District of Wenzel | Update 116 - (Ouisconsin County) Morgan Town: Rival to the South

[packersfan 667]

Update 12 - South D31 through Apostles Township and St. Paul

We continue south on D31 through the towns of St. Mark, North St. Paul, and St. Paul.

St. Mark, North St. Paul, St. Paul along with St. James, St. Andrew, and St. Peter are little towns in the aptly named Apostles Township. St. Paul was featured in the fifth update of the journal a couple months ago. D31 actually bypasses St. Paul, probably not the most realistic path for a highway, and we will only see the outskirts and industrial edge of St. Paul.

It has been a while since I built this area, so it was really enjoyable to move through the area and see the scenic small towns. I hope you enjoy them and my roadgeekery. This will be the last major roadgeek update for a while. The next batch of updates will be full of pictures from the ever expanding Martintown or as it is officially now incorporated as Martin. As I am writing this, I may just put a sneak preview at the end, we'll see.

I suggest opening in another tab/window the region map of the District of Wenzel, so you can see where exactly we are travelling.

District of Wenzel Street Map

The small hamlet of St. Mark, named after the church at the corner of D31 and Ogden Rd.

North St. Paul is just down the road about a mile.

It features a traffic circle/roundabout as the intersection of three District Highways - D31, D266, and D111. D111 only exists for a mile. There really is no explanation for its existence as a District Highway.

Antioch Lutheran Church and cemetery occupies the spit of land between D111 and D31.

Traffic signals at the intersection with Centrailia Road, quite unnecessary at this point in time though as St. Paul development has yet to reach this area.

St. Paul is the second largest community in Martin County behind the county seat and district capital Martin (Martintown).

My attempt to make it appear as if the sun is setting. After not seeing these pictures for about a week since I prepared them, they actually look pretty good. What do you think?

That concludes our trip south on D31 through the southern half of Martin County. I hope you enjoyed the SimCity scenery, farmland, and small towns. I also hope you find my stab at signage worthy.

The next updates will focus on Martin (Martintown) as the city expands around the Brittany River. Here is a teaser from what I've been up to.

[Sretamdet 11]

I realy like these couple of updates; the road scenery's. You've created a very realistic sunset.

Can't wait for more!

[dfnva 34]

I always look forward to Sundays with your updates. I love the roundabout sign, very realistic. The towns and rural scenery look great!

-Dan

[packersfan 667]

Thank you! Ugh, I'm feeling a little frustrated with my updates because it seems no one really looks or comments on them and I quickly get buried . O well, at least I have a few loyal followers. Thanks to you guys. I'll keep posting and hoping more people notice!

[Evillions 552]

Good job! Especially the "road geek" stuff, it was great too.

[antsel 842]

packersfan: I know the feeling. I think more than anything, it's the timing of posting more than lack of interest in your CJ.

I really liked the update. You make small towns quite well, and I really like the rural scenes. As always, you're doing real cool stuff with the signage. The sign for the roundabout has got to be my favourite. I also really like your first industrial pic, the one with Industrial Way.

I'm looking forward to your next update. I love cities with W2W buildings like that.

[packersfan 667]

Yeah, I suppose my timing isn't the greatest since I post in the afternoon on Sunday here in China. Thanks. I hope my future industrial areas will be more impressive though. Today, I reworked my tiny downtown peninsula in Martintown.

[hijodecordoba 74]

I noticed your cj but i was just lurking from time to time. but you've a really great cj here and done a lot of wonderful work. the region view always amazes me. and your traffic-sign-way to update is something i haven't seen yet in other cj's. so keep it up

[jrnavid 21]

great signage!

[kakado_to_save 514]

A nice green park in the middle of the ugly slums..... interesting

[dfnva 34]

Don't worried about your CJ becoming buried and not commented on... it takes a while for a loyal following to develop, though this is top-notch stuff.

-Dan

[packersfan 667]

Thanks guys, hijodecordoba, check of dfnva's journal for more signage!

