While driving on Highway 33 through the Homochitto National Forest in southwestern Mississippi, you pass through the small town of Crosby. It is pretty quiet. The photograph above shows the view towards Oak Street.
Just east of 33, a driveway leads up an incline to a parking lot. This is the site of the Old Crosby School House. It was closed and unoccupied as of January 2014, and a commercial real estate company had it listed for sale.
This was a long, low wood-frame building with cheerful windows facing the north to let in plenty of light (compare and contrast with modern super schools, which look like windowless penitentiaries to me).
This was the door on the east side, facing Oak Street.
The south side was a mirror image of the north, with tall windows. I wonder if the building originally had girls' and boys' sides, separated by an interior wall?
I did not go in but took this photograph through a window. I can't tell if this shows original tongue-and-groove walls or if someone put paneling up over the original walls. I emailed the Realtor about the site. She wrote back that the school was built in 1945-50 and had recently been used as residential. It was rented to a family for about 12 years, but had been vacant for a year after they moved. Current status: unknown. If any reader has information, please add to the comments.
A few minutes to the south is Coles, Mississippi, a town that appears to be drying up entirely. I wrote about Coles earlier this year (
click the link).
Photographs taken with a Fujifilm X-E1 digital camera. Black and white processed in-camera or using PhotoNinja.
