Monday, November 16, 2020

More Neglected (Soon to be Lost?) Houses: a Vicksburg Urban Decay Tour

In an earlier article, I wrote about a handsome but neglected early 20th century house on Howard Street. I found more traditional houses nearby, on Spring and Crawford Streets. After looking at them, we will take a quick tour of urban decay in other parts of Vicksburg. This is a convenient way to combine photographs from around town. It is a long article, so please be patient. Click any frame to enlarge it; enjoy the view.

Spring Street


Spring Street near junction with Crawford Street, view north (Tri-X 400 film)
Early 20th century cottage, 1304 Spring Street, Vicksburg (Tri-X 400 film, Hasselblad 501 CM camera, 50mm ƒ/4 Distagon lens)
Chimney at 1304 Spring Street (50mm Distagon lens, 1 sec. ƒ/8)
This cottage may be on its way to demolition. The chimney was once likely set up for a coal stove insert.
Cottage at 1322 Spring Street, Vicksburg
1322 Spring St. rear.
This house at the corner of Spring and Crawford Streets looked like it was in reasonable condition. The roof was recent. But the two electric boxes missing meter domes meant there was no power in the building. Usually this means there are no occupants - but not always.

Crawford Street


1720 Crawford Street (Hasselblad 80mm Planar-CB lens,  1/15 ƒ/11.5, green filter
A short article in the Vicksburg Post reported that the city inspector had condemned several houses in town. This little cottage on Crawford Street was on the list. The bridge in the foreground crosses Stouts Bayou, which is channelized in a concrete trough here.

Georgia-Sycamore Avenues


Georgia Ave. looking uphill towards MLK., Jr., Blvd. (Tri-X 400, Fuji GW690II camera, 90mm ƒ/3.5 lens)
Unknown address, Sycamore Ave. (Fuji X-E1 digital file)
Georgia and Sycamore Avenues drops down steeply to the south from MLK., Jr., Blvd. Twenty years ago, there were several homes on this lonely U-shaped road, but now I think all houses are gone. I am surprised that the city still maintains it. Kudzu is engulfing everything. It is like Vicksburg's version of a Secret Garden (apologies to Frances Hodgson Burnett).

Lovers Lane


246 Lovers Lane (Fuji X-E1 digital file converted to B&W)
Detroit iron, 246 Lovers Lane (Fuji X-E1 digital file converted to B&W)
Lovers Lane is an unusual street, with its romantic name. Unfortunately, some of the housing stock is distinctly unromantic. The lane ascends past the Cedar Hill Cemetery towards the Vicksburg National Military Park. For a stretch, Lovers runs parallel to Confederate Avenue in the Park but just south of the Park boundary. A few houses are scattered in the woods, one of which was the abandoned no. 246. In the garage was a big chunk of Detroit iron awaiting restoration. I think I will pass.

Harris Street


706 Harris Street, Vicksburg (Kodak BW400CN film, Leica IIIC, 50mm ƒ/1.4 Canon lens, 1/200 ƒ/8.05, yellow filter)
This old cottage on Harris Street has been empty for years, maybe decades. But it is not abandoned. Status: unknown.

Grammer Street


Grammer Street, Vicksburg (Tri-X 400 film, Hasselblad 501CM camera, 250mm ƒ/5.6 Sonnar lens)

Grammer Street was once lined on both sides with these little shotgun houses. One by one, they have been torn down. As of January 2021, these houses have been razed.

Hunt Street


Hunt Street shotgun houses (BW400CN film, Leica IIIC, 50mm ƒ/1.4 Canon lens, 1/200 ƒ/8.05)
2314 Hunt Street (BW400CN film, Leica IIIC, 50mm ƒ/1.4 Canon lens, 1/200 ƒ/8.05)

These two shotgun houses 2314 and 2316 Hunt Street, have also been empty for years. I think they are undergoing some degree of rebuilding. (Update Feb. 2021: the two houses are gone)

Washington Street



This store at 2408 Wahington Street has the word "DEMO" spray painted on the front. Does that apply to the whole building or just the unit on the right?

Oak Street


2312 Oak Street in process of being demolished (Panatomic-X film, Fuji GW690II camera)

Oak Street runs semi-parallel to the river and has an impressive view. Many of the historic cottages have been torn down or been lost to fire over the years.

