1920 photo, and the portion of the road closest to the tee is a bit less dense in terms of tree growth, but there is little question that if one took a photo from the upper level of the 6th fairway and panned far enough left to see the 3rd tee that they would also capture some of that tree line.

I also don't understand how you can say it looks like there was even more clearing in that area in 1930?   Is this the photo you are making that assessment from?

[Mike Cirba]

Actually, that one tall tree on the left of #4 as one gets near the top of the hill still looks alive and well in the 1930 photo.

Looking across to #6, one can get a better sense of where the cameraman had to be to shoot the angle where the 2nd green is captured to the far left.

One can also almost make out the 3rd tee...behind the trees.

[JESII]

Mike,

Do you see the area immediately rght of the 3rd tee in this picture? There's a pretty big area cleared...at least as big as the 2nd green. The road is an edge of this area. How can you not see this?

[DMoriarty]

Jim,

Mike only sees what he wants, and only when he wants.

That is how last week, when I posted the 1931 Oblique from the Hagley Collection, he could argue that the aerial didn't prove anything about the trees around Pine Valley.  Remember how he argued that it showed new growth, and that it all may have been clear cut back in 1913?  Yet now, he posts the exact same photo as definitive prove that there had been a solid wall of trees next to the 3rd tee.  Go figure?

Whether changing his tune about the oblique, or conveniently turning the cut to which you refer into a road, or throwing out his snide lawyer jabs, it is this kind of duplicitousness that you apparently write off to "passion."  Maybe so if it only happened once in a while.  But as it is an every day occurrence, to me is comes off as downright sleazy.  

[JESII]

David,

What percetage of your energy on here (these threads that you both gravitate to) is spent taking shots at Mike? I would guess 50% - 60% but you might think differently...

You've had all of these assets in your possesion for several days, and surely enough time to come up wth a thought on what we're looking at in the Brown/Shelly picture...what do you think of the various features? Relative to Bryan's indexed mock up, do you disagree with any of it? Where do you think the cameraman was?

[Patrick_Mucci]

 

Jim,

That's the 3rd green, NOT the 3rd tee.

Mike,

Do you see the area immediately rght of the 3rd tee in this picture? There's a pretty big area cleared...at least as big as the 2nd green. The road is an edge of this area. How can you not see this?

[JESII]

Pat,
The red arrow is referring to the tree Mike is using to make his case. I was speaking of the 3rd tee up to the right of the second green. Tere's a significant area cleared there. Eventually a house was built but it refutes Mike's comment of there being nothing cleared right of the 3rd tee.

[DMoriarty]

David,

What percetage of your energy on here (these threads that you both gravitate to) is spent taking shots at Mike? I would guess 50% - 60% but you might think differently...

It depends on how much he twists and distorts.  I'd have northing negative to say if  he cleaned up his act, but I won't hold my breath waiting for that.

Do you really think it is inappropriate for me to point out when he uses the same photo for totally contradictory purposes like he just did with the oblique?

You've had all of these assets in your possesion for several days, and surely enough time to come up wth a thought on what we're looking at in the Brown/Shelly picture...what do you think of the various features? Relative to Bryan's indexed mock up, do you disagree with any of it? Where do you think the cameraman was?

Well was trying to figure it out a while back and posted some questions and a mock up for you, but my posts were apparently buried under the dozen or so reposts of the same old articles and photos.

I will try to post the brown photo and some comments later.

[Mike Cirba]

Jim,

Did David ask me if I saw a clearing there off the third tee?   I don't seem to remember that he did.   In fact, I'm not sure he engaged in anything resembling conversation at all, more like a sermon perhaps.

Perhaps I read his posts too quickly given they are about 80% insult, 10% deflection and obfuscation, and 1% factual.   I may be rightly accused of being generous in my assessment.

Oh...the other 9%?   Umm...acting like he actually knows something about the topic at hand given that's never even seen the property.

In Great Britain he'd be known as a poseur with a capital P.


In answer to your question, yes, there is a clearing, or at least an open area along that sandy dirt road cutting in front and to the right of the third tee, but not quite as large as the second green.  

Of course, with a picture taken from an angle from the 6th fairway that clearing is irrelevant because if the camera had actually panned far enough left from that angle to view the third tee to it's leftmost side, any of the trees along that line that wasn't cleared would be seen in the photo either left, right, or behind the clearing, or all three of the above.

[Jeff_Brauer]

Interpreting these photos isn't quite as hard as some here have made it out to be, at least for me.  I do this kind of thing often, and have three simple steps to figuring out what is going on there....

