Small Towns in the Texas Panhandle: On the way to Amarillo (Panhandle 2019-05)

Let us continue our trip northwest on US 287 through the Texas Panhandle. West of Quanah, I came across more lonely and unoccupied farm houses. Some were reasonably close to 287 and I could walk up driveways or small roads. Others were deep in farm fields and had no access any more. Where did all the families go?

Kirkland

Farm house, Kirkland, Texas

Truck weigh station, Kirkland, Texas

Unused siding, Kirkland, Texas

Wikipedia describes Kirkland as a ghost town. I am not sure about that, but there definitely is not much happening there. The BNSF trains thunder by at high speed. The siding clearly no longer serves the unused Sunbelt CO-OP truck weighing station. The sky is bigger than ever, and the approaching storm clouds gave the scene an ominous look.

Childress

Nash Metropolitan east of Childress, Texas

Farm house, Childress, Texas

Childress, the county seat of Childress County, with a population of about 7,000, had a bit more going on. But I did not see much to photograph in town so I moved on.

Estelline

Valentine Diner, 601 Wright Street, Estelline, Texas (80mm ƒ/2.8 Planar-CB lens, green filter)

Diner interior, Estelline, Texas (Moto G5 digital file)

Estelline had sort-of a main drag parallel to US 287. This charming little diner caught my eye. While setting up the tripod, a couple of cowboys stopped their well-used pickup truck to chat. They were amused to see a city slicker with a tripod taking pictures. They said they grew rice. I wonder where? Nice guys and very polite.

Farm house in cotton fields, US 287, west of Estelline, Texas (250mm ƒ/5.6 Sonnar lens)

Farm house and shed west of Estelline, Texas (250mm ƒ/5.6 Sonnar lens, green filter)

I saw a couple of abandoned farm houses in the cotton fields. There was no way to get access by road or driveway. 

Memphis

US 287, Memphis, Texas (80 mm Planar-CB lens, yellow filter)

Memphis (Texas, not Tennessee) is the seat of Hall County. The town was platted in 1890 and has some brick streets and old commercial buildings. I will try to explore on my next drive through the
Texas Panhandle.

Clarendon

Clarendon, Texas

Farm west of Clarendon, Texas

Just sitting in the driveway, Clarendon, Texas (Moto G5 digital file)

Clarendon, the county seat of Donley County, is about 60 miles east of Amarillo. The town of 2000 is rather quiet. In 2017, on the way east, we stayed in a hotel in town and discovered that other than fast food chain shops, there were no restaurants open in the evening. Another minor adventure in travel.

This ends our adventure in the Texas Panhandle. From here, it was on to New Mexico and Arizona via I-40 and Route 66. Standby for more of the great US Southwest.

The large square black and white photographs are from Kodak Tri-X film exposed with a Hassselblad 501CM camera and 50, 80, and 250mm lenses. Praus Productions in Rochester, NY processed the film in Xtol developer. I scanned the negatives with a Minolta Scan Multi film scanner.

Small Towns in the Texas Panhandle: Quanah (Panhandle 2019-04)

Let us continue on our way west through the Texas Panhandle on US 287. Quanah is sort-of a big town. It is the county seat of Hardeman County and now has a population of about 2600. I wanted to stop here because I read that you could still see the remains of a drive-in cinema.

In Quanah, Texas (Moto G5 digital file)

This was not the first time I noticed that my car was puny compared to what the Texans drive. Oh, oh, I felt inadequate.

I found a somewhat tired but clean motel on the west end of town. I wanted to take a swim - oops, no pool any more.

The old drive-in was on Spur 133 not far from the motel. Most of the screen had collapsed, but there are pictures of it on the internet.

Only a mile or so into town, I came across an old garage with a Cadillac parked on the concrete. Oddly, the car was in good condition, with full tires and upholstery that looked fresh. Someone must have driven it there recently. Hmmm, long wheelbase, soft suspension: the perfect road trip machine.

 Quanah has some nice 1920s cottages, but sadly in poor condition (this one was on W 3rd.).

The Fire Department's van on Mercer Street was also sort of tired.

An early-20th century store on Mercer, possibly once a car dealership, had an old fire truck parked inside.

Although it was Sunday, the fellow who ran the garage on Mercer was getting equipment together to make a repair call. He said someone called from a motel with a stalled car. There was not much else happening in Quanah, and I headed back to US 287.

West of Quanah, I saw two of the lonely and abandoned farm houses of the type I wanted to photograph as I proceeded on 287 towards Amarillo. The second one above was a distance from the road, and I needed my 250mm Sonnar lens to get this frame. I was a bit hesitant to walk in the grass because of rattlesnakes. Maybe I should buy snake boots for my next Texas trip.

The square photographs are from Kodak Tri-X 400 film exposed with a Hasselblad 501CM camera with 50mm, 80mm, and 250mm Zeiss lenses. I scanned the negatives with a Minolta Scan Multi medium format film scanner.