Bowmar Avenue


1221 Bowmar Avenue (Fuji Acros film, Leica M2, 35mm ƒ/2 Summicron lens, 1/125 ƒ/2.8)
1303 and 1305 Bowmar Avenue (Panatomic-X film, Fuji GW690II camera, 90mm ƒ/3.5 lens)

The severe duplex on Bowmar Avenue just east of the Drummond Street intersection has been demolished. The two shotgun houses are also gone.

Marcus Street


1515 Marcus Street, Vicksburg

Marcus Street (now called Sturgis Street) has lost many older wood cottages. Some have been replaced with modern brick structures. This house at 1515 is clearly modern, but I am not sure if it was from the 1960s or 1970s.

Franklin Street


2501 Franklin Street (Fuji X-E1 digital file converted to B&W)
2503 Franklin Street (Fuji X-E1 digital file)
2505 Franklin Street (Fuji X-E1 digital file)

Franklin Street had three similar-looking duplexes. When I photographed them in 2018, all were empty and overgrown.

Grove Street


2212 Grove Street (Panatomic-X film, Fuji GW690II camera, 90mm ƒ/3.5 lens)
2329 Grove Street, Vicksburg (Fuji X-E1 digital file)

Grove Street is one of Vicksburg's historic streets with many older houses and cottages.

Pearl Street


2509 Pearl Street (Panatomic-X film, Spotmatic camera, 55mm ƒ/1.8 Super-Takumar lens)

This is an unusual cottage on Pearl Street because it was made from cinder blocks. One by one, houses along Pearl have been torn down, and the area feels empty. I met a gent who grew up near here in the 1950s and 1960s, and he said it was vibrant with families and children then.

Levee Street


Machine shop, tank farm, Levee Street (TMax 100 film, Spotmatic camera, 24 mm ƒ/3.5 SMC Takumar lens)

This old tank farm on Levee Street, at the west end of the old Fairground Street bridge, has been unused for at least three decades. The machinery building has lost its roof and has a Stonehenge collection of concrete support pillars. I can smell fumes here, so some of these tanks hold some chemical. There has probably been leakage into the ground.

Johnson Street


754 Johnson Street, Vicksburg (Tri-X film, Hasselblad 501CM, 50mm ƒ/4 Distagon lens, 1/30 ƒ11.5)

Johnson Street has been methodically deconstructed, and there are progressively fewer and fewer houses as the years go by. I wrote about Johnson Street early in my blogging efforts, in January of 2010.
(Update April 2023: this house is gone.)

Yerger Street


2602 Yerger Street, Vicksburg
2604 Yerger Street, Vicksburg

Here are two traditional shotgun houses from Yerger Street. They are long gone. These are 4x5" Fujichrome frames.

Warrenton Road


Warrenton Road store (4×5" Tri-X Prof. film, 90mm ƒ/6.8 Angulon lens)

This former gas station/store at the junction of Warrenton and Wigwam Roads has been unused for years. (Update April 2023: the building is being cleaned and possibly upgraded. I photographed this store with the Hasselblad XPan panoramic camera in 2022 (click the link)).)

Rubber Recycling Factory


Former U.S. Rubber Reclaiming, Rubber Way (Fuji Acros film, Leica M2, 24mm ƒ/3.5 SMC Takumar lens)
U.S. Rubber Reclaiming (Fuji Acros film, Leica M2, 24mm ƒ/3.5 SMC Takumar lens)
U.S. Rubber Reclaiming (Fuji Acros film, Leica M2, 24mm ƒ/3.5 SMC Takumar lens)

This disgraceful mess is part of the remnants of U.S. Rubber Reclaiming, at 2000 Rubber Way. According to the Vicksburgnews.com:
The Mississippi Secretary of State’s Office announced Tuesday, Dec. 10, that it has transferred approximately 12.6 acres of tax-forfeited property to the City of Vicksburg effective Dec. 4, 2019. 
The Warren County tax collector conveyed the property, once owned by U.S. Rubber Reclaiming, Inc. to the State of Mississippi for the non-payment of property taxes in August 2010, the same month the company ceased its operations. The company was wholly owned by Obsidian Enterprises of Indianapolis, Ind.
So this rubber and other debris has rotted here for a decade. How many mosquitoes breed in the water? Any other pathogens? I wrote about the site in more detail in April of 2019.

US 61 South


Hopewell Church, US 61 south (Panatomic-X film, Hasselblad 501CM, 50mm ƒ/4 Distagon lens)
Side of Hopewell Church (Fuji Acros film, Leica IIIC, Jupiter-8 lens)

The Hopewell Church sits on a bluff on the opposite side of US 61 from the Municipal Airport. I do not know its history. The poor old church is being engulfed by vines, and you can only see it in winter.

