Ongoing Decay: Tallulah, Louisiana

Tallulah is the parish seat of Madison Parish, in northwest Louisiana. It is about 20 minutes west of the Mississippi River via Interstate 20.  Like many agricultural towns in this part of the country, it must have been active and prosperous up through the 1950s or 1960s.  The downtown had a business district along Depot Street, and the courthouse was set on a broad lawn with stores lining the surrounding streets. Nice houses lined Walnut Bayou.

Today, Tallulah is a sad shell of its former self, with closed stores, a crumbling downtown, seedy houses, and a general air of despondence. Farm communities in the northern Great Plains have experienced a land and farm commodities boom in the last decade (especially for corn), but this prosperity looks like it totally bypassed Tallulah.

East Green Street - U.S. 80 - view west

Before Interstate 20 was built south of town, Highway US 80 was the main east-west thoroughfare through northern Louisiana.  It passed through town on Green Street.

Today, many of the businesses on East Green Street look semi-derelict.  Fast food restaurants are the only thriving businesses.

Garage on East Green Street, Tallulah

This is the remains of a garage on East Green Street.  Part of the business may still be operating.

Depot street parallels the railroad tracks, which are active with Kansas City Southern freight through-trains. But the stores have little prosperity now.

These abandoned shops are on North Chestnut, facing the courthouse.

Every year in October, Tallulah hosts a Teddy Bearfest.  The 2013 event, centered at the Madison Parish Courthouse was crowded, and people seemed to be in a good mood.  At the BBQ stand, they even called me "Sir."  About the same time of the year, Rolling Fork, Mississippi, has its own Bear Affair, but I think these two fests are only related in name.

Proceed west out of town along West Green street, and the scene gets worse.  You see closed beer joints and abandoned youth clubs.

Go further west, and you arrive at the Steve Hoyle Rehabilitation Center.  Prisons are a big business in northeast Louisiana.  The cottage and little shotgun shacks were across the street.

Approaching thunderstorm, West Green Street, Tallulah

For a previous post on Tallulah, click the link for Scott Field, where Delta Airlines is reputed to have started service.

All photographs taken with a Panasonic G3 digital camera, nos. 2, 3, and 4 with an Olympus OM Zuiko Shift 35mm f/2.8 lens, the rest with the Lumix 20mm f/1.7 lens.  RAW files were processed with PhotoNinja software and converted to black and white with DXO Filmpack 3.  For most, I used the Tri-X film emulation.  It is not the same as real Tri-X, which makes me think I should go back to using film and a hand-held light meter.  I will need to have my Leica camera cleaned and adjusted.

Yates Country Store, Utica, Mississippi

Country stores once abounded in rural Mississippi. In an era before everyone owned their own car, rural people walked or rode a carriage to the country store to buy seed, tools, groceries, books, a newspaper, candies, or to make a telephone call. In 2011, I wrote about the Betigheimer store on Hwy 27, long gone. This one is near Utica: the W.B. Yates store, at the junction of Old Port Gibson and Cayuga Roads.

W.B. Yates store, Old Port Gibson Road

This is a rather basic cinder-block structure with the squared-off front that is so common on stores and commercial buildings in early-20th century rural areas.  The grey paint makes the place more severe, but the Coca-Cola sign adds a splash of red.

I could not go inside, and all the windows were blocked with plywood.

While I was putting my tripod away, an elderly gent came by to talk. He was a relative of the Yates family. He said the present store was built in 1947 (that explains the post-war cinder blocks). The original store was across the street where a post-war suburban home now sits. Mr. Yates died in 1986 and Mrs. Yates operated the store for two more years. She died tragically when she was hit by an 18-wheeler.

The name Cayuga, as in Cayuga Road, is an Indian name. The European settlers to this area came from upstate New York, where Cayuga Lake is the longest of the glacial-derived Finger Lakes. This is different than Cuyahoga, which is the name of the river that flows through Cleveland and debouches into Lake Erie.

The gent had some other interesting stories. Nearby is Charlie Brown Road. People kept stealing the sign, and the highway department could not figure out why. He convinced them to print a sign "C Brown," and the theft problem ended.

These are digital images from a Panasonic G3 digital camera and a 1949-vintage Leica 5cm ƒ/2.0 Summitar lens, tripod-mounted. My father bought the Summitar and its accompanying Leica IIIC rangefinder camera new at the Post Exchange on Guam. Stopped down to ƒ/4.0 or so, this lens equals many contemporary optics.

Update December 2019: A cabinet-maker and carpenter is using the Yates store. We chatted for a few minutes, and he said he was very busy with projects. Good news!

W.B. Yates Store (Panatomic-X film, Hasselblad 501CM camera, 80mm ƒ/2.8 Planar-CB lens, yellow filter)