Small Towns in the Texas Panhandle: Chillicothe (Panhandle 2019-03)

28 Mar 2020 Coronavirus note

Dear Readers, the United States is undergoing an almost unique medical and leadership crisis. Over a century ago, we endured another pandemic, the flu. Read The Great Influenza: The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History by John M. Barry to see how the world coped with the 1918-1919 influenza outbreak. This may have killed over 50 million people, many of whom were in India, where the total number of deaths will never be known.

I wrote these Texas articles several months ago. I will keep posting them with the hope that they help take your minds, if only temporarily, off the virus news. Conditions will get better.

Heading west in the Panhandle

Heading northwest out of Wichita Falls, you enter the big prairie country, with seemingly endless farms and lonely country farm roads. US 287 does pass through an occasional town, most of which, I assume, were built during the railroad era of the late-1800s.

Chillicothe looked interesting and I pulled off for a rest. It is in Hardeman County, Texas, and had a population of only 707 at the 2010 census. The BNSF trains thunder through town on a regular basis.

Full Stop! Was it possible? The Turquoise Coffee Shop at 901 S. 2nd Street. Nice place, friendly baristas, and good coffee.

These two lonely early-20th century commercial stores caught my eye. I wonder what they once sold? They are on FM (Farm-to-Market) 91, which leads north out to the fields beyond the railroad tracks.

Heading west out of town, I saw an old farm house bravely standing up to the elements. How sad.

Big farm country, Chillicothe, Texas (Moto G5 digital image)

The square photographs are from Kodak Tri-X 400 film, exposed with a Hasselblad 501CM camera. Praus Productions in Rochester, NY, developed the film in Xtol developer. The rectangle frame of the two square shops is Fuji Acros 100 film from a Yashica Electro 35CC camera.

In the next article, the journey west continues!

Towns in the Texas Panhandle: Nocona and Wichita Falls (Panhandle 2019-02)

On my ambitious road trip to Flagstaff, I drove through north Texas to avoid the Dallas/Fort Worth traffic nightmare. For my first night, I stayed in the town of Denison (see the previous post). From there, it was an easy drive west on US 82 through rolling farms and forests. Compared to driving through Dallas, it was relaxing and scenic.

Nocona is a small town Montague County, Texas. I stopped to look for a coffee shop but without luck. However, a few sights on side roads caught my eye. Woody's garage looked old-fashioned, but from Google Maps, I could see that it was only a few years old. Fooled me when I was there. The old Chevrolet needed a bit of work; the gorgeous example in the showroom in Denison was a bit (big bit) better.

6th Street view east, Wichita Falls, Texas

Continuing west, I finally reached Wichita Falls in mid-afternoon. I took the exit from US 287 down 6th Street towards the tracks. This is the "big city" of the northeast Panhandle. A friend who has been there on business described it as a quiet, old fashioned, somewhat shabby little city that seems stuck back in mid-20th century. She said generally the people were friendly and nice.

Wichita Falls is not very inspiring photographically. Because big open spaces and big skies are a defining characteristic of Texas, I took some frames near the BNSF railroad tracks. The clouds were puffy, and I used yellow or orange filters to exaggerate the skies.

7th Street view west, Wichita Falls, Texas

On the Saturday that I stopped, the downtown was pretty dead. A coffee shop was open, but the coffee was rather mediocre. I wonder if the town is more exciting on weekdays?

I stretched, bought some petrol, and headed northwest on US 287. To be continued....

These photographs are from Kodak Tri-X film exposed through a Hasselblad 501CM camera with 50mm ƒ/4  Distagon and 80mm ƒ/2.8 Planar-CB lenses. Praus Productions in Rochester developed the film in Xtol. I scanned the negatives with a Minolta Scan Multi medium format film scanner.

Fire: Historic Trace Theater, Port Gibson, Mississippi

Bad news. The Vicksburg Post reported that a fire broke out at the Trace Theater in Post Gibson on March 13, 2020. I photographed it in 2012 and had driven by several times since then, but did not see any activity. According to the Post:

The Trace Theater is located at the corner of Market Street and Carroll Street in Port Gibson and is considered a landmark in the city. 

According to cinematreasures.org, the Trace Theatre was owned and operated by the Ewings of Fayette as was the Fay Theatre in Fayette and the AutoVue Drive-In in Lorman. 

Other records show the building suffered a fire in 1948 and another in 1968 that reportedly caused the business to shut down for good.

The theater had been closed for 52 years? Amazing.

I previously wrote about Port Gibson in 2016, 2019, and again in 2019.

