Tuesday, March 26, 2024

Into Mississippi

From Gould we headed southeast, and eventually crossed over the Big River on the fancy new bridge at Lake Village. The bridge deposits you into Mississippi, rather unceremoniously, by a casino. This was still the Delta, with its miles of flat fields and wetlands. We drove by an occasional old plantation home, and through numerous small (but seemingly struggling) towns.

The route the GPS picked out for us took us near this beautiful old church, the New Hope Missionary Baptist Church. It was built in 1918, but has been left empty and abandoned now for several decades. Although it felt lonely and forlorn there, you could almost feel a sense of stubborn pride still lingering in the old building. It's still here. Weathered and faded, it still remains.

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Monday, March 25, 2024

Gould

Last week we made a trip to the Gulf Coast with the kids for Spring Break. We took Hwy. 65 south, which cuts through the flat lands of the Arkansas Delta. One of the small towns along the road is Gould, in Lincoln County. I made a quick stop there to get a few pictures of an old store, which has been abandoned now for many years.

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The faded sign on the building says this was once the "Gould Auto Parts" store. By summer, this building will be totally covered in vines.

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Tuesday, March 12, 2024

Return Of The King

Way back in the olden days when I was just a wee young lad in college, I took a few pictures of an old abandoned store near Clarksville. Fast forward to present times, and I was surprised to see a few pictures of that same old building posted on Flickr. After two decades, the old store was still standing!

I was in Clarksville last weekend to pick up the pictures that had been on display at the University art gallery. So after loading up the car, I headed out to find the old store again.

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It still seemed to be in decent shape, except for a few holes in the roof. In fact, it didn't seem like much had changed in the last 20 years or so.

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I tried to do some research on the building but had no luck. When was it built? Who was F.F. King? How long has it been abandoned? But alas, I had no luck.

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Before I headed home, I made one last stop at this old home near Clarksville (which looks abandoned, but I couldn't tell for sure?). The splash of color from the daffodils and other flowers in front of the old house was a nice little addition to the scene.

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Thursday, March 7, 2024

Downtown

I wanted to try out a new telephoto lens, so I headed to downtown Little Rock to try to find something interesting to point it at and take a few pictures. It was at night after the kids were in bed, so it probably wasn't the most ideal conditions for testing out equipment. But I went by the State Capitol, and got a picture zoomed in from a hill behind the complex.

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 I drove around downtown a bit, and eventually ended up at a parking deck by the River Market. This is the zoomed in view of some cars driving down River Market Avenue.

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Wednesday, February 28, 2024

Ozarks

The art gallery at the University of the Ozarks was kind enough to host my photography show on the Arkansas Delta, and even had a little reception last weekend. So Caroline and I headed over to Clarksville for the reception, and for a trip down memory lane.

I'm a graduate of the U of O, having attended college there way back in the olden days (I had a scary realization that I probably graduated the same year that some of the current students there were born). The college has a long history. It was established in 1834, and is the oldest college in Arkansas. It was also the first college in the state to admit women (in 1875), and was the first predominately-white college in Arkansas to integrate (in 1957). And some very notable people have graduated from there, like me (I feel like I can make that joke since I'm still paying back my student loans!). But it's a small school, and it often gets unfairly confused with the very conservative College of the Ozarks in Missouri.

After the reception was over, we walked by the old Munger Chapel. The chapel was built in 1933, with some of the labor coming from students as a sort of work-study job. Which sounds a lot more difficult than the work-study job I had when I was there.

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