1.
National Register of Historic Places
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The National Register of Historic Places is the United States federal governments official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects deemed worthy of preservation. The passage of the National Historic Preservation Act in 1966 established the National Register, of the more than one million properties on the National Register,80,000 are listed individually. The remainder are contributing resources within historic districts, each year approximately 30,000 properties are added to the National Register as part of districts or by individual listings. For most of its history the National Register has been administered by the National Park Service and its goals are to help property owners and interest groups, such as the National Trust for Historic Preservation, coordinate, identify, and protect historic sites in the United States. While National Register listings are mostly symbolic, their recognition of significance provides some financial incentive to owners of listed properties, protection of the property is not guaranteed. During the nomination process, the property is evaluated in terms of the four criteria for inclusion on the National Register of Historic Places, the application of those criteria has been the subject of criticism by academics of history and preservation, as well as the public and politicians. Occasionally, historic sites outside the proper, but associated with the United States are also listed. Properties can be nominated in a variety of forms, including individual properties, historic districts, the Register categorizes general listings into one of five types of properties, district, site, structure, building, or object. National Register Historic Districts are defined geographical areas consisting of contributing and non-contributing properties, some properties are added automatically to the National Register when they become administered by the National Park Service. These include National Historic Landmarks, National Historic Sites, National Historical Parks, National Military Parks/Battlefields, National Memorials, on October 15,1966, the Historic Preservation Act created the National Register of Historic Places and the corresponding State Historic Preservation Offices. Initially, the National Register consisted of the National Historic Landmarks designated before the Registers creation, approval of the act, which was amended in 1980 and 1992, represented the first time the United States had a broad-based historic preservation policy. To administer the newly created National Register of Historic Places, the National Park Service of the U. S. Department of the Interior, hartzog, Jr. established an administrative division named the Office of Archeology and Historic Preservation. Hartzog charged OAHP with creating the National Register program mandated by the 1966 law, ernest Connally was the Offices first director. Within OAHP new divisions were created to deal with the National Register, the first official Keeper of the Register was William J. Murtagh, an architectural historian. During the Registers earliest years in the late 1960s and early 1970s, organization was lax and SHPOs were small, understaffed, and underfunded. A few years later in 1979, the NPS history programs affiliated with both the U. S. National Parks system and the National Register were categorized formally into two Assistant Directorates. Established were the Assistant Directorate for Archeology and Historic Preservation and the Assistant Directorate for Park Historic Preservation, from 1978 until 1981, the main agency for the National Register was the Heritage Conservation and Recreation Service of the United States Department of the Interior. In February 1983, the two assistant directorates were merged to promote efficiency and recognize the interdependency of their programs, jerry L. Rogers was selected to direct this newly merged associate directorate
2.
Historic districts in the United States
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Buildings, structures, objects and sites within a historic district are normally divided into two categories, contributing and non-contributing. Districts greatly vary in size, some have hundreds of structures, the U. S. federal government designates historic districts through the United States Department of Interior under the auspices of the National Park Service. Federally designated historic districts are listed on the National Register of Historic Places, state-level historic districts may follow similar criteria or may require adherence to certain historic rehabilitation standards. Local historic district designation offers, by far, the most legal protection for historic properties because most land use decisions are made at the local level, local districts are generally administered by the county or municipal government. The first U. S. historic district was established in Charleston, South Carolina in 1931, Charleston city government designated an Old and Historic District by local ordinance and created a board of architectural review to oversee it. New Orleans followed in 1937, establishing the Vieux Carré Commission, other localities picked up on the concept, with the city of Philadelphia enacting its historic preservation ordinance in 1955. The Supreme Court case validated the protection of resources as an entirely permissible governmental goal. In 1966 the federal government created the National Register of Historic Places, conference of Mayors had stated Americans suffered from rootlessness. By the 1980s there were thousands of federally designated historic districts, Historic districts are generally two types of properties, contributing and non-contributing. In general, contributing properties are integral parts of the historic context, in addition to the two types of classification within historic districts, properties listed on the National Register of Historic Places are classified into five broad categories. They are, building, structure, site, district and object, all but the eponymous district category are also applied to historic districts listed on the National Register. A listing on the National Register of Historic Places is governmental acknowledgment of a historic district, however, the Register is an honorary status with some federal financial incentives. The National Register of Historic Places defines a historic district per U. S. federal law, a district may also comprise individual elements separated geographically but linked by association or history. Districts established under U. S. federal guidelines generally begin the process of designation through a nomination to the National Register of Historic Places, the National Register is the official recognition by the U. S. government of cultural resources worthy of preservation. While designation through the National Register does offer a district or property some protections, if the federal government is not involved, then the listing on the National Register provides the site, property or district no protections. If, however, company A was under federal contract the Smith House would be protected, a federal designation is little more than recognition by the government that the resource is worthy of preservation. Usually, the National Register does not list religious structures, moved structures, reconstructed structures, however, if a property falls into one of those categories and are integral parts of districts that do meet the criteria then an exception allowing their listing will be made. Historic district listings, like all National Register nominations, can be rejected on the basis of owner disapproval, in the case of historic districts, a majority of owners must object in order to nullify a nomination to the National Register of Historic Places
3.
