Derelict buildings form one of the outstanding features of the American South. They pay silent recognition to the region's transition from an agrarian landscape into a place not quite farm country, but just owned by enough stingy owners to make it restricted to most people.
They form a substantial part of my regional imagination, so I have photographed them.
My grandfather grew up on a farm about twenty miles away from this derelict building, and he explained its history to me during a fishing trip.
The place used to hold the area's general store. The owner was pretty well-established in the area, and he had two beautiful daughters. My grandfather would walk from his family's farm to buy light supplies.
During the 1960's, a pair of young black men inflamed by Malcolm X (so the story goes) broke into the store while the owner was closing it for the evening. They beat him severely, doused the insides with kerosene, and burned him alive within his own shop.
Migrant Yankees who have moved to South Carolina to work at Savannah River Site drive past this derelict at sixty miles per hour twice every day. I'm glad that my Grandpa Dick explained the history to me. Something of this area's identity that's been disjointed by progress and industrial renovation now lives a little less weakly.
It's good to belong to a place well enough that its stories somehow illuminate your own life's meaning, no matter how disconnected those stories seem from your practical life.
From an Angle.
Looking Through the Front and Back.
Interior.
Old Iron Security Bars, Wrapped in Kudzu
A Ceiling of Icy Limbs.
And a White Ceiling of Sky.
On top, you can see the charred remains of the ceiling's mortar.
Just below that, you can see a tree limb that has busted through the bricks with time.
Through the Bars of a Vanished Window.
I don't know the history of this house very well. It seems to have been reverted into a clumsy junk pile.
It is located in Johnston, SC.
The same derelict at a different angle.
Note: All photographs displayed on this web page are copyrighted to James Clinton Howell. They may not be used for personal or professional purposes without the express consent of their owner.
Web design for Adilegian copyrighted 2006 James Clinton Howell.
