S01E192: Wyrm Regards
Tonight’s Tarot:
King of Pentacles Reversed Linestrider
Freaks of Hazard:
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TAKING THE WATERS
SURVIVAL OF THE FEDDEST
⭐ Up in the Allegheny Mountains of West Virginia stands a 5-star hotel called the Greenbrier Resort, the epitome of “Old American Money”. The property is built around a spring of sulfur water called appropriately White Sulphur Springs, which in the 19th century was a popular destination for wealthy Virginians and East Coasters seeking respite from humid summers and disease.
People visited the Springs long before the resort was built. Beginning in 1778, Mrs. Anderson, a local pioneer, adopted the local Native American tradition of "taking the waters" to relieve her chronic rheumatism. Based on this resource, for the first 125 years, the resort was known by the name White Sulphur Springs.
The property was acquired by the Calwells, a prominent Baltimore family. They developed the large property as a resort, selling cottages, many of which still stand today, to prominent Southern individuals. Notable guests of the early 19th century included Martin Van Buren and Henry Clay.
In 1858, a huge hotel building was constructed on the property. The Grand Central Hotel came to be known by the moniker "The White" and, later, "The Old White". During the Civil War, the property changed hands between forces of the Confederate Army and the Union Army, who almost burned the resort to the ground.
Following the Civil War, the resort reopened under Confederate States of America Major Cornelius Boyle, son of John Boyle, an Irish immigrant who eventually became Acting Secretary of the Navy under Andrew Jackson’s administration.
Cornelius was also a founding member of the Knights of the Golden Circle, a secret society with the goal of creating a new Confederate country with legal slavery, in which they attempted to annex all of Mexico and huge parts of Central and Southern America and the Caribbean. They existed before, during, and after the Civil War. He was basically a high-ranking member of the Confederate Secret Service and a wealthy and powerful advocate of American slavery with friends on both sides of the Mason-Dixon line.
From this letter (alt link) written by Emily Boyle, one of Cornelius’ descendants (presumably in the 60’s)
“My favorite letter of Cornelius is one he wrote Catherine when he was about to leave to colonize in Mexico. You've heard the story of how when Cornelius formed a company of southern sympathizers at the outbreak of the war between the States, they drilled earnestly, were investigated, and innocently claimed it was a social club for the purpose of marching in parades and so on. But when Fort Sumter was fired on, Cornelius marched his band over the bridge into Virginia. I believe Frances and the children followed and joined. her brother, agreeing to live near Warrenton. Cornelius became the Provost Marshall of the Army of Northern Virginia, where his very exact knowledge of the political scene and persons who were Federal or Southern partisans seemed valuable. He was much hated by the Federals, called the "infamous Major B. He got into some trouble for his treatment of prisoners. This is one of the reasons that he wasn't allowed to come back into the District after the hostilities ceased and was not granted amnesty as were most southerners. I feel too, that he was kept out by Stanton, the Secretary of War. The story goes that he had paid taxes on his properties in Washington through Stanton who had been his friend, but the greater part of his property was lost because Stanton didn't pay the taxes.
“After the war was over, Cornelius decided to leave the country and went to Mexico to investigate the possibilities there. He met Eustace Baron, a wealthy landowner in Mexico City, and in a very orderly fashion promoted a scheme to start a colony.
[Lavish Note: He brought his wife Frances down to Mexico to sell her on moving the family down there, but she refused to have the children make such a perilous journey to live in such “a heathen country”. She died in childbirth not long after.]
“So there Cornelius was in Virginia, unable to come home and pick up the pieces of his life and his profession with six young children: So he had another idea. He started the White Sulphur Springs venture. He was going to run a spa.”
Fun Fact: In 1903, Boyle's daughter FG Boyle arranged for the crystal flute crafted for James Madison, then owned by Boyle, to be put on display in the Smithsonian Museum, although it was subsequently purchased by Dr. Dayton C. Miller who gifted it to the Library of Congress. In 2022, the flute made headlines as it was played by pop musician Lizzo.
White Sulphur Springs became a place for many Southerners and Northerners alike to vacation. It was the setting for some notable post-war reconciliations. The "White Sulphur Manifesto", the only political paper published by Confederate General Robert E. Lee after the Civil War, advocated the merging of the two societies. The resort became a center of regional post-war society, especially after the arrival of the railroad. Beginning in 1869, it provided direct service to the resort's gates.
In 1910 the land and resort was purchased by the Chesapeake & Ohio Railway under Collis Potter Huntington, one of the so-called “Big Four” railroad tycoons of his day. This new ownership built the massive hotel buildings and golf course that stands there today. The golf course is a historic American course called “The Old White TPC”.
During WWII the resort was used as a hospital as well as a detention center for Axis diplomats, primarily Japanese, who were on American soil when war broke out. Following the war, it reopened to international acclaim, and continued it’s history of hosting Presidents, Vice Presidents, Congressmen, and foreign dignitaries.
The true reason I bring this up is the discovery of a secret massive bunker underneath the hotel which was discovered and exposed in 1992 by an article published by the Washington Post. Project Green Island was allegedly built during the Cold War as a secret emergency relocation center to house the United States Congress in the event of nuclear catastrophe.
[From the NPR Article]
In a groundbreaking series of reports in 2010, Washington Post reporters Bill Arkin and Dana Priest revealed that 33 building complexes for top-secret intelligence work are under construction or have been built in Washington, D.C., and the surrounding area since September 2001.
Before that building boom, however, another secret bunker lay in wait for the apocalypse, behind a giant reinforced steel door. For 30 years, it was kept secret. Hidden in West Virginia's Greenbrier Resort was a massive bomb shelter stocked with supplies for members of Congress in case of an emergency.