[TekindusT 3,809]

I think this is the first time I watch at this CJ (I've never been into road-geekery), but you can be sure I'll pay special attention to your next update; it looks really promising!

And as the others have said, don't worry if you don't get much response in your CJ if the ones who visit it regularly like your job...

[packersfan 667]

Update 13 - Expansion North of Brittany River and Bitter Creek

Finally I get to start expanding the City of Martin! Actually I've been working on the city for the last month, since I've slowly been releasing the updates every Sunday. I'm pleased with my mix of wall-to-wall industry and residential, I hope you think it looks realistic, too.

I suggest opening in another tab/window the region map of the District of Wenzel, so you can see where exactly we are travelling.

District of Wenzel Street Map

In the first picture we see the northwestern-most reaches of the city of Martin known as Six Corners Crossing. This farmland is doomed as the city begins expanding westward.

Six new residential blocks are laid with North 5th Street as the western edge before the dual-rail line.

Beautiful neighborhoods spring to life. Here we see the tree lined streets of W Franklin Ave and N 4th St.

Some factories and industrial facilities lay their foundations along the rail line. A gas power plant is constructed at 600 W North Ave.

W North Ave features a center-turn lane.

Our focus now shifts north of North Ave.

Residential development overtakes the farms north of E North Ave which is converted in to small two-lane boulevard.

We hop back down to south of W North Ave and see Bitter Creek, still relatively undisturbed save for the D15 bridge and the rail bridge.

The scenic farms between the Brittany River and Bitter Creek along D50. So far, downtown Martin has yet to expand this far west.

Very rural layout between Brittany River and Bitter Creek.

Before we see the downtown expand west along the strip of land between the river and creek, we must chronicle some redevelopment in the existing downtown.

Currently, the downtown peninsula is home to many residents in dense wall to wall apartments, but a new medical center is needed to serve the city.

A few blocks of residential housing is demolished to make way for a brand new medical center. This picture taken several years later displays some new high-rises growing around the hospital.

Remember that beautiful rural scene?

Many years later, the city has expanded to D15. N Harrison Rd has been extended south over the now channelled Bitter Creek.

Can you tell that this picture is a composite? The beautiful farmland is no more.

The industrial zone south of Brittany River has also expanded west to Harrison Rd. Another composite!

Bitter Creek

Remember Six Corner Crossing many years ago??? Well it is now no longer the northwestern-most edge of Martintown, but rather a very busy crossroads.

Thank you for visiting the expanding city of Martin. I'm excited to finally be able to build up the city. I'm REALLY trying to make it look realistic, though I still think it needs work as I continue to move forward.

The next update will feature more western expansion of the city.

Please leave a comment if you are lurking, haha, it lets me know I'm being watched

Until next time!

[wwetom1 831]

Very nice work here. Its cool seeing the area before and after you work on it!

[dfnva 34]

Nice stuff... I like how you show the before/after pictures. I'd love to see what roadgeekery awaits at 6-corner crossing. The Martin area looks quite nice... I like the working-class feel to it.

As I look at the map around Martin, is this the city that is going to grow to be a bigger city?

-Dan

[antsel 842]

Great update! I do like how you showed pictures of the rural area before the urban encroachment. It is a sad sight to see, beautiful country scenery being turned into an industrial sector. But we can't let beauty get in the way of progress!

Also, that's quite the seamless transition between the two regions. The only give away to the region boundary is in the water. Besides that you did an excellent job connecting streets, zones, trees, etc.

[mightygoose 92]

lovely update. great work.

[nicebutevil91 2]

I like your journal so far. What program do you use for your signs and signals?

[packersfan 667]

I found a website with a lot of standard U.S. Highway signs, I cut them out in paint, and use GIMP. The stop lights are creations of dfnva, though.

[packersfan 667]

Replies to Your Comments

dfnva: Thanks for the support and great comments.  You are definitely the inspiration for my roadgeekery.  I don't know if I saw a journal of yours first before my first foray into it way back with Cambellsport, but you are definitely still the master.