Small Towns in the Texas Panhandle with Ektar 25 film (Panhandle 2019-01)

Introduction

The Texas Panhandle is the land of big skies, big farms, big men and women, enormous pickup trucks, and fading towns and farm houses. The Panhandle is the northern rectangle of the state, bordered by Oklahoma and New Mexico and northwest of the Dallas/Fort Worth metropolis. Most people drive through in a hurry, but the area offers a wealth of photographic topics. The famous Route 66 crosses the northern Panhandle (type "Route 66" in the search box to see posts on this topic).

Highway US 287 takes you from Dallas to Amarillo and passes through a number of small towns. These were bustling and active up through the mid-20th century but today are slowly fading. I drove east on US 287 in 2017, and numerous abandoned farm houses caught my eye. I promised to return and record them before they disappeared. For a trip west in September of 2019, I loaded my Hasselblad medium-format camera and Tri-X film into my camera bag, but at the last minute added my little Yashica Electro 35CC rangefinder camera with one of my remaining rolls of discontinued Kodak Ektar 25. Long-term readers may recall that I have experimented with Ektar 25 before and concluded that it is well past its prime. Of course, I ignored my own advice and decided to use it for this trip.

Future articles will include black and white photographs from many of these towns. 

In the Panhandle

For my September 2019 road trip, I took my time, stayed in seedy motels long past their prime, and enjoyed warm summery weather (and almost stepped on a rattlesnake in my sandals). A month later, an ice storm was threatening and I drove back east in a hurry to keep ahead of the sleet. We will start in Quanah, a town west of Wichita Falls and proceed northwest on US 287. Click any picture to see it enlarged to 1600 pixels wide (there is plenty of interesting detail).

Dinner at eight, Quanah, Texas

A bit fast-food-like, but OK. The staff were very friendly. Breakfast the next morning was great.

Repair shop and Cadillac, Spur 133, Quanah, Texas. The Cadillac was in surprisingly good condition.

Attack of the giant chickens, Rustic Relics, Quanah, Texas

Even the chickens in Texas are big. Rusty Relics, Quanah, Texas

Nash Metropolitan automobile, US 287 east of Childress

No lunch any more, Estelline, Texas

This cute little building in Estelline may have been a Valentine Diner. Mr. Arthur Valentine formed Valentine Manufacturing Company in Wichita, Kansas, in 1947 to build small lunch buildings. He sold many to veterans who wanted to start their own businesses in the booming post-war years. The Kansas Historical Society has an interesting history. I photographed another Valentine Diner in Chandler, Oklahoma, in 2017.

Commercial building, 704 Cleveland St., Estelline, Texas

Abandoned farmhouse near Memphis, Texas

Benitez Tire, Hedley, Texas

Taqueria Tijuana, Hedley, Texas

Lonely farmhouse near Clarendon

Abandoned house near Goodnight

The largest number of these abandoned farmhouses are between Childress and Amarillo. It is sad that the families who once lived in these homes moved out. Do they now live in towns? Did the old folks die and their kids moved to sophisticated cities? There may be more derelict houses like these on side roads, but it is possible that they typically clustered along the rail corridor, which is now followed by US 287. I will later post black and white film photographs of these lonely farmhouses.

Gas station, Claude, Texas

My last stop on Route 287 was in Claude at an odd little gas station with zinc or zinc-coated steel roof shingles. These shingles were popular early in the 20th century because they looked like clay tiles but were lighter and cheaper. I photographed this station in 2017 with a digital camera (Panhandle article no. 01).

Santa Rosa

Oops, wrong state. But the dusk light in Santa Rosa, New Mexico, was sublime. 

Rio Pecos Truck Terminal

Summary

Texas is fun for a photographer. The people are friendly and travel is easy. The roads are in good condition and there are plenty of gasoline stations along the way. But beware, other than fast food offal, the Panhandle is a rough place for food outside of Amarillo and Wichita Falls. It is even more of a coffee desert. Take a thermos and brew your own. Also, watch out for rattlesnakes.

Techical Notes

I took these photographs with a Yashica Electro 35CC camera with a fixed 35mm ƒ/1.8 Color-Yashinon DX lens. This is a handy compact camera with an excellent 6-element lens and a genuine rangefinder. “Color” was the advertising buzzword in the 1970s and 1980s. Today, it would be “digital.” I suppose some people are fooled. I scanned the film at 3,600 dpi with a Plustek 7600i film scanner using Silverfast Ai software to control the unit. I saved the scans as 16-bit TIFF files. Silverfast does not have an Ektar 25 profile, but the Royal Gold 1000 profile worked reasonably well. The colors were off, and I sometimes used the grey dropper to select a grey area on the frame as a reference. Some of the colors are slightly odd, but it suits the subject matter (and if I wanted boring perfection, I could use a digital camera or mobile phone). A few frames needed some cleaning or scratch removal; Pixelmator 3.8.8 has one of the best healing tools that I have tried. To resize for this article, I used an old version of ACDSee Pro 2.5 running under Windows XP.