Glass Road


Church, Glass Road (Panatomic-X film, Hasselblad 501CM, 80mm ƒ/2.8 Planar-CB lens, ¼ ƒ/11, green filter)

This little church is on Glass Road near the former entrance to the Marathon LeTourneau industrial complex. LeTourneau once built jack-up drilling rigs and other industrial machinery. At one time, a small neighborhood existed here. The pavement can still be seen in the woods, but all the houses are gone. I assume that this church once served the community.

Dear readers, this has been a rather haphazard tour around Vicksburg and Warren County. There is a lot of old architecture here, and we are gradually losing it. If any of you readers have suggestions of more places to see and photograph, please let me know.

UPDATE: I found a 2018 photograph of the tanks at the Levee Street tank farm.  

Unused tank farm, Levee Street, Vicksburg (Kodak Ektar 25 film, Rolleiflex 3.5E, 75mm ƒ/3.5 Xenotar lens)

Wednesday, November 11, 2020

Old Railroad Machine Shop, Levee Street, Vicksburg, Mississippi


Kansas City Southern (KCS) rail yard, Levee Street, Vicksburg (Panatomic-X film, Spotmatic camera, 135mm ƒ/3.5 Super-Multi-Coated Takumar lens, ⅛ sec ƒ/11.5)

Levee Street runs along the Yazoo Canal waterfront following the west edge of Vicksburg. Formerly, warehouses, silos, and machine shops of various types lined the road. Many have been demolished over the decades, but it still has an industrial look, especially with the presence of the Kansas City Southern railroad shunting and work yard right next door.  

Levee Street view north (28mm ƒ/3.5 Super-Multi-Coated Takumar lens)
Levee Street view south (28mm ƒ/3.5 Takumar lens)

I have seen this old workshop since I moved to the area. It is clad with miscellaneous materials of interesting textures.
 

I see junk inside the shed but never any activity. I assume the railroad owns it.

South side of workshop with railroad track and parts (28mm ƒ/3.5 lens)

The building was secure and I did not want to trespass. I do not know if railroad tracks ever went into the work area.


This brick shed is on the grounds of the KCS rail yard and may be decades old. The mid-century buildings are steel utility construction, so I assume this brick shed is early 20th century. Long-term readers may remember that I wrote about a handsome 1890 brick office/utility building that once stood in the rail yard. Sadly, the railroad demolished it in 2011

Kodak 135-36 Panatomic-X film, expired 1991

I took these photographs on 35mm Kodak Panatomic-X film. Kodak discontinued this wonderful, fine-grained, black and white film around 1990, but an eBay seller offered a brick which he claimed had been frozen. My experience with cold-stored 120-size Panatomic-X is that it is almost perfect, with no fog or other deterioration. These frames are from the first roll of three that I bought from that vendor. I exposed the film at EI=25 in a Pentax Spotmatic camera. I also tested my newly-acquired 28mm Super-Multi-Coated Takumar lens. Praus Productions in Rochester, New York, developed the film in Xtol developer. I will show more Panatomic-X examples in the future.

Saturday, November 7, 2020

You're Fired!!


You lost. Now please go away and take your corrupt family with you, especially Uday and Qusay.* And also take Pence, Barr, and the other cowardly sycophants in your administration.

Don't worry, you won't be lonely; you and the other traitors will soon are already relegated to the cesspool of history, like Jefferson Davis, Muammar al-Gaddafi, Nicolae Ceaușescu, and Mobutu Sese Seko.

As Robert Reich wrote in The Guardian:
Most of the 74,222,957 Americans who voted to re-elect Donald Trump – 46.8% of the votes cast in the 2020 presidential election – don’t hold Trump accountable for what he’s done to America.

Their acceptance of Trump’s behavior will be his vilest legacy.

