Markers of History

My inner proof­reader is scream­ing at this one. Because I’m 99% sure that they messed up on word choice in the sub­head­ing of this marker from the Path of History and I cringe to see so promi­nent an error on a marker about history.

Path of History
Naval Shipyard Museum

Location: High St & Water St, Portsmouth, VA, 23704 in front of the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard Museum.

Visited: June 1, 2009, 1:00pm

Transcription of marker:

Naval Shipyard Museum
Formally Norfolk County Ferries Maintenance Building

Constructed in 1919, this build­ing was used as a main­te­nance build­ing for the Norfolk County fer­ries. From 1636 to 1955 the fer­ries pro­vided ser­vice for pas­sen­gers and their var­i­ous modes of trans­porta­tion across the Elizabeth River between Norfolk and Portsmouth. The fer­ries were dis­con­tin­ued in 1955, but were re-established in 1983 for pas­sen­ger trans­porta­tion only. The build­ing has been home to the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard Museum since 1963, when the orig­i­nal museum was moved from inside the Norfolk Naval Shipyard. The museum researches, pre­serves and pro­motes the his­tory of the City of Portsmouth, Norfolk Naval Shipyard and the armed forces in Hampton Roads.

My impres­sions: HIRE A PROOFREADER!!! (Sorry, was I yelling?) I mean, there’s a minis­cule chance that the build­ing is “offi­cially named” based on its prior func­tion, but I do want to assume that 99% chance that it’s the wrong word, take some white-out and change the word to Formerly. But since I’d pre­fer not to be arrested, I’ll restrain myself.

There’s a lot of over­lap with the ferry marker I vis­ited in Norfolk ear­lier in the day, of course, because the for­mer func­tion of the build­ing relates to the same ferries.

Notes for future snar­fers: This is very close to the High Street ferry land­ing. Note that there are two other mark­ers in front of the museum: one for the Blue Star Memorial By-Way (right next to this one, in front of the museum) and another for the Revolutionary War at Portsmouth (fac­ing Water St, par­al­lel to the side of the museum).

Markeroni sta­tus: Awaiting fur­ther infor­ma­tion on the Path of History before sub­mit­ting to Markeroni.

One meta note: Having filled up the front page with plenty more left to come, I’m going to slow down the pace of post­ing, so you’ll hope­fully see two or three posts per day, until I catch up with all the sights I saw yes­ter­day, so come back tomor­row for more marker fun!