This blog documents what remains when we abandon our buildings, homes, schools, and factories. These decaying structures represent our impact on the world: where we lived, worked, and built. The blog also shows examples of where decay was averted or reversed with hard work and imagination.
Showing posts with label Rural store. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Rural store. Show all posts
Saturday, December 17, 2011
Hoben's Country Store, Old Hwy. 27 and Warriors Trail, Vicksburg, MS
This traditional wood-frame country store is at the junction of Old Highway 27 and Warriors Trail, southeast of Vicksburg. A decade or two ago, it was still open for business, but I am not sure when it closed. Possibly a reader can provide some information. Somewhere in my files, I may have a Kodachrome slide of this store in operation.
At one time, small locally-owned stores like this were found along rural roads throughout the south because rural farm workers did not have cars and had to walk or ride a wagon to get supplies. Needless to say, they are a dying institution, and the remaining examples are falling down, burning, or being torn down.
The roof on the main building is still intact, and it looks like the owners have been storing miscellaneous junk for awhile. Notice the wood boards forming the interior walls. Ultimate fate: unknown.
(Photographs taken with a Panasonic G1 digital camera with 14-45 mm Lumix G Vario lens, ISO 100, December 17, 2011.)
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
The Betigheimer Store, Edwards, Mississippi
Country stores in Edwards, Mississippi. Map drawn with ESRI ArcMap software. |
The Betigheimer country store on Betigheimer Road and MS 27. |
A coworker who grew up in Utica told me he used to shop there as a child. He remembered buying his first cookies there, two for a penny (I didn't ask what century this might have been). He was intrigued by the fact that Germans ran a country store in a rural African-American community. How did they end up in a place like Utica? At the time, it was a classic country store, selling hardware, seeds, food, tools, nails, and useful supplies. He could not remember when it ceased business as a general merchandise store. The Betigheimers lived in a large wood house just east of the store, but it was struck by lightning and burned down sometime in the 1980s. A modern house is on the lot now.
When I returned in 1997, the antique business had closed, but there was a lot of old-fashioned machinery (junk) strewn about the yard. Nice stuff, but not much was happening.
The store burned sometime around 2000. I rarely drove on Hwy. 27, and one day in the early 2000s, it struck me that the store was gone. Sad, another piece of our heritage gone.
1986 Tri-X photograph of the Betigheimer store taken with a 4×5" Tachihara camera and 180mm ƒ/5.6 Caltar IIN lens. |
Update June 2020: the last photograph is a black and white Tri-X frame from a 4×5" camera.
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