Saint Paul, Minnesota
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Saint Paul is the capital and second-most populous city of the U. S. state of Minnesota. As of 2015, the estimated population was 300,851. Saint Paul is the county seat of Ramsey County, the smallest and most densely populated county in Minnesota. The city lies mostly on the east bank of the Mississippi River in the area surrounding its point of confluence with the Minnesota River, and adjoins Minneapolis, the states largest city. Known as the Twin Cities, the two form the core of Minneapolis–Saint Paul, the 16th-largest metropolitan area in the United States, with about 3.52 million residents. Founded near historic Native American settlements as a trading and transportation center, the Dakota name for Saint Paul is Imnizaska. Though Minneapolis is better-known nationally, Saint Paul contains the state government, regionally, the city is known for the Xcel Energy Center, home of the Minnesota Wild, and for the Science Museum of Minnesota. As a business hub of the Upper Midwest, it is the headquarters of such as Ecolab. Saint Paul, along with its Twin City, Minneapolis, is known for its literacy rate. It was the city in the United States with a population of 250,000 or more to see an increase in circulation of Sunday newspapers in 2007. The settlement originally began at present-day Lamberts Landing, but was known as Pigs Eye after Pierre Pigs Eye Parrant established a tavern there. Burial mounds in present-day Indian Mounds Park suggest that the area was inhabited by the Hopewell Native Americans about two thousand years ago. From the early 17th century until 1837, the Mdewakanton Dakota and they called the area I-mni-za ska dan for its exposed white sandstone cliffs. Following the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, a U. S. Army officer named Zebulon Pike negotiated approximately 100,000 acres of land from the local Dakota tribes in 1805 in order to establish a fort. The negotiated territory was located on banks of the Mississippi River, starting from Saint Anthony Falls in present-day Minneapolis, to its confluence with the Saint Croix River. Fort Snelling was built on the territory in 1819 at the confluence of the Mississippi and Minnesota Rivers, the 1837 Treaty with the Sioux ceded all local tribal land east of the Mississippi to the U. S. Government. Taoyateduta moved his band at Kaposia across the river to the south, fur traders, explorers, and missionaries came to the area for the forts protection. Many of the settlers were French-Canadians who lived nearby, however, as a whiskey trade flourished, military officers banned settlers from the fort-controlled lands
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Tumulus
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A tumulus is a mound of earth and stones raised over a grave or graves. Tumuli are also known as barrows, burial mounds or kurgans, a cairn, which is a mound of stones built for various purposes, may also originally have been a tumulus. Tumuli are often categorised according to their external apparent shape, in this respect, a long barrow is a long tumulus, usually constructed on top of several burials, such as passage graves. A round barrow is a tumulus, also commonly constructed on top of burials. The internal structure and architecture of both long and round barrows has a range, the categorization only refers to the external apparent shape. The method of inhumation may involve a dolmen, a cist, a mortuary enclosure, examples of barrows include Duggleby Howe and Maeshowe. The funeral of Patroclus is described in book 23 of the Iliad, Patroclus is burned on a pyre, and his bones are collected into a golden urn in two layers of fat. The barrow is built on the location of the pyre, achilles then sponsors funeral games, consisting of a chariot race, boxing, wrestling, running, a duel between two champions to the first blood, discus throwing, archery and spear throwing. Beowulfs body is taken to Hronesness, where it is burned on a funeral pyre, during cremation, the Geats lament the death of their lord, a widows lament being mentioned in particular, singing dirges as they circumambulate the barrow. Afterwards, a mound is built on top of a hill, overlooking the sea, a band of twelve of the best warriors ride around the barrow, singing dirges in praise of their lord. Parallels have also drawn to the account of Attilas burial in Jordanes Getica. Jordanes tells that as Attilas body was lying in state, the best horsemen of the Huns circled it, as in circus games. An Old Irish Life of Columcille reports that every funeral procession halted at a mound called Eala, whereupon the corpse was laid, archaeologists often classify tumuli according to their location, form, and date of construction. Some British types are listed below, Bank barrow Bell barrow Bowl barrow D-shaped barrow - round barrow with a flat edge at one side often defined by stone slabs. Disc barrow Fancy barrow - generic term for any Bronze Age barrows more elaborate than a hemispherical shape. Long barrow Oval barrow - a Neolithic long barrow consisting of an elliptical, platform barrow - The least common of the recognised types of round barrow, consisting of a flat, wide circular mound that may be surrounded by a ditch. They occur widely across southern England with a concentration in East and West Sussex. Pond barrow - a barrow consisting of a circular depression, surrounded by a bank running around the rim of the depression
5.
