Photographs of Flyover America
- Thread starter JWBrahman
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Very interesting, but sad. Same pictures all over America. Thanks for sharing. Just saw an old house up the road from where I grew up being torn down this morning. Lots of good memories there. My great grandmother lived next door. I heard many stories about the family that lived there. One of the ladies used to take my sister and me to Bible School at her church. We always went to our own at the Baptist, but the sweet Methodist ladies made sure that we got to theirs,too. Good good memories of days gone by.
Williamsv I remember dropping off steers at Labatut's when Jimmy Carter was elected. Labatut was so happy he gave a big discount and we were there pretty quick.
The businesses in these photos used.to employ a majority of the African Americans in town. When those jobs disappeared it really hurt everybody, not just black folks.
The businesses in these photos used.to employ a majority of the African Americans in town. When those jobs disappeared it really hurt everybody, not just black folks.
I remember quite well the cotton gin and the wagons of cotton being unloaded especially on Saturdays. The building is still there. When I ride down town,store after store closed and boarded up. Business used to be thriving in these old stores. The school is closed now. Looks just like it did when I started first grade and taught twenty-five years there. The sewing factory closed , the mill that employed so many gone for a long time. Can still hear the whistle at 12 noon and again in the afternoon at quitting time. Things are quite different here today.
When you mentioned Jimmy Carter, I could not help but remember my dad who was an engineer on the railroad telling about Jimmy Carter coming out and getting on the engine with him one day when he was going through Plains. This was when he was running for governor.
Many years when I taught social studies I would ask the students to interview a senior citizen or grandparent and let them tell how things were in town when they were growing up. Always very interesting.
It is sad to see these changes. I see myself much older than I want to believe. In the last few months seems like I want to go back in my mind to these days and years gone by. Do not know if that is good or bad. Too much has changed in America and I am sorry to say not for the best in most cases.
When you mentioned Jimmy Carter, I could not help but remember my dad who was an engineer on the railroad telling about Jimmy Carter coming out and getting on the engine with him one day when he was going through Plains. This was when he was running for governor.
Many years when I taught social studies I would ask the students to interview a senior citizen or grandparent and let them tell how things were in town when they were growing up. Always very interesting.
It is sad to see these changes. I see myself much older than I want to believe. In the last few months seems like I want to go back in my mind to these days and years gone by. Do not know if that is good or bad. Too much has changed in America and I am sorry to say not for the best in most cases.
I just remembèred the old stockyard in Milan, GA where my dad bought his first cattle. He got the owner to pick him out some good ones. We rode over on Saturday afternoon to see them before they were delivered the next week. That old building is still standing I believe. That was in 1960 when we bought those cows. Sale over there has been closed a long time now.
JMJ Farms
Well-known member
Williamsv":1oi2dai1 said:
Yes mam. The building is still standing and looks to be usable still. It's been closed a long time as you mentioned. Don't remember the original owner. John Walker, who owns the stockyard in Hawkinsville, used to run the pig sale in Milan in that same building. I don't remember farther back than the 80s, except what I've been told, but it seems to me when our county consolidated the schools in 1990 and shortly thereafter the hog business went belly up, that all the small towns and rural areas pretty much dried up. Those two things really hurt our area bad and it never has fully recovered and IMO it won't.
Edited to add: beautiful pics JW. I love those old buildings.
kenny thomas
Well-known member
I am going to be a dummy and ask what the first building was. I have seen them but not here and never knew.
kenny thomas
Well-known member
We once had 5 tobacco warehouses in this county alone. All have been gone for years. Most of them bought out by a company from somewhere else and they all mysteriously burned when the market for tobacco went bad.
Ky hills
Well-known member
kenny thomas":bl4ywyt1 said:
We used to have two that I knew of here in this county, the buildings are being used for other things now. Used to be a lot of tobacco warehouses around the area, now not sure where or even if you could sell any on an open market. Been probably close to 20 years, since we raised any on this farm.
kenny thomas
Well-known member
No open markets any more. You contract with a company before its ever planted. You are at their mercy.
kenny thomas":29lex7uv said:
KT, that used to be a cotton mill. It was not that long ago when we were a self sufficient nation that exported everything to the rest of the world instead of relying on the crap train from the third world.
NECowboy
Well-known member
A lot of towns across the country like that seem to be hurting particularly if only game in town is manufacturing. We have too many people in this country and probably world for available jobs. What helps us in rural ne is strong ag sector though that is hurting with prices but we manufacture stuff for ag industry here. Textile mills, electronics, they all ditched the rural south, northeast, post nafta and the level of population is just too high for available jobs. Even as close as Illinois you notice it too many people for jobs (small towns a lot bigger), same amount and size of farms, plants gone overseas, big families at one point that provided workers not the same need for all those workers anymore.
So in rural you either have bunch of people on welfare, people scraping by on low wage service jobs (due to oversupply of workers), and then a smaller number of people who do decent at higher end. We have jobs here in rural Nebraska that let you live a middle class life and raise a family modestly (rare in a lot of this country), they are usually ag related and not sexy but this is not the solution for the national economy nor for thousands to uproot from their home states and family.
We have some smaller towns (100 to 200) that are really dying bad and with a lot of abandoned houses. Even in main downtown (county seat) lot of empty storefronts but it's been that way a long time and for the most part it's pretty stable.
So in rural you either have bunch of people on welfare, people scraping by on low wage service jobs (due to oversupply of workers), and then a smaller number of people who do decent at higher end. We have jobs here in rural Nebraska that let you live a middle class life and raise a family modestly (rare in a lot of this country), they are usually ag related and not sexy but this is not the solution for the national economy nor for thousands to uproot from their home states and family.
We have some smaller towns (100 to 200) that are really dying bad and with a lot of abandoned houses. Even in main downtown (county seat) lot of empty storefronts but it's been that way a long time and for the most part it's pretty stable.
creekdrive
Well-known member
Great pictures. I really enjoyed them.
SJB
Well-known member
Great thread.