The City of Martin will be the main focus of expansion, but I will try to expand the smaller villages a little, and Hawthorne and St. Paul will compete with Martin for land and the all important industrial tax dollars (the story of the stunted expansion of Milwaukee as it fought to bring industrial tax base to help support the needs of residents.  Many industries found tax havens in suburbs like West Milwaukee which were mostly industry and had very few residents to provide civic services to.)

Evillions: Thank you, the hard work is the "road geek" stuff.

hijodecordoba: Thanks for dropping by.  I'm glad you like the traffic signs.  Check out dfnva's Winchester for a completely road-geeked out journal.

jrnavid: Thanks!

kakado_to_save: I wouldn't say they are ugly slums.

mightygoose: Thanks, it's frustrating to be buried, but I figure if I continue to update regularly with quality, I will catch peoples' eyes.

nathanthemayor: Dan (dfnva)'s Winchester...and Massopax Piedmont. I've been doing little drive throughs like him since my Cambellsport region many years ago, but never as in-depth as him.

nicebutevil91: I found a website with a lot of standard U.S. Highway signs, I cut them out in paint, and use GIMP. The stop lights are creations of dfnva, though.

psander5: Thanks for the links to hooha47's modular parking sets, s_olah's White Plaza Set and soldyne's Urban Beautification Pack.

Raysfan16: I share your quirky "hobby" of exploring aerial maps and photos of American cities, which is why I always feel my city falls short.  Everytime I get going on a city I start to wish I was doing a recreation to get more realism, so from time to time I just select a section of a city and try to recreate it in my fictional city.  There will definitely be a part of Milwaukee somewhere in the District of Wenzel.

selles: Thanks for the add in your signature!  Glad you like the road geekery updates.  My experimentation with the lighting stems directly from wanting to make my own imprint on the road geekery genre and not just copy his signs.

I followed Battlecat's tutorial on sc4devotion on how to get a seamless composite picture.

Sretamdet: Thanks.  My original intent for the street map was for myself, but I figured it would be nice to put it up for everyone to see, so I don't have to label each and every street in my pictures and you can get an idea where some pictures are from in each update.  

TekindusT: Thanks for dropping by, as I start expanding my city, I'll really be using your Tenements and Rust as inspiration.  I love a good realistic city with dirty slums and maybe a pristine suburb or something.

wwetom1: My goal is to always have a before and after shot but sometimes that is easier said than done, since I am very disorganized, haha.

[kakado_to_save 514]

I gess you are right .... the last update was GREAT!!

[Raysfan16 5]

Wow, the Bitter Creek area has really been paved over quite nicely! I'd recommend CSGdesign's Basic Concrete Seawalls for a lower-wealth, gritty area like that but hey, that's just my opinion. My opinion also is that you are developing your new areas very realistically.

And in response to your reply, I find the exact same problem with Moraine. It doesn't look like something in an aerial map so I assume something's wrong. Too bad I've already developed the inner city, cause suburbs are no fun to recreate.

[packersfan 667]

Update 14 - Westward Expansion South of Brittany River

Now we will look south of Brittany River as Martin expands south and west. I am pleased with the great urban wall to wall apartment buildings created by goofyguytpa available in the STEX at Simtropolis. Also many of the industries are from jestarr and the incredible BATers with the Barry Sanders Project.

I suggest opening in another tab/window the region map of the District of Wenzel, so you can see where exactly we are travelling.

District of Wenzel Street Map

Some night shots of the area between Highland Ave (D10) and Harrison Rd.

Isley Elementary School on the corner of S Harrison Rd and E Hanover St. (On the west side of Harrison Rd streets are designated West, on the east they are designated East.)

High-tension power lines travel parellel to S Harrison Rd.

Some factories on the corner of S Harrison Rd and Highland Ave (D10).

Isley Park: a small retreat from the wall to wall apartment buildings.

Back to the east we see farmland south of D10 with D29 (Wisconsin Ave) cutting through it.