Mississippi River
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The Mississippi River is the chief river of the largest drainage system on the North American continent. Flowing entirely in the United States, it rises in northern Minnesota, with its many tributaries, the Mississippis watershed drains all or parts of 31 U. S. states and 2 Canadian provinces between the Rocky and Appalachian Mountains. The Mississippi ranks as the fourth longest and fifteenth largest river in the world by discharge, the river either borders or passes through the states of Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, Illinois, Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Mississippi, and Louisiana. Native Americans long lived along the Mississippi River and its tributaries, most were hunter-gatherers, but some, such as the Mound Builders, formed prolific agricultural societies. The arrival of Europeans in the 16th century changed the way of life as first explorers, then settlers. The river served first as a barrier, forming borders for New Spain, New France, and the early United States, and then as a vital transportation artery and communications link. Formed from thick layers of the silt deposits, the Mississippi embayment is one of the most fertile agricultural regions of the country. In recent years, the river has shown a shift towards the Atchafalaya River channel in the Delta. The word itself comes from Messipi, the French rendering of the Anishinaabe name for the river, see below in the History section for additional information. In addition to historical traditions shown by names, there are at least two measures of a rivers identity, one being the largest branch, and the other being the longest branch. Using the largest-branch criterion, the Ohio would be the branch of the Lower Mississippi. Using the longest-branch criterion, the Middle Mississippi-Missouri-Jefferson-Beaverhead-Red Rock-Hellroaring Creek River would be the main branch and its length of at least 3,745 mi is exceeded only by the Nile, the Amazon, and perhaps the Yangtze River among the longest rivers in the world. The source of this waterway is at Browers Spring,8,800 feet above sea level in southwestern Montana and this is exemplified by the Gateway Arch in St. Louis and the phrase Trans-Mississippi as used in the name of the Trans-Mississippi Exposition. It is common to qualify a regionally superlative landmark in relation to it, the New Madrid Seismic Zone along the river is also noteworthy. These various basic geographical aspects of the river in turn underlie its human history and present uses of the waterway, the Upper Mississippi runs from its headwaters to its confluence with the Missouri River at St. Louis, Missouri. The source of the Upper Mississippi branch is traditionally accepted as Lake Itasca,1,475 feet above sea level in Itasca State Park in Clearwater County, however, the lake is in turn fed by a number of smaller streams. From its origin at Lake Itasca to St. Louis, Missouri, fourteen of these dams are located above Minneapolis in the headwaters region and serve multiple purposes, including power generation and recreation. The remaining 29 dams, beginning in downtown Minneapolis, all locks and were constructed to improve commercial navigation of the upper river
6.