 

Other Destructive Elements of this Grotesque Legacy


  • Environmental damage 
  • Attempted sale of public lands to industry
  • Concentration camps for immigrant children as a key element of the border separation policy
  • Corrupting the judiciary with the appointment of Attorney General Barr** and hundreds of semi-competent right-wing ideological judges
  • The cheapening of awards like the Presidential Medal of Freedom, given to political suck-ups
  • The deaths of thousands of Americans who were told to deny the science behind the Covid vaccines
  • Corrupting the the nation's voting system
  • Warping "patriotism" into an invitation to insurrection and civil war
  • Grifting his followers by soliciting funds for bogus reelection campaigns, scam PACs, and media companies
  • Unanswered questions about Russia's influence in the 2016 election
  • Normalizing brazen corruption, nepotism, vindictiveness, and self-dealing among government officials
  • Joining blatantly criminal intent to comically inept execution
  • Weaponizing science hatred, distain of education, racism, nativism, and hatred of competence
  • Using presidential pardons as rewards for corruption and loyalism
  • Condoning private raids on public funds and resources
  • Corrupting the census to warp the national count to achieve racial and political goals
  • Destroying the respect that the Supreme Court formerly held in the United States among most citizens
* Uday and Qusay were Sadaam Hussain's brutish sons. Both were killed by US troops.

** Update:  On Dec. 14, 2020, Barr announced that he was quitting and sent a Dear Leader love letter to Mr. Trump containing sickening fawning. 

Update, June 9, 2022:  "I say this to my Republican colleagues who are defending the indefensible: there will come a day when Donald Trump is gone, but your dishonor will remain." 
Representative Liz Cheney, vice chair of the House select committee investigating the January 6, 2021, Capitol riot, Washington, DC.

Quotes for the Darkness


Over the years, I wrote down quotes that summarize the darkness of evil and lies that overcame us in USA during the 2017-2021 period and that continues to this date:


"Concentrated power has always been the enemy of liberty."
    Ronald Reagan, The New Republic (16 December 1981) 

"There are none so blind as those who will not see. The most deluded people are those who choose to ignore what they already know."
    Attributed to John Heywood, 1546

"Above all, don't lie to yourself. The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to a point that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, and so loses all respect for himself and for others. And having no respect he ceases to love." 
    Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov

"Evil has a way of making friends with the good and dragging them into darkness."
    CSI Crime Scene Investigation, Season 11, Episode 16, 2011

"Totalitarianism can flourish where people systematically refuse to engage with reality, and are ready to replace reason with ideology and outright fiction."
    Emily Haber, German Ambassador to the USA, 2020 (commemorating Hannah Arendt, b. 1906) 

“In a dying civilization, political prestige is the reward not of the shrewdest diagnostician, but of the man with the best bedside manner. It is the decoration conferred on mediocrity by ignorance” 
    Eric Ambler, The Mask of Dimitrios, 1939

"The sadness of evil men is that they can believe no truth that does not paint the world in their colours."
    Eric Ambler, The Schirmer Inheritance, 1953

"The mob mentality relieves individuals from having to distinguish between right and wrong." 
    CSI Crime Scene Investigation, Season 3, Episode 9, 2002

"It's a hell of a lot easier to jump into the sewer than to climb back out." 
    Philip Marlowe, Private Eye, Series II, Episode 1, 1986

"Many just went along, step by step, down the road. They were the people next door," and they got violently drunk because "they were in physical pain because of the shrapnel in their bodies and in emotional pain from what they saw or did. It all started with lies, and lies, and lies, and intolerance."
    Arnold Schwarzenegger video message to Republicans, Sunday January 10, 2021

"Yes, democracy thrives on contradiction, even disagreement. But it dies when brute force silences the other, when sheer hatred breaks all bounds of decency and respect."
    Heiko Maas, Foreign Minister of Germany, in Spiegel International, January 7, 2021

“Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities.”
― Voltaire, Questions sur les Miracles à M. Claparede, Professeur de Théologie à Genève, par un Proposant: Ou Extrait de Diverses Lettres de M. de Voltaire

“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.”
    Attributed to  Nazi propaganda chief Joseph Goebbels (from the Jewish Virtual Library)

"Silence enables the liar,” .... “And silence helps it to spread. And so the first thing you have to do is say no, I’m not going to accept that we’re going to live in a post-truth world. It’s a toxin ..... in our political bloodstream." 
    Senator Liz Cheney, September 26, 2021

"From enthusiasm to imposture the step is perilous and slippery; the demon of Socrates affords a memorable instance how a wise man may deceive himself, how a good man may deceive others, how the conscience may slumber in a mixed and middle state between self-illusion and voluntary fraud." 
    Edward Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

"People always believe the lies," ...... "They want to believe any lie that hurts someone they envy."
    Richard McKenna, 1962. The Sand Pebbles, p. 426