Industry has expanded south. As you can see, I'm having a texture problem on some of the industrial lots.

Residents and jobs are very close to each other in this part of town. Sprawl has yet to hit the country.

More farmland between D34 and D29 destined to be paved over.

Introducing the first elevated mass transit line in Martin. This is Highland Station on the Red Line, cleverly named after the road it passes over, E Highland Ave.

My best park that I've laid so far in this region.

Intersection of S Wisconsin Ave (D29), E Hawthorne Ave (D31), and E Baltimore Ave. The city planners definitely like to create large scary intersections.

Red Line - Hawthorne Ave Station.

Before:

After:

Region View: You can see the city has expanded a little bit.

Hope you enjoyed that update. Nothing really out of the ordinary yet, I'm just trying to get a good old urban city core built. Eventually a lot of the residential lots will fall into disrepair and abandonment and grassy fields like Detroit, Milwaukee, etc, city cores as sprawl and the loss of industry deteriorates in the inner core. However, at this point it is still "pristine" and new!

Tell me what you think! Any tips, any cool downloads you think would good, etc.

[dfnva 34]

Great stuff... I like the gritty working-class feel to the area with the apartment buildings.

-Dan

[packersfan 667]

Ugh, can anybody help me? I tried to sign in sc4devotion, but now it says I'm banned because my IP range is home to SPAMBOTS! I'm one of the OF SPECIAL INTEREST THIS MONTH mayor's diary over there and now I can't even sign in!!! Ugh, what the hell?

[Benedict 3,119]

Awesome region view!

[packersfan 667]

Replies to Your Comments

Benedict: Congratulations on your Trixie and thanks.  I am glad my region view turned out well.

dfnva: Thanks, I'm trying to build the city like a real midwest city would have grown from the 1800s until now.

kakado_to_save: Thanks.  Yeah, it is a little sad to see the farmland I worked a long time on get built over, but it is also fun to build and always feel like I'm not just building in undiscovered territory but rather like a real world city.

Raysfan16: Thank you.  The Bitter Creek area certainly turned out decent.  I'm hoping I doing as realistic as I can.  Can you give me a link to those seawalls, I find it impossible to find anything by searching on STEX!  Thanks again.

Thanks to everyone.  I was nominated for the Best Rural CJ and Best Roadgeekery CJ Trixies, and finished in second for the Best Rural CJ.  Quite surprising since I never intended to be a rural CJ, haha, but I guess most of my work so far in this CJ has been rural up until just recently.

Thanks to all my followers who comment and to all those lurkers!  Keep checking in, makes it worth all the time I waste playing games, haha.

[mightygoose 92]

man that is really pretty, your region view looks superb. i could not possibly suggest anything to add except fro perhaps more fractional angle stuff.

[packersfan 667]

Update 15 - Luther Neighborhood

Welcome back! In this update we continue southwest of Brittany River into Luther Neighborhood.

It has been nearly four months since I've been able to update here on SC4Devotion, so I will be getting these backlogged updates up for you guys. For some reason I was banned from the site (probably a virus or something.)

Can you spot the composite pictures in the mosaics?

Farmland along D34 (Hawthorne Pike).

Hawthorne Pike expanded to 4 lanes and renamed Hawthorne Ave.

Triangle between E Baltimore Ave, S Harrison Rd, and E Hawthorne Ave.

The Triangle

The Triangle Continued

Luther Neighborhood named because of Martin Luther College and the Lutheran Cemetery

Western edge of Luther Neighborhood. Milwaukee style apartments along D15 (S 8th Street).

The mosaics all consist of composite pictures from three different city tiles. I hate seeing the city edges so I took pictures from the surrounding cities, went into GIMP and created a big composite picture and then selected an area and made mosaics. It really makes Luther Neighborhood feel completely different seeing it in context next the stuff shown in the last update!

What do you think? I have so much to show, just in this one to two mile radius around downtown Martin where the city has expanded. Keep your eye out for next week's update.