Introduction to MarkerQuest

Laura Klotz shares the stories behind historical markers in Pennsylvania through her blog and now podcast, MarkerQuest. She received permission from the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission to move forward with the project. The blog and podcast aim to reach a wider audience and share the stories behind the markers. Laura acknowledges that the markers may have different wording in the future, and the podcast will take some time to catch up with the existing blog posts. The MarkerQuest logo was designed by Rachel Peoples, and the podcast episodes are introduced with music from Vivaldi's Four Seasons. Laura invites listeners to visit her blog and follow MarkerQuest on Facebook. Hello, and welcome to the MarkerQuest podcast. My name is Laura Klotz, and every week I share the stories behind the historical markers found throughout my home state of Pennsylvania. I've been writing the MarkerQuest blog for almost six years as of this recording. Growing up, I was always very interested in the historical markers, which are often found by the side of the road, but I wasn't usually the driver, so I didn't often get the chance to read what was written on them. Since I grew up in the 19-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r- And then I went away for the weekend and tried not to imagine what sort of response I would receive. I think I was expecting something along the lines of, no, please go away. Instead, I received an extremely enthusiastic reply not long after I returned, telling me that my email had been passed around the entire office, and everyone was very interested to see what I would do with the idea. I soon received a formal letter in the mail from Andrea Lowry, the director of the PHMC, granting me official permission to move forward with the project. The only stipulation was that I had to make it clear, as I do at the bottom of every post on the blog, that I am not employed by the PHMC, but I am acting with their approval. Coming up with a name for the blog was possibly the hardest part, so I decided to look for inspiration in another one of my hobbies. I have been an avid video game player since I was very young. For my fellow gamers out there, my first game was Pong. In a lot of the adventure games that I play these days, there is an icon, known as a quest marker, which shows you where on the map you need to go. And I took the phrase and flipped it around to create Marker Quest. My project has taken me to parts of the state I had never seen, introduced me to a number of wonderful people, and taught me things I never learned in school. And now I'm trying something new by launching the blog into podcast territory. This podcast will not be replacing the blog, but will, I hope, be sharing the stories behind the markers with an even bigger audience. It will take me a little time to bring the podcast concurrent with the blog, as I'll be going through each of my existing posts and turning them into an audio format. I hope that history lovers throughout Pennsylvania, the United States, and the world will find something of value in my work. I'll close this introduction with a few acknowledgments. The markers and their contents are all the property of the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission. And as I stated, I do not work for them. As of this recording, they are currently examining their existing markers, and in some cases, making changes to the wording to make them more consistent with modern values. As such, the markers may in the future be phrased differently from what is stated in these episodes. The MarkerQuest logo, as it appears with the podcast episodes and on the blog, was designed by my friend Rachel Peoples, who is a freelance graphic artist. Unless stated otherwise, all of the writing on the blog and in these podcasts is my intellectual property and was written by me. The music introducing each episode is the opening of Autumn from Vivaldi's Four Seasons. While you're waiting for my next podcast episode, you might like to read about my other adventures by visiting pamarkers.blogspot.com. And you can also find MarkerQuest on Facebook. Thank you so much for listening. Until next time, this is Laura Klotz with MarkerQuest, and this episode is history.