"The ego cries out for either silence or assent. In the modern media environment, this fear expresses itself as a demand for the comfort of massive doses of self-justifying rage delivered through the Fox or Newsmax or OAN electronic EpiPen that stills the allergic reaction to truth and reason."
    Tom Nichols, "What Are Trump Supporters So Afraid Of?", The Atlantic, June 22, 2022

"At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide."
    Abraham Lincoln, Address on January 27, 1838 to the Young Men’s Lyceum in Springfield, Illinois 

"And so the enabling lies spread. They poison hearts. They poison minds. They fill you with rage and hate, until along comes the activating lie, the dangerous falsehood that pushes a person towards true radicalism. How does a person come to the conclusion that cannibal pedophiles dominate Hollywood? Or that a vast conspiracy of politicians, lawyers, journalists, and tech executives (including conservative politicians, lawyers, and journalists) brazenly stole a presidential election?

"You believe that when you know your enemy is evil. You believe that when you know they will destroy the country. In that context, fact-checks and rebuttals aren’t just wrong, they’re naïve. All too often, when you’re arguing with the person who believes the activating lie—the falsehood that immediately motivated them to take to the street—then you’ve already lost."
David French, "Only the Church Can Truly Defeat a Christian Insurrection; It’s time to combat the right’s enabling lies." The French Press, January 10, 2021.

"America cannot remain free if we abandon the truth. The lie that the 2020 presidential election was stolen is insidious. It preys on those who love their country. It is a door Donald Trump opened to manipulate Americans to abandon their principles, to sacrifice their freedom, to justify violence, to ignore the rulings of our courts and the rule of law. This is Donald Trump's legacy, but it cannot be the future of our nation. History has shown us over and over again how these types of poisonous lies destroy free nations.:
      Representative Liz Chaney, August 11, 2022, Iowa State University
  
"Few lies carry the inventor’s mark, and the most prostitute enemy to truth may spread a thousand, without being known for the author: besides, as the vilest writer hath his readers, so the greatest liar hath his believers: and it often happens, that if a lie be believed only for an hour, it hath done its work,"
    Political Lying by Jonathan Swift (1667–1745)

"in the big lie there is always a certain force of credibility; because the broad masses of a nation are always more easily corrupted in the deeper strata of their emotional nature than consciously or voluntarily; and thus in the primitive simplicity of their minds they more readily fall victims to the big lie than the small lie,"
    Adolph Hitler, Mein Kampf, vol. I, ch. X. (from the Jewish Virtual Library)

"One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we've been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We're no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It's simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we've been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back."
Carl Sagan, The demon-haunted world: science as a candle in the dark. New York: Random House. 1995. Ch. 13: Obsessed with Reality, p. 241

"The only path to a subversion of the republican system of the Country is, by flattering the prejudices of the people, and exciting their jealousies and apprehensions, to throw affairs into confusion, and bring on civil commotion. … When a man unprincipled in private life, desperate in his fortune, bold in his temper … is seen to mount the hobby horse of popularity … he may ‘ride the storm and direct the whirlwind.’” Alexander Hamilton writing in the early 1790s

 

World of Lies and Corruption


I recommend that everyone watch the 2019 HBO mini-series, Chernobyl. It describes a world where every facet of life was dominated by lies, corruption, cover-ups, incompetence, vindictiveness, and lack of accountability. How far down this path have we descended here in USA? Just look at the highest levels of the Federal government in 2017-2021 and consider where we are heading: 


“What is the cost of lies? It’s not that we’ll mistake them for truth. The real danger is that if we hear enough lies, then we no longer recognize the truth at all." Scientist Valery Legasov, Episode 5

"We're on dangerous ground right now, because of our secrets and our lies. They are practically what define us. When the truth offends, we lie and lie until we can no longer remember it is even there, but it is still there. Every lie we tell incurs a debt to the truth. Sooner or later, that debt is paid." Episode 5

"...on our search for truth, we fail to consider how few actually want us to find it. But it is always there, whether we can see it or not, whether we choose to or not. The truth doesn't care about our needs or wants. It doesn't care about our governments, our ideologies, our religions. It will lie in wait, for all time." Episode 5


Banning Books


Republican governors and legislators have been banning books from schools and libraries in their attempt to impose thought purity and pander to the fears, racism, hatred, primativism, and nativism of their followers. My mother and her parents saw this in Germany in the late-1930s. Eliminating books and manufacturing a false and mythological past is an ultimate form of lying. Ray Bradbury addressed these issues decades ago.

