Charles E. Burchfield, Journals, March 20, 1938

Saturday A.M. By “Panhandle” to Steubenville” —
I arrived there sometime after 10. It was warm, a dense haze in the air, the sun shining mistily. I walked up the hill of my Steubenville Picture; I was sweating when I got to the top. I was amazed at how I had changed this scene, partly unconsciously. Mostly I liked my version best; but the rich velvety sepia tones in the unpainted clapboards of the old houses in the foreground seemed better than mine. All things had that chalky, bleached out appearance of the first real warm days of early Spring. Things had a Saturday look.
The heat oppressed and I returned to the valley and got on a trolley bound up-river, in search of the long low shanties and huge bald hills I had seen once before. They proved to be at “Toronto” [Ohio] and I got off.
I started in [at] once drawing — some freight cars, several great square chimneys and a group of nondescript houses, with the great bald hills beyond. While I was engaged in this, I heard a red-bird sing. How I have missed this magnificent bird!; it never comes as far north as Buffalo.
I walked along the railroad eastward in search of a more typical scene than the one I had just sketched. I soon found it, a group of ruined kilns with some long low one-storied shanties in the background, their roofs catching the flare of the sunlight in such a manner as to accentuate their god-forsaken barren-ness. I made several drawings of this whole section here.
Charles E. Burchfield, March 20, 1938 about March 19, 1938