1. Take head out of your ass....
2. Look at photos....
3. See what is there, and not what your agenda wants to be there!

In this case, we have the clearing line on hole 4, the top of the hill where No. 2 green sits to this day, some roads, etc. that haven't moved in a century.  The remaining trees in various photos help clarify, but really, its clear we are looking almost straight down 4 FW (actually a bit from the right) from somewhere near 6 green.  You could probably check the angles on current or old aerials of that clearing line and place the camera within a few yards.  Granted, the overall depth of the photo might be hard to ascertain if it weren't for the road we see.

The idea that its somewhere else comes from Pat trying to argue that it proves that nothing could be seen from the tracks.   But, where he tried to say the camera was would put the road we see at 90 degrees to the camera, and obviously out of view, despite how he tries to use captions written by others much later to tell us exactly where the camera was pointed.

Seriously there is an old saw on construction sites (mostly for safety around equipment) that if you can see their eyes, they can see yours.  So, if we can see the road and tracks, then you could see from the road and tracks somewhere into the site.  Yes, I realize its cleared in these photos, but at least some of it was cleared for mining operations post 1904.

[DMoriarty]

Jim, 

I guess there is no reason to discuss it further, now that Jeff has informed us that our heads are up our asses and we are all seeing what our agenda tells us to see.  I didn't even realize you had an agenda.  I guess you must, though, because your interpretation is different than his.

And exactly what is my agenda here?  I certainly don't give a damn about what Crump could have seen from the tracks.  In fact I don't give a damn whether or not the train story is true, and if I did, then I still wouldn't care about what one could see from the tracks.  The train story stands of falls with the veracity of the hunting accounts.  If Crump was already familiar with the land because he had hunted it, then he didn't discover the land via the window of a passing train. 

But I wonder how he knows for certain that some of the land was clear before 1904?  I must have missed that photo.

I also wonder how he knows for certain that the white line is the RR tracks?  Not even Mike thinks it is the RR tracks anymore.  You have been there a few times, and you don't think the line is the railroad tracks, do you?   Yet Jeff Brauer knows for certain, and apparently he is an expert at deciphering RR tracks on 100 year old, blurry photos. 

[Jeff_Brauer]

David,

I have said that the white line is the road before the RR tracks, not the tracks.

Glad to know you don't care what Crump would have seen from the tracks.  Its irrelevant and a mostly stupid argument between Mike and Pat.  I have also said that all we can really know is that Tillie thought he saw it first from the tracks, but many early participants have different stories.  I agree that technically Crump could have only found it first one way or the other, although in a grey vs black and white world, its also quite possible that he saw it "through new eyes" after he started thinking about golf course sites rather than hunting, and in that sense, both stories would have some validity.

As to 1904, Lumberton bought the property then, and there is some evidence that they did mine many areas of PV, and most of those were near the tracks.  It would have to be cleared to be mined, which makes it most likely that at least some areas ner the tracks were open, sandy stretches that would have caught Crump's eye.  No photos were presented on this thread.

Once again, thanks for your efforts in posting some nice photos and stick routings of PV.  Like all others here, I am truly interested in how all that came to be, and your three posts, even if from collections of others, have helped me understand the place much better.

[DMoriarty]

I see above where Cirba lashes out at me for posting without having been to Pine Valley.  I guess he must not have anything substantive to say about my posts.   Plus, he is wrong about even this.  I haven't about posted anything that would have required me to have been to Pine Valley.   For that I am trying to defer to Jim and/or Patrick.

Ironic that some are criticizing me for not offering my opinion, yet Mike will still take shots at me for even posting on a thread so dear to him.  

David,

I have said that the white line is the road before the RR tracks, not the tracks.

. . .
So, if we can see the road and tracks . . .

Glad to know you don't care what Crump would have seen from the tracks.  Its irrelevant and a mostly stupid argument between Mike and Pat.  I have also said that all we can really know is that Tillie thought he saw it first from the tracks, but many early participants have different stories.  I agree that technically Crump could have only found it first one way or the other, although in a grey vs black and white world, its also quite possible that he saw it "through new eyes" after he started thinking about golf course sites rather than hunting, and in that sense, both stories would have some validity.

Anyone with any experience extensively hunting a parcel of land would not make this statement.

As to 1904, Lumberton bought the property then, and there is some evidence that they did mine many areas of PV, and most of those were near the tracks.  It would have to be cleared to be mined, which makes it most likely that at least some areas ner the tracks were open, sandy stretches that would have caught Crump's eye.  No photos were presented on this thread.