“They began by controlling books of cartoons and then detective books and, of course, films, one way or another, one group or another, political bias, religious prejudice, union pressure; there was always a minority afraid of something, and a great majority afraid of the dark, afraid of the future, afraid of the past, afraid of the present, afraid of themselves and shadows of themselves.”
Ray Bradbury, The Martian Chronicles and Carnival of Madness

"There is more than one way to burn a book. And the world is full of people running about with lit matches. Every minority, be it Baptist/Unitarian, Irish/Italian/Octogenarian/Zen Buddhist, Zionist/Seventh-day Adventist, Women’s Lib/Republican, Mattachine/FourSquareGospel feels it has the will, the right, the duty to douse the kerosene, light the fuse. Every dimwit editor who sees himself as the source of all dreary blanc-mange plain porridge unleavened literature, licks his guillotine and eyes the neck of any author who dares to speak above a whisper or write above a nursery rhyme."
Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451: A Novel


Tuesday, November 3, 2020

Neglected (Soon to be Lost?) Traditional House, Howard Street, Vicksburg, Mississippi

During winter and early spring of 2020, I kept finding early 20th century houses in Vicksburg that had once been nice homes and were now neglected or ripe to be condemned. One of these was on the south end of Howard Street.

Howard Street view north towards Clay Street (Fuji X-E1 digital file)

Howard Street runs perpendicular to Clay Street. Most people know it because it runs along the west side of the St. Aloysius High School property. Remnants of a streetcar track stick out of the pavement in places (yes, we once had streetcars in Vicksburg). Cross Clay Street and proceed south, and Howard Street deadends at a parking lot and dirt driveway. The driveway leads to a late-1800s cottage, which must have once been a very handsome home.

1303 Howard Street, Vicksburg (Kodak Tri-X 400 film, Hasselblad 501CM camera, 50mm Distagon lens, green filter)
1303 Howard Street porch (50mm ƒ/4.0 Distagon lens, ⅛ ƒ/11)

The house was built on the edge of a hill and had a nice sunset view to the west overlooking Spring Street.

Once elegant parlor. Note light coming in from ruined roof (Tri-X film, 50mm Distagon lens, 1 sec ƒ/8)
Handsome bay window with view to the west (Fuji X-E1 digital file)
The horizontal lath shows that these walls were plaster-covered. The chimney was probably for a coal insert stove. 

As of late-2020, the house is still extant. Status: unknown.

The square photographs are from Kodak Tri-X film, exposed through my Hasselblad 501CM camera and the 50mm ƒ/4.0 Distagon lens. Praus Productions in Rochester, New York, developed the film in Xtol. I scanner the negatives with a Minolta Scan Multi medium format film scanner controlled by Silverfast software.

UPDATE JAN. 3, 2023:  The house is gone totally. 

Tuesday, October 27, 2020

Architecture from our Industrial Past: Bates and Androscoggin Mills, Lewiston, Maine

Undated post card showing Bates Mill and canal, Lewiston, Maine (from Wikimedia)
Outflow canal, Upton Mills, Mill St., Lewiston (Kodachrome 64 film, Rolleiflex camera, 75mm lens)

Northern New England (USA) is full of former mill towns with amazing 1800s brick mill buildings. Most of these were built in the early- to mid-1800s on rivers, where water power could power the machinery. Most of these mills spun cotton or wool into textiles, while other factories produced shoes. These industries represent the early flourishing of the industrial revolution in the United States. 

The New England States and northern New York provided a perfect geology for our early industrial expansion because of the steep terrain, dependable rainfall, and hard rock geology. Rivers flowed down over numerous waterfalls where water wheels could be placed and a factory established. Flowing from hard rock terrain, the rivers flowed clean, and hydro projects were not plagued with silt and mud accumulation. Bustling towns grew up around these factories. Being close to the coast, merchants shipped manufactured textiles and other goods to ports like Portland, Portsmouth, Boston, or Providence for transshipment to Europe.

1910 photograph of the Androscoggin River (from Wikimedia)

Lewiston is the largest city in Androscoggin County, Maine. This part of Maine was populated by Quebec families and was incorporated as "Lewistown" in 1795. With the development of mills and the arrival of the railroad, the town boomed economically during the mid-late 1800s, attracting thousands of Quebecers to migrate. French is still commonly spoken. 

