The Mississippi Delta 33: Crusin' Old 49 to Silver City, Midnight, Louise, and Holly Bluff

Old US 49 passes through rich agricultural terrain in the southern Mississippi Delta. One of my day trips in spring of 2020 was to check some of the small towns along Old US 49W south of Belzoni, see what was happening, and exercise my Tachihara 4×5" field camera. I have written before that I had not used large format film in a number of years, so why not visit towns and record interesting sights in the Delta? In Mississippi, the virus did not force us to remain at home, so visiting the Delta was a nice way to get out of the house.

Silver City

Stir It Up Club, Silver City (Kodak Ektar 25 film, 80mm F/2.8 Planar-CB lens, polarizing filter)

Trading Post, Mims Ave., Silver City (Tri-X, 90mm ƒ/6.8 Angulon lens, 1/50 ƒ/16)

Update June 2022: this little trading post is no longer extant.

Fixer-upper house, Mims Avenue, Silver City (90mm ƒ/6.8 Angulon lens, yellow-green filter)

Club Stir It Up, Silver City (TMax 100 film, Pentax Spotmatic, 55mm ƒ/1.8 Super Takumar lens, polarizer)

Cottage, West Street, Silver City (TMax 100 film, Pentax Spotmatic camera, 55mm ƒ/1.8 Super Takumar lens, polarizer)

Abandoned church, US 49W west of Silver City (Acros film, Leica IIIC, 5cm ƒ/2 Summitar lens, yellow filter)

Silver City is a small town in Humphreys County on US 49W about 7 miles south of Belzoni. I suspect most travelers zip on by heading to or from Belzoni or Yazoo City and barely notice that they drove through Silver City. There is not much to see, just homes, trailers, and a few gas stations. The electronics store looked like it had been shut for years, and I saw some empty houses and a church.

Highway 149 takes you southwest out of town through what seems like endless farm fields with an occasional patch of trees or a bayou.

Midnight

Midnight Gin, Old US 49W (4×5" Tri-X, 180mm ƒ/5.6 Caltar IIN lens, yellow filter) 

Midnight Gin, Old US 49W (GAF Versapan film, 135mm ƒ/4.5 Xenar lens, yellow filter)

Midnight is an unincorporated community at the junction of MS 149 and Old US 49W. The gin just north of town caught my eye because of the shapes and patterns. It provided some opportunities to test some 1960s-vintage GAF Versapan film (see the previous posts on this topic).

Worker cottage, Box Plantation, Silver Creek Road, Midnight (Tri-X film, 90mm ƒ/6.8 Angulon lens, 1/25 ƒ/16)

I saw some nice homes on Silver Creek Road. A handsome 1800s house was being restored. A lady told me that it was once part of Box Plantation. In the back, I saw a workers' cottage with long porch. Most of Midnight is really rough. As quoted in Wikipedia, "Shashank Bengali of McClatchy Newspapers said that Midnight "feels like a place whose time has expired." Bengali explains that the clapboard houses, which were built almost one century before 2010, "rot on their cinder-block legs, tilting at crazy angles" and that Midnight's principal road is "dotted with abandoned or half-burned cabins that, older residents complain, young men disappear into to shoot dice or smoke pot as the days fade into dusk."[4]."

Louise

Main Street, Louise (Moto G5 digital file converted to B&W with DxO filmpack 5)

Main St., Louise (Tri-X, 135mm ƒ/4.5 Schneider Xenar lens, yellow filter, 1/60 ƒ/16.5) 

Louise is another little agricultural town on Old 49W in Humphreys County.

Main St., Louise (Tri-X, 180mm ƒ/5.6 Caltar IIN lens, yellow filter) 

Where is everyone? Main St., Louise in 2016 (Panatomic-X film, Fuji GW690II camera, 90mm ƒ/3.5 lens) 

Lee Hong Grocery, Main St., Louise (135mm ƒ/4.5 Xenar lens, orange filter, 1/200 ƒ/16)

Louise is another small agricultural town with only about 300 citizens. Main Street once paralleled the railroad tracks and had the usual early-1900s square-front commercial buildings and shops. Most are closed now, and some are falling down. The silos dominate the center of town.

Mobile home, Old 49, Louise (Fuji X-E1 digital file)

Much of the housing stock here in the Delta is pretty rough. These unshaded mobile homes in mid-summer must be blazing hot.

Holly Bluff

On this trip, I did not stop in Holly Bluff because I have been there before (please see The Mississippi Delta 17). A couple of miles north of town, an old silo glittered in the setting sun.

Silo north of Holly Bluff (GAF Versapan film, 90mm ƒ/6.8 Angulon lens, yellow filter, 1/25 ƒ/22)

Heading out of Holly Bluff on MS 16 towards Rolling Fork, you pass some rather beat-up trailers and old cottages.

Empty mobile home, MS 16 (Fuji X-E1 digital file converted th B&W)

Asbestos shingle-clad house, MS 16 (Fuji X-E1 digital file converted to B&W)

On this trip, I was able to continue testing some 1960s Versapan film, formerly made by the GAF company. By the time I had photographed the silo just north of Holly Bluff, I had used all my film holders, sunset was close, and Satartia Road was finally above water and open. I headed home. Standby for more of the Delta in future articles.

The Mississippi Delta 15: Sherard

Continuing our tour of the Mississippi Delta:  drive west out of Clarksdale along Highway 322 (also called Sherard Road), and at the junction of 322 and Highway 1 sits a cluster of houses, trailers, and an abandoned cotton gin.  This is (or was) Sherard.

On 322, here is another small church.  I assume the Pastor's home is attached to the back.

The gin is abandoned. That's sad because I am sure it was once one of the major sources of revenue in a small town.

The J.F. Sherard company's buildings were at the junction of Highways 322 and 1.  A Google search lists the company as a supplier of farm equipment with a current address in Clarksdale.  The buildings were sound, so probably had not been empty for too many years.

The tiny steel shed was rather neat.  It is hard to tell what it might have once housed.

All photographs taken with a Panasonic G1 digital camera with Panasonic Lumix 20 mm f/1.7 lens.