Hopewell tradition
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The Hopewell tradition was not a single culture or society, but a widely dispersed set of related populations. They were connected by a network of trade routes, known as the Hopewell exchange system. Within this area, societies participated in a degree of exchange with the highest amount of activity along waterways. The Hopewell exchange system received materials from all over what is now the United States, most of the items traded were exotic materials and were received by people living in the major trading and manufacturing areas. These people then converted the materials into products and exported them through local and regional exchange networks, the objects created by the Hopewell exchange system spread far and wide and have been seen in many burials outside the Midwest. Although the origins of the Hopewell are still under discussion, the Hopewell culture can also be considered a cultural climax, Hopewell populations originated in western New York and moved south into Ohio, where they built upon the local Adena mortuary tradition. Or, Hopewell was said to have originated in western Illinois, similarly, the Havana Hopewell tradition was thought to have spread up the Illinois River and into southwestern Michigan, spawning Goodall Hopewell. The name Hopewell was applied by Warren K. Moorehead after his explorations of the Hopewell Mound Group in Ross County, Ohio, the mound group itself was named for the family who owned the earthworks at the time. What any of the groups now defined as Hopewellian called themselves is unknown. The Hopewell inherited from their Adena forebears an incipient social stratification and this increased social stability and reinforced sedentism, social stratification, specialized use of resources, and probably population growth. Hopewell societies cremated most of their deceased and reserved burial for only the most important people, in some sites, hunters apparently received a higher status in the community because their graves were more elaborate and contained more status goods. The Hopewellian peoples had leaders, but they were not like powerful rulers who could command armies of slaves and these cultures likely accorded certain families a special place of privilege. Some scholars suggest that these societies were marked by the emergence of big-men and these leaders acquired their position because of their ability to persuade others to agree with them on important matters such as trade and religion. They also perhaps were able to influence by the creation of reciprocal obligations with other important members of the community. Today, the features of the Hopewell tradition era are mounds built for uncertain purposes. Great geometric earthworks are one of the most impressive Native American monuments throughout American prehistory, eastern Woodlands mounds have various geometric shapes and rise to impressive heights. The gigantic sculpted earthworks often took the shape of animals, birds, the function of the mounds is still under debate. Due to considerable evidence and surveys, plus the good condition of the largest mounds
7.
Dakota people
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The Dakota people are a Native American tribe and First Nations band government in North America. They compose two of the three main subcultures of the Sioux /ˈsuː/ people, and are divided into the Eastern Dakota. The Eastern Dakota are the Santee, who reside in the eastern Dakotas, central Minnesota and they have federally recognized tribes established in several places. The Western Dakota are the Yankton, and the Yanktonai, who reside in the Missouri River area, the Yankton-Yanktonai are collectively also referred to by the endonym Wičhíyena. They also have distinct federally recognized tribes, in the past the Western Dakota have been erroneously classified as Nakota, a branch of the Sioux who moved further west. The latter are now located in Montana and across the border in Canada, the word Dakota means ally in the Dakota language, and their autonyms include Ikčé Wičhášta and Dakhóta Oyáte. The Eastern and Western Dakota are two of the three groupings belonging to the Sioux nation, the third being the Lakota, the three groupings speak dialects that are still relatively mutually intelligible. This is referred to as a language, Dakota-Lakota, or Sioux. The other two languages of the Dakotan dialect continuum, Assiniboine and Stoney, have grown widely or completely unintelligible to Dakota and Lakota speakers, however some of those in the north woods of Minnesota remain at the Otttertail lake and Inspiration Peak areas. They were never sent to reservations as they were protected by settlers whom they had befriended, after the Dakota War of 1862, many Santee were sent to Crow Creek Indian Reservation, in 1864 some from the Crow Creek Reservation were sent to the Santee Sioux Reservation. The Bdewákaŋthuŋwaŋ live predominantly at the Prairie Island and Shakopee reservations in Minnesota, most of the Yankton live on the Yankton Indian Reservation in southeastern South Dakota. Some Yankton live on the Lower Brule Indian Reservation and Crow Creek Reservation, in addition, they reside at several Canadian reserves, including Birdtail, Oak Lake, and Whitecap. The Dakota lived in Wisconsin and Minnesota in the 17th century, by 1700 some had migrated to present-day South Dakota. Late in the 17th century, the Dakota entered into an alliance with French merchants, the French were trying to gain advantage in the struggle for the North American fur trade against the English, who had recently established the Hudsons Bay Company. By 1862, shortly after a crop the year before and a winter starvation. The local traders would not issue any credit to the Santee and one trader, Andrew Myrick, went so far as to say, If theyre hungry. On August 17,1862 the Dakota War began when a few Santee men murdered a white farmer and they inspired further attacks on white settlements along the Minnesota River. The Santee attacked the trading post, later settlers found Myrick among the dead with his mouth stuffed full of grass
8.