Just what this thread needs . . . some mysterious and unverifiable "evidence."  Where have I heard this before . . .

[DMoriarty]

Jim and Bryan,

Here is a snapshot of the photo from the Brown book.  The bottom 1 1/2 inches are cut off.   I am curious about quite a few things in the photo, but I will let you take a look first.  




Bryan, here is a link to a somewhat larger version (although not as large as the original, I don't think.)  As you can see I have edited the tone to make it more legible to my eyes at least.
http://i53.tinypic.com/316q8ar.jpg
_________________________________

[Mike Cirba]

As I suspected before I saw this expanded Brown picture last week, the third tee is not visible in the truncated Shelly photo, which is why he doesn't mention it in his caption, while Brown does in his book.

Sadly, Pat had both books yet neglected to tell us upfront that Shelly's photo was truncated almost an inch on the left before I called him on it based on a sneaking suspicion.

As you can see, most of the third tee IS visible in this photo, although not all the way to the tree line left of it, and even the slight rise from the 2nd green to the 3rd tee is evident.

A few more things to note...one can see much better both the size and the density of the trees on the property in the valley just below.   Scrub pines is an apt description and may be generous, I would say.

You can see the Y in the road at the top of the hill right of the 4th fairway much better, and at the base, near the tee, you can see the path of that road coming from the right.  I can't quite make it out but on the lower left of the photo it appears that perhaps one can also see that path coming up the ridge where it swings around the bowl and continues over to #5 and beyond.

And, most importantly, you can see the large tree on the left side of number 4 much clearer, which is also evident on the 1920 aerial, and which helps us to place the exact location of the features here.

Here's a larger version that you'll need to use the scroll bar on.   Its nice to see this photo finally make it to this thread to settle the matter.

By the way, whatever magic Bryan used earlier with Google Earth to overlay that simulation on top of the photo should now be able to be done in a much more exact way to determine the position of the photographer within a few meters (going metric for Patrick).   I'm not expert in the technology, but I bet other creative folks here might be.

DELETED per Legal Challenge and Censorship

[JESII]

David,

Thanks for postng that, the resolution is so much better than the one from the Shelly book it's not even comparable...that beng said, Mike, how can you look at the ground in that picture and tell us you know exactly where the line is? It's still pretty vague in my opinion.

[Mike Cirba]

Jim,

I don't know the exact line but if we agree that roadbed is unchanged, then using Google Earth we should be able to get very, very close.

[JESII]

Got it.

Why would that road bed need to be retained in the design process?

I agree that the road is very close (if not identical) to today's macadam road but cannot understand how to prove it's exact.

Don't you think the ravine is a more permanent landmark?

[JESII]

Jeff,

What evidence is there that Lumberton did any mining?

Most of what is/was near the tracks were swampy or creekbeds. The stretch along the first is an exception, but from the 1st tee to the 14th green it's wter...is it common to mine sand in a swap?

[Jeff_Brauer]

Jim,

Given the ravine changed directions a bit here and there, I wouldn't use that.  The clearing line on the left of the 4th fw is pretty distinct, as is the hill top which is at the outer bend of the dogleg (just as it was then) and No. 2 green.  Mike's idea of using the tree as a support marker is good, too.  I believe someone could put a line over the angle of the left and right clearing lines on the 4 fw, and then translate that pretty closely on Google Earth to set the camera position.

The road looks similar, but I agree with you, it may not have been cast in stone then. If it was, why wouldn't some idea of housing or roads have shown up on the stick routing at about the same time?  A bit OT, I know, but I am now interested in when housing became a component of PV.

Not that any of it matters.  Remind me again, why do we need 30 pages of discussion/argument on a photo and what does it prove?  

Of more importance to Patrick's original thread title, we should be figuring out if Crump routed/staked it in the field and had his surveyors plot the map so they could have a good idea of where they were, for length balance, possible housing, etc.  Those are the questions that beg to be answered somehow, although, this group probably doesn't have the info necessary to figure it all out accurately.

As to the mining, that came from TePaul, who has seen some EPA analysis of the site and where it was mined.  He can list the areas from the report, but from the sounds of it, the lake on 5 (I thought it was a drought year in those aerials, but I now think the bottom was simply left over mine, later dammed up) the lakes by 10, the lake on 14, the big slope below 12-13 (especially where the topo shows a big "indent" on the 13th below the fw).  Basically, on the topo map, the mined areas seem to correspond with many of the large swales on the property from what I can tell.

It is not uncommon for sand to be found along the waterways and streams, that is for sure.  That kind of material washes easily, and is often transported to lower areas over the eons.

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