Bankers, industrialists and government advisers all hobnobbed at the resort, unknowingly right next door to the post-apocalyptic bunker. When the Greenbriar's official historian, Bob Conte, arrived in 1978, locals started badgering him with questions.
"Why is there a 7,000-foot landing strip for a town of 3,000 people?" he recounts to All Things Considered weekend host Guy Raz. Mostly, he told them there was no such thing — not that it was so "the government could fly their people in here in case of war and go to the bunker that's under the Greenbrier."
Thing is, Conte didn't really know anything about it. He knew every square inch of the Greenbrier's property. He had access to all the records and documents and historic photos of presidents and kings and prime ministers drinking mint juleps on the veranda.
Behind 3-foot-thick concrete walls is a space about the size of a WalMart. The air-intake system is so intricate — it was meant to filter out radiation — that it creates a vacuum-like effect when you walk in. Wind howls around you and sucks all the doors shut.
The sleeping quarters includes rows of metal bunkbeds.
"All they had for private items that you could lock up were a small drawer, right underneath the beds, you could put your personal items in here," Conte says. "For 30 years, every one of these 1,100 beds was assigned to somebody."
In the late 1950s, President Dwight Eisenhower started to worry about how to maintain law and order in America in the aftermath of a nuclear war.
"I feel impelled to speak today in a language that, in a sense, is new — one which I, who have spent so much of my life in the military profession, would have preferred never to use," he said. "That new language is the language of atomic warfare."
Eisenhower decided the Greenbrier would be a perfect cover for a congressional bunker. In 1958, government workers broke ground on what they called "Project Greek Island."
It was just about a four-hour drive from Washington. Hotel workers and guests were told that the giant hole in the ground would house a new conference facility. In fact, it would — or at least part of it would.
"In the 30 years, thousands of people walked in and out of a secret bunker not knowing they were in a secret bunker — which was part of the original design," Conte says in a room used as an "exhibit hall."
"You would have the West Virginia Medical Association meeting here, and a lot of car companies have met here over the years," he says.
Down another corridor is a room that was to be the floor of the House of Representatives. "There were microphones," Conte says. "You can see the little metal attachments there on the back of the seats. They would attach microphones there because they would have recorded all sessions of Congress. There was a big communications center in here."
There were a few weird coincidences that Conte noticed before the bunker's existence was exposed by the Washington Post in 1992. For one, there were many, many, MANY bathrooms. And most of them were for men.
Another thing was that both Gerald Ford and Hubert Humphrey were frequent guests of the Greenbrier when they served in Congress. Conte found out later that they would have been among the few people in the world who knew about the bunker.
Today, part of the bunker is a tourist attraction. Another part is used as a secure data storage facility. Had it not been exposed in 1992, there's a good chance this would still be the secret home of the U.S. Congress.
But now that secret home is somewhere else. And, like the last one, just a handful of people know where it is. Post reporter Bill Arkin is one of them, and he's not saying.
"If you're a normal member of Congress, my guess is that you know nothing. You really know nothing," he says.
The underground facility contained a dormitory, kitchen, hospital, and a broadcast center for members of Congress. The broadcast center had changeable seasonal backdrops to allow it to appear as if members of Congress were broadcasting from Washington, D.C.[citation needed] A 100-foot (30 m) radio tower was installed 4.5 miles (7.2 km) away for these broadcasts. The largest room is "The Exhibit Hall", 89 by 186 feet (27 by 57 m) beneath a ceiling nearly 20 feet (6.1 m) high and supported by 18 support columns. Adjoining it are two smaller auditoriums, one seating about 470 people, big enough to host the 435-member House of Representatives, and the smaller with a seating capacity of about 130, suitable as a temporary Senate chamber. The Exhibit Hall itself could be used for joint sessions of Congress.[3] The facility had a six-month supply of food, periodically refreshed.
The facility has since been decommissioned and renovated as a tourist attraction in which visitors can tour the now-declassified facilities, now known as the "Greenbrier Bunker. It is also used as a data storage facility for the private sector.
Go pay a visit if you can! 🌙
THIS IS VERY GENESIS
DRAGON ENERGY
A reading from The Enchanted World all about Dragons!
OPENER
INTERMISSION
Bums and Rapscallion - FOUR ARM SHIVER
Another Breakup Song - Alicia Stockman
CLOSER
Greasy (Instrumental) - Jimmie Bratcher
PRESHOW
Ledbetter - Hell's Gonna Be a Lot More Fun
([FREE] Poorstacy x Jxdn x Horror Punk x Punk Rock Type Beat "Knife Party")
The Death of Rock and Roll - Pulling Rank
Sista Fista - Good Girls
([FREE] Horror Punk x Punk Rock x Poorstacy Type Beat - "Infection" (prod.cristalbeach))
Namo Maitri - Faded - Namo Maitri (Alan Walker)
The Lightningrod Salesman - The Beauty is False
([FREE] Alternative Rock x Pop Punk | Pop Rock Type Beat - "Freak")
CityBeach - Alandace
([free for profit] post punk x darkwave type beat - "all better")
HeyCitizen - Kiss Me Always
White Triangles - White Suit Gold Rings
Able and The Wolf - Willow Brown (ft. Scream Mail)
([Free for profit] indie rock x pop punk type beat - "first time")
Matt Bigelow - Something I Do
Longy - The Jack n Jill Blues
Goofball Bucket - The Way You Make Me Feel
([FREE] Poorstacy x Pasteldrip x Horror Punk Type Beat - "Mercury" (prod.cristalbeach))
Daves Not Here - Queen Of The Midday World
TAKE THESE, IT’S DANGEROUS TO GO ALONE!
