Introduction
Central Mississippi is out of my usual exploration area. I suppose I do not get out enough. Therefore, in conjunction with driving my wife to the airport, I have made an effort in the last couple of years to explore south of Interstate 20 and south of Jackson. This is an area of gentle rolling hills, farmland, forest, and small towns. We will take a gentle swing heading south from Jackson, then west, and then back to Vicksburg. There is a wealth of photographic subject matter. I will break up this impromptu tour into three blog articles. Also, the tour is a conglomerate of two years exploring, so it is not exactly one big circle route.
Florence
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| 3011 Hwy 49, Florence, (April 14, 2019, Panatomic-X film, Fuji GW690II camera, 90mm lens, ½ sec ƒ/11) |
In 2019, I drove south on Hwy 49. Usually, I just rush through Florence in a hurry en route to Hattiesburg or somewhere else. Seen from 49, it consists of fast food shops and gas stations - totally dull and horrifying in an American strip-mall way. Ah ha, an interesting shop. A gent was cleaning and we chatted. He said it was once a mechanic shop, but it now sells antiques. (Click the photograph to see detail at 2400 pixels wide).
Brandon
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| Unused cottage, Brandon, Mississippi (Leica M2, 50mm Summicron-DR lens, green filter, Kodak BW400CN film) |
On my 2018 trip, I drove south on Rte 18 from Brandon, which is now largely a suburb of Jackson. Heading south on Rte 18, I saw an abandoned cottage in the woods. Otherwise, not much caught my eye.
Raleigh
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| Gasoline pumps, Raleigh Food Center, Hwy 35, Raleigh |
Raleigh is at the south end of the Bienville National Forest. I assume the town was once heavily involved with forest products. I did not see much that was photogenic.
Mize
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| Faithway MB Church, Maple Street, Mize (50mm ƒ/2.0 Summicron-DR, green filter) |
Mize is a pretty little town with a couple of handsome churches. The railroad went right through town, as it did for almost all small towns in the early 1900s.
Magee
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| 1st Ave. NE, Magee (50mm, polarizer) |
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| Hotel site, Hwy 49 north of Magee (50mm ƒ/2.0 Summicron-DR, green filter) |
Magee looked reasonably prosperous, and several blocks of turn of the century commercial buildings attest to its being an important commercial center decades (or a century) ago. Somewhere between Magee and D'Lo, I found an old drive-in theater almost engulfed by the woods. Unfortunately, there was no way to photograph the screen, and I think the projection booth hut was gone. A trucking company may have owned the land.
Mendenhall
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| Big Smitty's, Hwy 149, Mendenhall |
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| Main Street, Mendenhall (Leica M2, 50mm Summicron-DR lens, polarizing filter to emphasize sky) |
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| Mendenhall tracks, view west from Main Street crossing (50mm ƒ/2.0 Summicron-DR, polarizer) |
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| Mendenhall Grocary & grain, Main Street, Mendenhall |
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| Maain Street, Mendenhall (50mm ƒ/2.0 Summicron-DR, polarizer) |
Mendenhall, about 25 miles south of Jackson, is the seat of Simpson County. The handsome courthouse dates from 1908 and occupies a prominent spot on a hill at the top of Main Street. It is a nice little town, but the stores on Main Street are now largely empty.
Many years ago, the Mendenhall Hotel was famous for its southern cuisine served via
lazy Susan turntables. It was featured in the 1977 edition of
Roadfood by Jane and Michael Stern. We had the book and meant to try out the Mendenhall Hotel but never passed through the area at the right time of day.
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| Star Theater, Main Street, Mendenhall in 1990 (no longer extant). (Kodachrome slide, 35mm ƒ/2.8 Olympus Zuiko Shift lens.) |
I was lucky to photograph the Star Theater (opened in 1938) on Main Street in 1990. But when I looked for it on my 2019 trip, it was gone. According to
Wikipdia:
"During the late 1960s, the Star Theatre had problems with vandalism and growing racial tensions among its young patrons who objected to maintaining segregation. Under Jim Crow customs, black customers were required to sit in the segregated balcony and wanted this changed after national legislation to end such practices.
In October 1979, a newly remodeled and fully integrated Star Theatre reopened under the ownership of Danny Collins, a young local entrepreneur. Its first movie was the Chuck Norris film A Force of One. The theatre enjoyed revived popularity until competition from video arcades and cable TV forced Collins to close some three years later.
The theatre was repainted when used as a location for the film My Dog Skip. Heavy rains caused the roof to collapse in April 2008. The theatre burned down in 2016."
This ends Part 1 of our informal tour of mid-Mississippi. In the next installment, we will proceed west to Pinola and other small towns.
For the Florence photograph of the old store, I used
Panatomic-X film in my Fuji GW690II, the "
Texas Leica." Some good news: I bought 6 more rolls of the 120-size film from the same eBay seller who sold me my present stock in 2003. In effect, I have paid him to store the film in his freezer for a decade and a half. Fortunately, slow speed black and white film, when kept cold, is usable decades after its official expiration date. But color films do not last as well, as my experience with
expired Ektar 25 demonstrated.
The other photographs are from Kodak BW400CN film taken with my Leica M2 camera with 50mm and 35mm Summicron lenses.
