The Mississippi Delta 40: Crenshaw

Dear Readers, I plan to review some of my older negatives from Mississippi as I have time. The Delta offered a wealth of photographic subject matter. In the future, you will see occasional articles based on early 2000s road trips around the state.

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Crenshaw is a small town (population 210?) in Panola and Quitman counties. It is typical of many Delta agricultural towns that once had a thriving commercial strip but has fallen on hard (very hard) times. It looks depopulated, and most of the stores are empty or collapsing. These photographs are from April, 2018. The town probably does not look too different today (2025).

MS Hwy 3 comes right through town. This is the main road along which the commerce was once concentrated

The commercial strip is rather sad. Most (all?) of the stores are closed. The soul food restaurant looked like it did not operate.

There was once a public drinking fountain on the sidewalk in front of one of the stores. I wonder if it was once restricted for white or black users?

The police station was in a modest modern building. They were well-equipped with the big old Crown Victoria police cruisers.

William Stokes Street

This ends our quick pass on Hwy 3 through Crenshaw. It was a glarey day with harsh light. I wish I had made more time to explore the Delta, a unique cultural and architectural part of the USA. To see more towns, please type "Mississippi Delta" in the search box.

I took these photographs on Kodak TMax 100 film with a Pentax Spotmatic camera and various lenses. The TMax is very fine grain, but I think I prefer traditional cubic grain films. 

More Fun in South Shreveport, Louisiana

In previous articles, we looked around Olympia, Washington. Let us take a quick diversion back to the US South. 

On our way from Vicksburg to Houston, we overnighted in Shreveport, Louisiana. I wanted to do a last documentation in a southern neighborhood that shows elements of traditional wood architecture, decay, and neglect. In the morning, we drove west on 70th street in south Shreveport and looked at some of the side streets. The light was soft and even, quite suitable for architecture. 

Click any picture to see it at 1600 pixels on the long dimension.

Quiet times on Bates Street (Fuji Acros film, Spotmatic F camera, 28mm ƒ/3.5 SMC Takumar lens)

Cottage on Bates Street (24mm ƒ/3.5 SMC Takumar lens)

Bates Street house

Bates Street was quiet, with empty lots and houses that were boarded up. I could not tell if they were going to be repaired. If they were to be demolished, no one would have bothered to secure the window with plywood, so possibly there was a plan to restore some of them. Still, it is not a pretty scene. 

Bethany Street (28mm SMC Takumar)

Bethany Street house (24mm ƒ/3.5 SMC Takumar lens)

Bethany Street had many empty lots, meaning the former houses had been razed and the lots graded. 

Time for some crawfish at 925 E. 70th Street

7020 Line Avenue - not much happening now

The Little Shanty art store on Line Avenue, also unfortunately closed

Line Avenue runs north south. It was more commercial than the side streets but was very quiet. The street just to the right of The Little Shanty was East 71st Street. It offered a bit more photographic material.

Shed on E. 71st Street

Fixer-upper shed on E. 71st Street (28mm ƒ/3.5 SMC Takumar lens)

Asphalt shingle cottage, 569 E. 71st Street

Asphalt shingles were common mid-century for inexpensive housing. We look down on it now, but it was a practical building material because it was easy to install, inexpensive, long-lasting, and repelled bugs and vermin. It did not need repainting, as do shingles or clapboard.

 

Non-cottage, E. 71st Street

Duplex under renovation, E. 71st Street

Another duplex, E. 71st Street

Some of the houses on E. 71st Street were being renovated. That is a hopeful sign.

Muscle Therapy Center, 7101 Southern Avenue

This clinic is in a rather bunker-like brick building with burglar bars over the windows. It was unfortunate pragmatic (= cheap) architecture and looked unkept.

This finishes our quick tour on October 26, 2023, of a neighborhood in south Shreveport, Louisiana. Maybe I posted too many photographs. But, I may never return to this part of the world, although one never knows. 

I took these frames with my Pentax Spotmatic F camera and 24mm or 28mm SMC Takumar (thread-mount lenses) using Fuji Acros 100 film (exposed at EI=80). These lenses were multi-coated and among the best mid-price 1970s optics for SLR cameras. Praus Productions in Rochester, NY, developed the film. I scanned it with a Plustek 7600i film scanner operated by Silverfast Ai software. I made minor contrast adjustments with Photoshop CS6.  

