About Oak Valley

Welcome to Oak Valley!  I have been practicing with my new camera, and it’s been fun creating this  blog to share  close-up photographs of Oak Valley, my HO scale Christmas town  and its citizens.  I’ve posted a new photograph almost every day, so when you have time, I hope you’ll  check out earlier posts.

Oak Valley is  mostly an HO scale town.  The buildings are inexpensive ceramic Christmas houses and shops which I’ve collected for about 20 years.   Most of the people, animals, wagons and carriages are HO Scale Preiser figures from its early 1900′s collection, although I have used some modern figures from Woodland Scenics and other manufacturers if I can make them fit into the vintage theme.   The model train HO Scale is roughly 1/87th  of the actual size of the object.

The table is a 4′ x 6′ permanent display of nine city blocks with  plexiglass walls.   A friend built it for me several years ago, and I finished it with the blocks, streets, lighting, etc.  Most buildings are slightly less than four inches high.   I ran a long string of larger white Christmas tree lights  under the table, and I have extra lights for any added buildings.  Unfortunately, I didn’t think to drill holes and plug them for future lighting, and currently, I have five unlit buildings.  Maybe after Christmas 2011 I will wreak havoc in the town by drilling those last holes.

To have so many people strolling the sidewalks and riding in open carriages, I had to determine that the weather is mild, and there was a very light snowfall the night before.    Preiser didn’t make many early 1900′s figures in winter clothes, so you’ll see a few pastels in the ladies’ and children’s dresses.  In some cases I have painted the figures to have long sleeves, darker winter colors, or to be African American.  

Model train enthusiasts may lose interest when they find out that there’s no train.   I completely understand the lure of the train and wish I had a spacious dedicated room to accommodate a large layout.  Without the train, I believe the street cars add another dimension to the town in addition to the horses, wagons, and carriages. 

I love creating vignettes inside the town.  I can gaze into the town from above, but the people of Oak Valley are living their little lives on the ground every day.  I can only see them at street level through the camera’s eye,  and it’s been a revelation.   Below is one of the wild horses on a (U.S.) quarter. 

As for me, I’m an avid historian, genealogist, and vintage postcard collector.    I collect pre-1914 postcards of towns and cities where my ancestors lived, and my largest postcard collection is Chicago.  A couple of years ago, I began scanning cards at high resolution and digitally restoring them.  It’s been very rewarding, and they’ve been purchased for publications, documentaries, and framed prints. You’ll find the latest restored images at http://www.oldplaces.org/vintage_images/

I host several history and genealogy websites for the USGenWeb Project, including the county where I live in Georgia.