The Mississippi Delta 14: Hollandale

Travel north on Highway 61 from Rolling Fork, and the next "big" town that you reach is Hollandale. According to Wikipedia, the town was almost totally burned in 1904, so I assume most of the buildings you see in the downtown strip are newer.

City Drug on Hwy 12 (Washington Street), Hollandale

There was once a cheerful and prosperous commercial strip.  I left these photographs of the City Drug Store in color because the tones and textures were mellow in the evening light.

Hitghway 12 (Washington Street), Hollandale

The strip is mostly boarded up.  But you can see that the merchants were proud of their buildings in the early 20th century.  I met a couple who said they were trying to bring art and cultural tourists to Hollandale.  They were hoping to entice people on blues tours to stop. The big problem: lack of amenities like restaurants.

I am not sure how this big wood mansion was once used - a rooming house possibly?

Abandoned oil mill west of Hollandale

Abandoned oil mill, Hollandale

Just west of the railroad tracks, the oil mill is deserted.

Finally, here is a small church on Highway 61.  It is in nice condition, but much of the rest of town is forlorn.

This is a photograph of the "Y and M. V. R. R. Station, Hollandale, Miss. 4-30-27" from the Mississippi Department of archives and History.  A vast area of the Delta was flooded in 1927.

Modern photographs taken with a Panasonic G1 digital camera.  For the square frames, I processed the RAW files with Photo Ninja software.