Olympia in the Morning, Part 2 (Oly 05)

Let us continue our morning walk through downtown Olympia, Washington. It is quiet, and most stores are closed. I saw only 5 or 6 homeless people his time. Two years ago, there were 10s or 100s of them. How did the city purge them? Regardless, downtown Olympia is still grungy.

206½ 4th Avenue

Dumpster on 4th. I bet that stuff looks better than most of my wardrobe. 

Capitol Way view south

Alley parallel to 4th Avenue (25mm ƒ/4 Color Skopar lens)

My favorite Olympia alley (25mm ƒ/4 Color Skopar lens)

Jefferson Street view north. I have not yet seen a train, but I occasionally hear them, usually at night.

Frog Pond Grocery in the historic South Capitol district (50mm ƒ/2 Summicron-DR lens).

Argh! Another Taco truck, this time on Plum Street. The fire system is for the hot sauce? 

Well, enough of exploring downtown. Time to walk home and have another coffee.

State Avenue view west (50mm ƒ/2 Summicron-DR lens).

Proceed north and soon you reach East Bay. On many mornings, it is still as a mill pond. The buffleheads and surf scoters love it here.

East Bay from Olympia Avenue NE (50mm ƒ/2 Summicron-DR lens). Swantown Marina is in the distance.

The Bigelow neighborhood has charming traditional cottages from the early 20th century. It is not as elegant as South Capitol, but is more modest and is free from the background drone of I-5.

 

Traditional cottage on Quince Street (25mm ƒ/4 Color-Skopar lens)

Historic Quince Street house

This ends our walking tour around Olympia with Kodak Gold 100 film (another one of my experiments with expired film). I used Pentax Spotmatic F and Leica M2 cameras. We will see more of Olympia in future updates. Thank you all for walking along.

Continuing Decline, Johnson Street, Vicksburg, Mississippi

Red outline shows Johnson Street (from ArcGIS Online) 

Johnson Street is one of many semi-hidden narrow Vicksburg roads whose location was dictated by the area's complicated loess topography. Many roads followed the crest of ridges. Johnson Street follows a ridge that sweeps downhill from South Washington Street (just north of Lee Street) into the valley that is now occupied by the Vicksburg High School ball fields. Many people probably never go down Johnson unless they specifically planned to see a resident there or possibly turned in by accident.

Twenty years ago, many of the houses along Johnson were occupied. But one by one, they were abandoned or the city condemned them because of dangerous or unsanitary conditions. Then the city razed the buildings. Here are photographs of the remaining houses in April of 2023.  

This is the site of the former 748 Johnson Street after the city demolished it. A bulldozer graded the dirt down the hill. Contractors do this work. According to a 2020 article in The Vicksburg Post, it cost the city about $25,000 to raze a simple wooden house and clear the land of debris.  

728 Johnson Street (Kodak Ektar 100 film, Pentax Spotmatic F camera, 28mm SMC Takumar lens)

728 Johnson Street

This little mid-century house at 728 had a serious gullying problem below the front right corner of the foundation. The gully served as a convenient trash dump. I looked in the door and a homeless guy was sleeping in one of the bedrooms. He and some other guys called this place home. 

733 Johnson Street (28mm SMC Takumar lens)

733 Johnson Street (28mm SMC Takumar lens)

Parlor of 733 Johnson Street (35mm Super-Takumar lens braced on a window ledge)

No. 733 was a typical Vicksburg house where the front door was approximately at street level while the back projected out over the gully, supported by wood pilings. Hundreds of houses like this were built early in the 20th century, and they survived for decades despite their precarious supports. Once the house is abandoned or condemned, the lot cannot be redeveloped.

Downhill side of 733 Johnson Street

This is the gully (valley) just north of Johnson Street. This looks wild and impassible, but deer, raccoons, and possums wander these wooded spaces throughout the city. Snakes do, too.

735 Johnson Street (28mm SMC Takumar lens)

This is another modest mid-century house. I assume it was built on a lot once occupied by an older early-20th century cottage. The back was perched over the valley like other houses on Johnson Street.

Church bus, Holly Grove Missionary Baptist Church, 746 Johnson Street

754 Johnson Street (50mm Hasselblad lens)

This ends out short walk on Johnson Street. All these houses have been demolished since I took these photographs. Slowly but surely, Vicksburg's older neighborhoods are becoming less densely populated as these older houses are torn down.

The 2023 photographs are from Kodak Ektar 100 film from my new/old Pentax Spotmatic F camera.