The Places of Wright Morris
Photos Presented Courtesy of Martha McGahan
“Everyone in California is from somewhere else.”
― Wright Morris, Love Among the Cannibals
School
The North Ward Elementary School at 515 A Street was built in 1914 and school records reveal that Wright Morris was a student there in 1916 at the age of six. The school was razed in the summer of 2009.
“That worn building, of unfaced red brick, with the paper-flower cutouts in the tall, dark windows, was the wonderful place I seemed to have told her quite a bit about.”
From The World in the Attic
House with the run-around porch
The house across the street on the south end of the block is a house Wright Morris uses in his writings and was a large memory from his childhood.
“What made the house a home was the run-around porch, a screen that stuck or slammed, a wire basket of dead ferns, a swing that scuffed the paint off the clapboards, a rail to lean on when you threw up, a stoop to sit on when you watered the grass…Under the stoop you’ll find a scooter made of one skate, a wooden-runner sled, a pair of stilts, an iron wheel rim and a stick to push it.”
From God’s Country and My People
Rail Line Crossing
Central City was crossed east and west by the main line of the Union Pacific and north and south by the Burlington. A Switch Tower stood at the crossing with a man up in the second story to “pull the handles” which assured that the tracks were aligned for the trains.
“…the C.B. & Q., running north and south, crossed the main line of the Union Pacific just a quarter mile west of the square. But the town had never made up its mind which line to parallel. Half the roads came into town at odd angles, and people living in the C.B. & Q. part of town always felt like strangers when the crossed the main line.”
From The World in the Attic
Lincoln Manor Hotel
The Lincoln Manor Steak House, formerly a popular hotel, is on Main Street directly across from the post office. The Steak House is a fine eating place.
“The door at the front, set in slantwise on the corner, with a floral design in the frosted glass, opens on the prospect of the town. Slabs of imported Italian marble face what was once a bank.”
From Ceremony in Lone Tree
Platte River Bridge
The Platte River Bridge which crosses onto Prairie Island east of Central City was originally built in the late 1800’s. The latest bridge is of modern concrete construction. It replaced this last wooden bridge which was burned in 1999.
“One sensible thing he did was slow down approaching the bridge. It had been of planks, the loose ones clapping like thunder, with a turnout near the center allowing buggies to pass. This half-mile-wide river appeared to be no more than a sandbar with pools of water too shallow to wade in.”
From A Life