Mound Builders
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Since the 19th century, the prevailing scholarly consensus has been that the mounds were constructed by indigenous peoples of the Americas. Sixteenth-century Spanish explorers made contact with living in a number of later Mississippian cities, described their cultures. By the time of United States westward expansion two hundred years later, Native Americans were generally not knowledgeable about the civilizations that produced the mounds, research and study of these cultures and peoples has been based mostly on archaeology and anthropology. At one time, the mound builder was applied to the people believed to have constructed these earthworks. In the 16th through 19th centuries, Europeans and Americans generally thought that an other than one related to the historic Native Americans had built the mounds. The namesake cultural trait of the Mound Builders was the building of mounds and these burial and ceremonial structures were typically flat-topped pyramids or platform mounds, flat-topped or rounded cones, elongated ridges, and sometimes a variety of other forms. They were generally built as part of villages that arose from more dense populations, with a specialization of skills. The early earthworks built in Louisiana c.3500 BCE are the ones known to be built by a hunter-gatherer culture. The best-known flat-topped pyramidal structure, which at over 100 feet tall is the largest pre-Columbian earthwork north of Mexico, is Monks Mound at Cahokia in present-day Collinsville, Illinois. At its peak about 1150 CE, Cahokia was a settlement with 20, 000-30,000 people. Some effigy mounds were constructed in the shapes or outlines of culturally significant animals, the most famous effigy mound, Serpent Mound in southern Ohio, ranges from 1 to just over 3 feet tall. 20 feet wide, over 1,330 feet long, many different tribal groups and chiefdoms, involving an array of beliefs and unique cultures over thousands of years, built mounds as expressions of their cultures. The general term, mound builder, covered their shared architectural practice of earthwork mound construction and this practice, believed to be associated with a cosmology that had a cross-cultural appeal, may indicate common cultural antecedents. The first mound building was a marker of political and social complexity among the cultures in the Eastern United States. Watson Brake in Louisiana, constructed about 3500 BCE during the Middle Archaic period, is the oldest dated mound complex in North America and it is one of eleven mound complexes from this period found in the Lower Mississippi Valley. We can conclude that these mound builders were very organized people, hundreds or even thousands of workers had to dig up tons of earth with the hand tools available. Then the dirt had to be moved long distances. The most complete reference for these earthworks is Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley, written by Ephraim G. Squier and it was published in 1848 by the Smithsonian
9.
Minnesota Historical Society
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The Minnesota Historical Society is a nonprofit educational and cultural institution dedicated to preserving the history of the U. S. state of Minnesota. It was founded by the legislature in 1849, almost a decade before statehood. The Society is named in the Minnesota Constitution and it is headquartered in the Minnesota History Center in downtown St. Paul. Although its focus is on Minnesota history it is not constrained by it and its work on the North American fur trade has been recognized in Canada as well. The Minnesota Historical Society operates 31 historic sites and museums,26 of which are open to the public, MNHS manages 14 sites directly and 10 in partnerships where the society maintains the resources and provides funding. Five sites are being held for preservation but are closed to public access, seven of the sites are National Historic Landmarks and 16 others are on the National Register of Historic Places. Seven sites lie within Minnesota state parks, and three are elements of the Mississippi National River and Recreation Area, journals and other documents of the Minnesota Historical Society. Minnesota Historical Society / Internet Archive
10.
Projectile point
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In archaeological terms, a projectile point is an object that was hafted to a projectile, such as a spear, dart, or arrow, or perhaps used as a knife. Scientific techniques exist to track the specific kinds of rock or minerals used to make stone tools in various regions back to their original sources. Occasionally, projectile points made of worked bone or ivory are found at archaeological sites, in regions where metallurgy had emerged, projectile points were made from copper, bronze, or iron. In North America, some late prehistoric points were fashioned from copper that was mined in the Lake Superior region, a large variety of prehistoric arrowheads, dart points, and spear points have been discovered. Flint, obsidian, quartz and many rocks and minerals were commonly used to make points in North America. Some of the more famous Paleo-Indian types include Clovis, Folsom, projectile points fall into two general types, dart/spear points, and arrow points. Larger points were used to tip spears and atlatl darts, arrow points are smaller and lighter than dart points, and were used to tip arrows. The question of how to distinguish an arrow point from a point used on a projectile is non-trivial. According to some investigators, the best indication is the width of the hafting area, an alternative approach is to distinguish arrow points by their necessarily smaller size. Projectile points come in a variety of shapes and styles, which vary according to chronological periods, cultural identities. Typological studies of projectile points have become more elaborate through the years, for instance, Gregory Perino began his categorical study of projectile point typology in the late 1950s. Collaborating with Robert Bell, he published a set of four volumes defining the known point types of that time, Perino followed this several years later with a three-volume study of Selected Preforms, Points and Knives of the North American Indians. Another recent set of studies of North American projectile points has been produced by Noel Justice
11.
