Another city landmark from above: The Eye in downtown Dallas.
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The Eye Was Watching and Then My Drone Landed Behind the Fence
Locals call it the Giant Eyeball. The artist calls it simply Eye.
I didn’t arrive in Mount Vernon with a complicated plan. I wanted to fly, look around and see what caught my attention.
The weather made the decision easy. It was mild, not too hot, and the wind was sitting in that comfortable range where the drone feels steady without the air feeling dead.
So I launched the mini 5 pro near the Fifth District Appellate Courthouse and started watching the town move beneath me. Cars passed through the intersections. People continued with their day. I was enjoying myself, and one flight naturally became another.
Watch DD-0001 below, then continue reading to discover the stories behind the places in the film.
A City at the Crossroads
The traffic is what first held my attention. Mount Vernon is not a large city, but it has always been a crossroads. Zadok Casey founded it in 1817, and the historic Vandalia Road helped turn the settlement into a stopping point for travelers and commerce across southern Illinois.
Jefferson County was created two years later, and Mount Vernon became the county seat. During the nineteenth century, the city also served the southern division of the Illinois Supreme Court. That brought lawyers from around the state, including Abraham Lincoln, to argue cases here.
You can drive through town without thinking about any of that. From the air, the older landmarks interrupt the ordinary pattern of streets, roofs and traffic. That is what made me stop and keep filming.
The Fifth District Appellate Courthouse
The first landmark in the film is the Fifth District Appellate Courthouse at 14th and Main Streets.
This is not the current Jefferson County Courthouse on South 10th Street. It is the older white Greek Revival building with the raised courtroom and two exterior stairways. Once you see those stairs, there is no mistaking it.
I made several passes around it. From ground level, trees and neighboring buildings break up the view. Once the drone climbed, the symmetry became obvious.
The courthouse was completed in 1856 for the southern division of the Illinois Supreme Court. The courtroom occupied the upper floor, reached by those twin stairways.
Before he became president, Abraham Lincoln argued and won a tax case in Mount Vernon. I like that the connection is not trapped behind museum glass. The building still works. The Fifth District Appellate Court continues to hear cases there.
The white façade catches the light. Cars continue along Main Street. The courthouse stays planted in the middle of it all, nearly two centuries of Illinois legal history surrounded by an ordinary weekday.
That contrast was enough for me. I kept circling.
Veterans Memorial Park
After the courthouse, I moved over to Veterans Memorial Park at 800 South 27th Street.
The park wraps around a six-acre lake with fountains, islands, footbridges and a gazebo. A one-mile trail follows the water. Playgrounds, courts and shelters fill the rest of the grounds.
From above, it looked calm. The history underneath it was not what I expected.
The grounds once held a small city zoo with lions, monkeys and zebras. They were also home to the Mount Vernon Kings, a minor-league baseball team whose park hosted league All-Star Games in 1949 and 1951. The club played its final season in 1954.
The park carries a different kind of history today.
At the entrance stands the Veterans Memorial, dedicated on December 7, 2022. Bricks along the approach record the names, ranks and military service of individual veterans.
A few minutes away, children can play, people can walk the lake and traffic can continue beyond the trees. The memorial is not separated from everyday life. It sits inside it.
That was what I wanted the second half of the film to hold: remembrance at the entrance, then water, movement and a town carrying on.
What the Drone Reveals
I did not think of the courthouse and park as a matched pair when I launched. The connection appeared later, while I was reviewing the footage.
The courthouse preserves memory through a building that is still doing its original kind of work.
The park does it differently. Its memorial shares the grounds with walking paths, basketball courts, playgrounds, fishing and fountains. One place keeps history inside its walls. The other lets daily life move around it.
Not every pass worked.
When I filmed the Lincoln statue, my stick inputs became jerky. The orbit lost the smoothness I wanted, and I could see the mistake as soon as I watched it back.
I refuse to use automated flight paths for these films. Automation could draw a cleaner circle, but it would also remove the part I am trying to improve: flying the aircraft myself, reading the wind and learning how small movements translate through the camera.
DD-0001 has no narration or natural location sound. The first music track fades with the courthouse. A new track begins when Veterans Memorial Park appears. It separates the two locations without breaking the journey.
The finished footage is calmer than every moment behind the controller. That gap between the flight I planned and the flight I actually flew is the reason I keep going back up.
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I like the idea of history just sitting there in the middle of normal life while everyone goes about their day.