The Mississippi Delta 21: Drew

Drew is a small agricultural town in Sunflower County. It is just off US 49W, between Tutwiler and Ruleville. I have been to Drew twice and both times was impressed by the grain elevators and symbols of its agricultural prosperity (or former prosperity), and unimpressed by the general state of decay and impoverishment.

Front Street parallels the former Yazoo and Mississippi Valley Railroad (Y&MV) line. Many of the elevators were built next to the tracks.

During my 2017 visit, there was a heavy but brief rain, after which the light was sublime.

The corrugated steel lends a lot of shape and texture to photographs. These old elevators were impressive scale, and now they sit unused. The buildings were closed and I did not want to try to get in as I was alone.

On Union Avenue, I came across an abandoned store with one of the 45° entryways that you often see at corner shops. There was a Teddy Bear nailed to the power pole out front. I stopped and set up my tripod. Two young ladies with extreme cleavage stopped their car and seemed amazed to see me photographing. When I said I was interested in the Teddy Bear, they said it was a memorial because a guy was shot there a few days before. It is grim that violence is such a defining characteristic of life in many communities.

East of town, Hitt Chapel on Rte. 32 sits quietly on its own in the farm fields. The peacefulness is such a contrast to the troubles that exist downtown.

Most horizontal photographs were taken with a medium-format Fuji GW690II camera, the square with a Rolleiflex 3.5E with Xenotar lens. The film was the long-discontinued Kodak Panatomic-X. These negatives were scanned on a Minolta Scan Multi medium format scanner using SilverFast Ai software. The photograph of Hitt Chapel is from Kodak BW400CN film and a 35mm Pentax Spotmatic Camera (purchased in 1971 and still in operation).

The Mississippi Delta 20: Webb and the Webb Depot

Webb is a small town on the Little Tallahatchee River southeast of Clarksdale and northwest of Grenada. You reach it by driving on US 49E and turning east on Hwy. 32, which is also Main Street in town. 

What initially interested me in Webb was a note in Preservation Mississippi that the historic railroad depot had been listed on the 2015 10 Most Endangered Historic Places in Mississippi list. According to the nomination:

Significance 

The Webb Depot was built in 1909 by the Yazoo & Mississippi Valley Railroad as a combination passenger and freight depot. A central part of life in this small Delta town for decades, the station was the junction of two different railroads coming from three directions.

Threat

Privately owner, the Webb Depot is in stable condition but will require an extensive restoration to bring it back to life. Community activists in Webb would like to restore the building for use as a civic space, such as the Oxford Depot or the Martin and Sue King Railroad Heritage Museum, located in the historic depot in Celeveland.

No trains come here now. But once, trains once carried freight, agricultural products, and passengers, and connected these little towns with the rest of the world.

Main Street is also Mississippi 32. Many or most of the brick stores are empty; little commerce happens in Webb today.

This substantial brick building probably had a store on the ground floor and a residence on the second. The bare side wall shows that once another building was attached.

This magnificent ceramic mosaic floor was on a lot where the building had been demolished. Imagine the wealth and pride once existed here to install a floor like this. I have read that Italian immigrants did much of the ceramic and tile work in the Delta in the early 20th century.

Early advertising, painted on the brick rather than a metal signboard.

At the local Mini-Mart, the dudes where hanging out and seemed thrilled to have a tourist take their picture.

Across the street from the Mini-Mart was an old Art Deco filling station. The steel section to the left is newer or is a sheathing over older plaster/stucco. According to Preservation Mississippi, this was the architectural style of Lion brand service stations.

The alleys are pretty bleak.

The tree and lighting across the tracks from the depot was too nice to resist.

On Rte 32 west of Webb on the way to Drew, flat farm fields and another magnificent tree. 135mm SMC Takumar lens.

Color photographs are from a Fuji X-E1 digital camera. I took the black and white frames with a Honeywell Pentax Spotmatic camera, in the family since 1971 and recently restored and overhauled. I used Kodak BW400CN film, a black and white C-41-type of film (in other words, color print film but with monochrome dye only).