The textile industry's profits declined greatly after World War I. Starting in the 1950s, Lewiston's mills started to close (an example of early outsourcing, where textile companies shifted manufacturing to the US South, where labor was cheap and non-unionized). 

The status of these huge mill buildings has been fraught with economic and historic preservation issues. According to Wikipedia:

After a difficult economic period in the 1980s that saw high unemployment and downtown stagnation, several key events have led to economic and cultural growth, including the transformation of the historic Bates Mill Complex. Because the city took over the complex in 1992 after back taxes went unpaid, years of taxpayer frustration in the city's need to maintain the 1.1-million-square-foot (100,000 m2) behemoth led to two referenda (one non-binding vote, the other binding). Voters soundly supported the need to pursue redevelopment by maintaining the property and selling it to private developers. In 2001, the city sold three mill buildings to local developers. In 2003, Platz Associates sold the Bates Mill Complex, with the exception of Mill 5 and a small support building. For the next four years, a number of business enterprises expanded after Platz redeveloped the mill building. The Bates Mill complex was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in December 2010.

A relative who lives in Lewiston knew the manager of one of the redevelopment projects. His foundation intended to find new tenants for one of the magnificent old Bates Mill buildings. She made the connection and we all had the chance to tour the building and learn about the development plans. He generously let me take photographs inside.

Bates Mill #1 or #5, Canal Street, Lewiston (Ilford XP2 film, Rolleiflex 3.5E Xenotar, 1 sec. exposure)
These views of the cavernous halls give you a sense of the size of this building. Iron posts support huge timber joists, and the tongue-and-groove flooring felt solid enough to support tons of machinery. This was construction from an era when we were proud of what we built, and it was made to last decades.
This photograph shows how the iron posts hold up the ceiling joists. The fluorescent light fixtures would have been a post-World War II addition. The outer wall were brick bearing walls.
Sink for workmen (or ladies) to clean up
Hot water boilers
Former cooler or freezer (unknown purpose)
What an impressive building. I could spend hours wandering around and photographing the structure. The machinery had been removed long before we were there, and none of it was left.
Undated photograph of Androscoggin Mill, photographed by Drew & Worthing, 22 Tremont Street, Boston (from Historic New England, photograph number OVP0241)
After our tour, I drove a short distance west to the old Androscoggin Mills. At its peak, this was another massive complex of buildings, roads, and canals. I do not know how many of the buildings are still standing or which one I tried to check out. The one I approached was locked, but several out buildings were open or partly collapsing.
I tried the door, but it was jammed or locked. And the signs of a security service were a bit ominous.
Heat exchanger? Power House, Androscoggin Mill, Lewiston
Boiler in power house, Androscoggin Mill, Lewiston
This has been a very short tour of the two of the mills in Lewiston, I have more photographs from other towns along the Androscoggin River, but I need to scan them. Some are 120 size Kodachrome transparencies, which are mounted and do not fit in my scanner. A project for the future...

The black and white photographs above are from Ilford XP2 film exposed with a Rolleiflex 3.5E camera. I exposed the film at EI=400. Most exposures were 1 sec. long, and I placed the camera on beams or furniture to brace it. The XP2 has a long tonal range and is very sharp, perfect for this type of subject matter. Problem: when I recently looked at the negatives, they were deep purple color and seemed to be fading. Possibly the film had not been fixed properly. I decided to scan them before they deteriorated further. This is a chromogenic film (like color print film but monochrome only) and is usually considered to be less stable than traditional silver-based black and white film. 

Wednesday, October 21, 2020

Lost to Fire: Powers Country Store, Grangeville, Louisiana

In early 2017, I visited the extremely interesting Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) in Livingston, Louisiana. This is the research facility that helped confirm the existence of gravitational waves. A similar laboratory is in Hanford, Washington, and the two confirm each other's observations. On my way home, I drove west and north on the way back to Mississippi. Passing through Grangeville, I saw Power's Country Store on LA 37. Quick stop. The proprietor generously let me take some photographs inside with my Rolleiflex. This was one of these handy stores that sold munchies, drinks, hardware, and various other supplies. It was active with customers coming and going.
The outside looked like an old building with many additions over the years. Its not possible to tell what was there in the late-1800s.
The steps led to the part of the store with hardware, seed, and feed
The inside was a fascinating look at an older time. Mounted deer on the walls. Miscellaneous snacks and groceries. Tools, seeds, and automotive supplies on a higher level. Bare light bulbs and fluorescent tubes - nice stuff. Old-timers, bubbas, and children milled around.

