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Travel destinations in political history

Robin T. Reid

With political news slowing down for the summer, fun reading can be found in a list of offbeat travel destinations from Chris Epting, author, advertising guru and pop culture aficionado.

So without further ado, here are highlight's from Chris's latest tome, "Elvis Presley Passed Here" (Santa Monica Press, $16.95).

THE LITTLE WHITE SCHOOLHOUSE, aka the birthplace of the Republican Party, in Ripon, Wisc.

On March 20, 1854, the Republican Party formally came into being in this white clapboard building. Momentum had been building for a few years among antislavery activists. But it wasn't until lawyer Alvan Earle Bovay gathered 54 of the area's 100 eligible voters together to form a political organization to combat the "Popular Sovereignty" bill (to extend slavery into the Nebraska and Kansas territories) that things jelled. Bovay liked the name "Republican," and so did the rest of the gang.

The building at 303 Blackburn Street is undergoing some renovations, but it is open to the public (920-748-6764.)

If that's not cool enough to make you take a detour to this little town 65 miles northwest of Milwaukee, consider this: Ripon was the home of the world's largest baked cookie, a 2.1-ton chocolate chip monster that was baked (and consumed) in 1992. Bringing your own bag of Chips-Ahoy is suggested.

FARNSWORTH'S GREEN STREET LAB, aka the birthplace of television, in San Francisco, Calif.

OK, so this isn't strictly political. But where would modern politics be without the telly?

On Sept. 7, 1927, Philo Taylor Farnsworth invented and patented the first operational "television system" in a laboratory here. He was 21 years old at the time. There's a plaque marking the spot at 202 Green St. where the lab once stood. (And San Fran is a terrific walking city anyway ...)

LOUISIANA STATE CAPITOL, Baton Rouge, La., site of Huey Long's assassination.

In the main corridor of this 34-story building, Dr. Carl Austin Weiss gunned down his senator and ironed-fisted former governor, the infamous Huey Long, on Sept. 8, 1935. Why? Well, according to Epting, Long had a grudge against Weiss's father-in-law, Judge Benjamin Pavy. The Kingfish told Pavy that if he continued to oppose him politically, he'd say that the judge's family had black blood. In a classic bad case of "telephone," Weiss was told that rumors were circulating that his wife was the daughter of a black man.

According to Encyclopedia Britannica online, Weiss was "the son of a man whom [Long] had vilified."

Long's bodyguards shot Weiss. He died instantly, and Long died two days later. Long is buried on the grounds, and a statue of him faces the building. It is open daily, except on major holidays. Call 225-342-7317 for more information.

THE MCCLURE HOTEL in Wheeling, W. Va., where Sen. Joseph McCarthy first went public with his Red List.

U.S. Sen. Joseph McCarthy unleashed his anti-Communist witch-hunt in the Colonnade Room of this elegant hotel on Feb. 9, 1950. The malicious and ambitious Republican from Wisconsin told a group of GOP women that he had a list of 205 State Department employees who were members of the American Communist Party.

He spent the next two years persecuting people from all walks of life whom he believed to be Communists. Jobs were lost and careers wrecked until a brave lawyer stood up to McCarthy during a hearing.

The hotel still stands and is now called the McClure House Hotel & Conference Center at 1200 Market St., 800-862-5873.

TAMMANY HALL, New York, N.Y., headquarters of political club that ruled the city for decades.

The very name of Tammany Hall conjures up an image of greasy-looking pols with bellies spilling out of their vests and pants, in a smoke-filled backroom knocking down whiskey and scamming for votes with great glee. Now an off-Broadway theater, the building was built in 1929 and served as the city's Democratic Party Executive Committee's last headquarters.

The Society of Tammany was created in the late 1700s, and it was named after the Delaware Indian chief Tammanend. Initially, its goal was to represent the interests of middle-class folks who resented the aristocratic inclinations of the Federalists. The zeitgeist evolved and the leaders of Tammany became the masters of bribery and political corruption. They began to lose their grip on Gotham in the 1930s, when newly elected President Franklin Delano Roosevelt punished Tammany for not supporting him and made the club a mere county organization. By the '70s, it was just a memory.

The building is at 100-102 E. 17th St.

THE RIVERSIDE MISSION INN in Riverside, Calif., site of Taft visit.

This one doesn't sound so special. Well, trust us, it is in terms of great moments in customer service.

President William Howard Taft stayed in this ornate hotel in October 1909 to participate in a ceremony that honored Father Junipero Serra, founder of the Golden State's missions way back when. Following the ceremony, Taft was to attend a banquet in the hotel. And to make sure he was comfortable at that banquet, the thoughtful hotelier had a special chair built that could hold the 300-pound chief executive.

You--and maybe someone else--can sit in that chair today in the hotel's lobby. The Riverside Mission Inn is at 3649 Mission Inn Ave., Riverside, Calif., 909-784-0300.

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