Fort Adams is a former river town in Wilkinson County at the southwest corner of Mississippi, near the Louisiana border. I have only been there once and want to return. That might be an interesting day trip, but it is a haul from Vicksburg. These photographs are from a short stopover in 1986. I was on the way to New Orleans and had read about Fort Adams somewhere. Sure enough, it was at the end of the road, at the end of the world.
Up until at least 1864, Fort Adams was a Mississippi River port, but the river channel shifted away, leaving the town far from the river. Today, the town serves hunters and fisherman from nearby hunting camps. The Gro in the photograph above was busy midday.
Notice how the two buildings above were mirror images of each other. But the white building had narrower clapboards that faced the porch. The white unit was once a gas station because the concrete footing for the pumps is still in front.
These photographs are all 4×5" Agfapan 400 frames from my Tachihara wood field camera with a 180mm ƒ/5.6 Caltar II-N lens. Click any picture to see details at 1600 pixels on the long dimension.
Standby for more photographs from the archives as I sort through decades of negatives.
5 comments:
That porch foundation doesn't instill a lot of confidence.
Unfortunately, I do not believe most, if any, of these buildings are still extant. Much like Rodney, there are only a few buildings left in Fort Adams, with the thirty-five years since your photographs were taken seeing most of the historic, vernacular, "non-landmark" buildings fall into ruin through neglect. There is still a nice, historic church in Fort Adams, again, like Rodney.
Oh oh, W, that is sad news. This loss of old traditional buildings is exactly the reason why I tried to record them and put them on this blog. Thank you for the update.
I thought of this post when I read earlier today that the Mississippi Heritage Trust placed the Town of Fort Adams on their 2021 10 Most Endangered Historic Places in Mississippi list (https://www.10mostms.com/listings-entry/2021). Better late than never. The sites on the list are prime examples of decay, urban and rural, and most of which would be avoidable if people bothered with regular maintenance and upkeep.
I left the previous comment. I have no idea why Blogger lists it as anonymous.
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