Gloomy hulk: Union Station, Texarkana, Arkansas/Texas

Texarkana is an old time commercial and transport town straddling the border of northeast Texas and southwest Arkansas. The town's famous local son was Scott Joplin, who was born in 1868 to a musical family of railway laborers. 

The historic downtown is a bit dilapidated but may be experiencing a bit of revival. While driving through town, my wife and I saw a forlorn brick Beaux Arts railroad station with broken windows and obvious signs of decades of neglect. According to Wikipedia, "Texarkana Union Station was constructed and operated by Union Station Trust, a subsidiary organization created as a joint effort between the Missouri-Pacific, Texas & Pacific, Cotton Belt and Kansas City Southern railroads. E. M. Tucker, chief architect for Missouri Pacific, designed the building with a track layout and overhead concourse reminiscent of the style he had used when rebuilding Little Rock Union Depot after a 1921 fire." A cornerstone showed 1929.

We parked and walked to the former entrance doors. Surely they were not open. A dirty glass door swung open. The building was unlocked?

 

The entrance led the potential train traveler up a flight of terrazzo stairs to the grand entry hall. No one there? No security? No signs?

The main hall was grand and echoey, intended to impress with solidity, prosperity, and permanence. This was not Pennsylvania Station in New York or Union Station in Los Angeles, but the Texarkana train traveler need not feel any less important.

The ticket boots were behind glass framed with mahogany. Note the glazed buff wall tile, durable for the ages.

Some of the side rooms off the main hall are a mess. Do homeless people sleep here? What are these bags of junk and rags?

Other side rooms may have been waiting rooms. The carpet was a nasty late addition.

The balconies on the rail yard side of the building were fenced off. Amtrak uses a few dingy rooms on the east end of the building for a waiting area and ticket sales but never occupied this main part of the station because there was no access for handicapped travelers (not a priority when the station was built in 1929-1930).

An abandoned kitchen with drop ceiling was rather grim. The machinery was definitely post-1930s, so someone must have tried to use the old station for a function or entertainment venue.

 

Dark stairs led to the second floor. There was a nice view of the main hall and some empty side rooms. I assume these were offices at one time.

Ah ha, one of these. But definitely not 1930s original. I did not try it.

Finally, back outside. As you can see, this station once also served as a freight operation, where cargo could be offloaded from or placed on trucks.

Union Station was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1978, less than a decade after the last rail passenger departed in 1971. The problem is, what next? Who can use the building? Who can afford the cost of repair and renovation?

These digital files are from a Fuji X-E1 digital camera, most with the 14mm ƒ/2.8 lens, tripod-mounted. Some of the interior rooms needed long exposures, an advantage to digital capture because there is no need to accommodate reciprocity failure, as there is with film.

The Arkansas Delta 2: McGehee (B&W film)

North First Street or US. 287, McGehee, Arkansas.

Dear Readers, many of my previous posts have been about the Mississippi Delta. Cross the Mississippi River to the west side, and there is a similar flat alluvial plain in Arkansas, which comprises it's "Delta." Note, I am not referring to the geomorphic delta of the Mississippi River. That is the immense mass of riverine sediment that protrudes south into the Gulf of Mexico in southern Louisiana. For reasons I do not know, the flat alluvial plain that was so fertile for agriculture in northwest Mississippi and southeast Arkansas was historically also called the "Delta."

McGehee, a city in Desha County, is one of these agricultural and railroad junction towns in the Arkansas Delta. McGehee developed in the 1870s, when the railroad was cut through this area of undeveloped hardwood bottomlands and marshes. A sawmill was one of the first industries.

The rail lines, still active and an important commerce routing, are now operated by Union Pacific Railroad.

The Missouri-Pacific Depot was built in 1910, in a Mediterranean/Italianate style, combining Spanish tiles on the roof and exposed beams with a Craftsman appearance. The depot has been restored and is on the National Register of Historic Places. Hord Architects of Memphis, TN, and Miller-Newell Engineers restored the North Building of the McGehee Train Depot, with funding from the Arkansas Highway Transportation Department and local contributions. The south depot was restored in 2013 and now houses the World War II Japanese American Internment Museum. The internment camp was east of town. The site now is a grassy field with no remnants of the WWII barracks.

McGehee looks like many other delta towns: shuttered stores, almost empty streets, and a forlorn look.

First Street was once the commercial strip with sturdy early 20th century brick shops.

The old cinema is now the 2nd Chance Ministries. It's a sign of a town's decay when ministries occupy old theaters, schools, or auditoriums on otherwise deserted streets. 

These photographs are an experiment with a 1970s Olympus Trip 35 camera with a fixed 40mm f/2.8 lens. This compact camera was sold in the millions and has become somewhat of a cult item among recent film users. The lens is a 4-element 3-group design, which likely means a Tessar-type optic. Tessars are noted for sharpness with a type of edge enhancement that make transitions look crisp. I can confirm that this Olympus lens is excellent. The film was the Kodak BW400CN C41-type black and white film, which is rather grainy. I used a yellow filter to enhance the sky. This BW is very forgiving on exposure but never quite has the tonality of traditional film. Next time, I will experiment with a finer-grain traditional B&W film.

Not much left: Chicot Junction, Arkansas

If you cross the Mississippi River on US 82 over the beautiful new bridge at Greenville heading west and turn south on Highway 65, you will soon drive by a group of abandoned houses in the woods. Oops, you just missed Chicot Junction. There is not much left of the town. The Arkansas Gazetteer states, "Chicot Junction is a populated place located in Chicot County at latitude 33.203 and longitude -91.26. The elevation is 128 feet. Chicot Junction appears on the Eudora North U.S. Geological Survey Map. Chicot County is in the Central Time Zone (UTC -6 hours)."

I am glad I drove by in March, before the spring growth season began. Otherwise, I suspect many of these houses would be completely buried in jungle.

These were once decent little homes.

 I found one mobile home that was occupied.

All the permanent cottages seemed to be deserted, but not in particularly bad condition. Very odd. What was the former business here that has dried up? 

I would like an old Chevrolet like this (but not this particular one).

Keep driving south and you pass through Eudora. It has more activity, but came across this abandoned store. It looked like the owners closed the doors one day and never came back. I feel sorry for places like this. It is the story of rural America in the early 21st century - small towns are simply closing up.

Photographs taken with a Fujifilm X-E1 digital camera, mostly with the 27mm f/2.8 Fuji lens. I processed the files with DxO filmpack 3 or PhotoNinja to simulate black and white film. In the Tri-X mode in DxO, I used the yellow filter, reduced the grain, and increased contrast a bit.