These interior scenes were 1-second tripod-mounted exposures on Kodak Tri-X 400 film. I bought some cold juice, thanked the folks at the counter, and headed home.

I forgot about these negatives and did not scan them until July of 2020. Then I looked for information about Powers Country Store and was horrified to learn that it burned down on June 26, 2018, only a year after I visited. From WAFB 9 (Baton Rouge):
GRANGEVILLE, LA (WAFB) - An old neighborhood grocery store that has been a staple in St. Helena Parish for more than a century is gone. Powers Country Store in Grangeville was destroyed by fire Monday night. 
Flames shot nearly 20 feet into the air as firefighters battled the massive blaze at Powers at around 10:30 p.m. Cell phone video taken by someone who witnessed the destruction spread quickly on social media, perhaps because the old store holds a piece of rich history. It has been open since 1896. An old, rusted sign bearing the store's name and the couple, Frank and Ramona, that started a restaurant some 60 years ago is all that remains.
From The Advocate (Times-Picyune, New Orleans):
Until the fire, the Powers Store remained a vibrant place for people living and working in the area, including the local gravel pit workers, Graves said.

“Usually at lunch time the parking lot is packed,” Graves said. “Now I don’t know what they’re going to do, I guess go to the truck stop a little farther south. It is going to really sting not having it there.”

Suzanne Hornsby Hobgood was among several people who stopped by Tuesday to extend condolences. She said she remembered buying candy from Frank and Ramona Powers when she was a kid. As an adult, she brought her family to do the same.

“I’d come out here and bring my children. And now I’ve been bringing my grandchildren,” she said.

Hobgood said the store was filled with history, including an antique cash register, deer mounts from hunting trips and old photographs. 
I am sad; this is how we lose out cultural heritage. As time goes by, people forget. Within a few years, almost no one will remember that Powers Country Store once existed and served the community.

Older Urban Decay articles about country stores (please click the links):

Lorman, Mississippi
Lorman, Mississippi in 2019
Farnham, Virginia
Roy's Store, Chatham, Mississippi
Onward, Mississippi
Learned, Mississippi
Betigheimer Store, Edwards, Mississippi
Willis Store, Edwards, Mississippi
Yates Store, Utica, Mississippi
Twin Arrows, Arizona (Route 66)

Wednesday, October 14, 2020

Demolished: Historic House/Office on Clay Street, Vicksburg, Mississippi

In early December (2019), my wife told me that she saw a house on Clay Street being pulled down. That was odd but not unique for this city. I headed over with my Rolleiflex, and sure enough, the back of the house was already crushed. I had not previously paid any attention to this house. It looked like many others that formerly lined Clay Street, built in an era when there were many residences on this road. It was gloomy and wet, perfect for this type of scene (and my favorite photography light). The Vicksburg Post reported:

Vicksburg Post, Dec. 9, 2019:
If you are one of the hundreds of drivers who pass along Clay Street each day and happened to notice what looked like a home that had collapsed, don’t worry; it’s collapsed on purpose. 
The now-vacant building, located at 2603 Clay St. that was once a chiropractic clinic, is being torn down by its new owners. 
Monday morning, a track hoe was working on the rear of the sloping building that once faced the Firestone Auto Care Center on Clay St. 
“I acquired this property back in early spring, and was hoping to save it, but it just wasn’t worth saving. I wished it was,” property owner Pat Daughtry said. “It was too close to the street; it was right up on Clay Street.” He said the property will be up for sale after the building is removed. 
According to Vicksburg city directories from 1958 and 1966, the building housed the practice of chiropractor John W. Donovan. Daughtry said the building was built for Donovan’s practice before Clay Street was widened from two to four lanes and had room for cars. 
“It was set back just enough to where they had an entrance and enough room to park,” he said, adding the clinic was at street level and the living area downstairs under the clinic.
According to county property tax records, the most recent use of the building was as a duplex.
I spoke to Mrs. Daughtry one day at the supermarket. She said her husband had hoped to restore or move the building, but it was just too badly decayed. Also, there was almost no space in front after Clay Street had been widened to four lanes.

The photograph above is from a Rolleiflex 3.5E medium format camera with 75mm ƒ/3.5 Xenotar lens on Kodak Panatomic-X film. Praus Productions in Rochester, NY, developed the film in Xtol developer. I scanned the negative with a Minolta Scan Multi medium format film scanner.