Death mask
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A death mask is an image, typically in wax or plaster cast made of a persons face following death, often by taking a cast or impression directly from the corpse. Death masks may be mementos of the dead, or be used for creation of portraits, in other cultures a death mask may be a funeral mask, an image placed on the face of the deceased before burial rites, and normally buried with them. The best known of these are the used by ancient Egyptians as part of the mummification process, such as Tutankhamuns mask. In some European countries, it was common for death masks to be used as part of the effigy of the deceased, displayed at state funerals, mourning portraits were also painted, showing the subject lying in repose. During the 18th and 19th centuries masks were used to permanently record the features of unknown corpses for purposes of identification. This function was replaced by post-mortem photography. In the cases of people whose faces were damaged by their death, an example of this occurred in the case of Thomas DArcy McGee, the Canadian statesman whose face was shattered by the bullet which assassinated him in 1868. When taken from a subject, such a cast is called a life mask. Proponents of phrenology used both death masks and life masks for pseudoscientific purposes, masks of deceased persons are part of traditions in many countries. A special element of the rite was a mask, put on the face of the deceased. This mask was believed to strengthen the spirit of the mummy, the best known mask is Tutankhamuns mask. Made of gold and gems, the conveys the highly stylized features of the ancient ruler. Such masks were not, however, made from casts of the features, rather, in 1876 the archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann discovered in Mycenae six graves, which he was confident belonged to kings and ancient Greek heroes—Agamemnon, Cassandra, Evrimdon and their associates. To his surprise, the skulls were covered with gold masks and it is now thought most unlikely that the masks actually belonged to Agamemnon and other heroes of the Homeric epics, in fact they are several centuries older. The lifelike character of Roman portrait sculptures has been attributed to the earlier Roman use of wax to preserve the features of deceased family members, the wax masks were subsequently reproduced in more durable stone. The use of masks in the cult is also attested in Etruria. Excavations of tombs in the area of the ancient city of Clusium have yielded a number of sheet bronze masks dating from the Etruscan Late Orientalising period. In the 19th century it was thought that they were related to the Mycenaean examples, the most credited hypothesis holds that they were originally fixed to cinerary urns, to give them a human appearance
12.
Rail yard
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A rail yard, railway yard or railroad yard is the US term for a complex series of railroad tracks for storing, sorting, or loading/unloading, railroad cars and/or locomotives. Railroad yards have many tracks in parallel for keeping rolling stock stored off the mainline, railroad cars are moved around by specially designed yard switchers, a type of locomotive. Cars in a railroad yard may be sorted by categories, including railroad company, loaded or unloaded, destination, car type. Railroad yards are built where there is a need to store cars while they are not being loaded or unloaded. Large yards may have a tower to control operations, many railway yards are located at strategic points on a main line. Main line yards are often composed of an Up yard and a Down yard, there are different types of yards, and different parts within a yard, depending on how they are built. They are decoupled and let to accelerate into the classification equipment lower down, a flat yard has no hump, and relies on locomotives for all car movements. A large sub-group of such yards are known as Staging yards, the long haul carrier makes the round trip with a minimal turn around time, and the local switch engine transfers empties to the loading yard when the industries output is ready to be shipped. In the staging yard, the locomotive is most likely operated by industry, since overall throughput speed matters, many have small pneumatic, hydraulic or spring driven braking retarders to adjust and slow speed both before and after yard switch points. Along with car tracking and load tracking to destination technologies such as RFID long trains can be broken down and reconfigured in transfer yards or operations in remarkable time. Transfer yard is a yard where consists are dropped off or picked up as a group by through service such as a Unit Train, but managed locally by local switching service locomotives. Unit tracks may be reserved for Unit trains, which carry a block of all of the same origin and destination. Such consists often stop in a yard for other purposes, inspection. Freight yards may have multiple industries adjacent to them where railroad cars are loaded or unloaded and then stored before they move on to their new destination. Major freight yards in the U. S. Major U. K. goods yards include those in Crewe, Reading and Bescot, near Walsall, coach yards are used for sorting, storing and repairing passenger cars. These yards are located in areas near large stations or terminals. An example of a major U. S. coach yard is Sunnyside Yard in New York City and those that are principally used for storage, such as the West Side Yard in New York, are called layup yards or stabling yards. Major U. K. coach stabling yards include those in Crewe and Longsight, Manchester, which are operated by various regional train companies
