The Old House In Pine Bluff

Whenever I'm in Pine Bluff, I try to make a stop at the old R.M. Knox house. It's one of the most beautiful old homes in Arkansas. But sadly, it has been left to rot and crumble and it probably won't be around for much longer.



In the last few months, part of the roof over the decorative two-story porch has collapsed. There's no telling how much longer the rest of the house will be able to continue its lonely struggle against weather and gravity.



The house was built in 1885, and has been called one of the state's most elaborate examples of the Eastlake style. The house was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1975, but was also listed in 2011 as one of the most endangered historic properties in the state by Preserve Arkansas.



It is frustrating, because the state of Arkansas pretends to care about historic preservation when it comes to taking down statues of confederate soldiers or taking down a confederate flag. But we have lost, or are on the verge of losing, so many great historic properties. And when this house is gone, which is the path it seems to inevitably be on, what will replace it? A parking lot?





But it is a reminder of why we need to photograph and document these places. There's no telling how much longer it will be with us. And when it's gone, that bit of shared history will be gone forever.

This Old House

An old abandoned house sits back off the road, silently watching the traffic pass it by along Hwy 7.



I wish there was some info out on this place. When was it built, and who lived here? How long has it been abandoned? What is clear that it doesn't have much time left. It seems as if it might just take a strong wind to finally bring the place down.





Daffodils were blooming in front of the house. The person who planted those flowers is long gone. And soon the house will soon be gone, as well. But those flowers will remain.

Fall In The Delta - Part 2

When I left Stuttgart I took the scenic way back, which took me through the small town of Humnoke. Along the edge of town is a lake, which is filled with cypress and tupelo trees (and mosquitoes, presumably). I pulled over and literally got this picture while looking through the window of the car.



I headed west but made another stop near the small town of Coy. There was a small collection of silos, surrounded by grass that had turned a deep shade of orange.













Just down the road sat this shell of an abandoned building. Wonder what this used to be?







I made another quick stop down the road in the small town of England, which has this neat old abandoned house. It looks like vines of poison ivy are climbing up the sides of the house, its leaves turning orange for autumn.



I headed towards Keo, and then went to another small lake that is filled with cypress and tupelo trees.









And then I had just enough time to make one last stop before I needed to be back home. So I decided to hurry over to Scott to try to get a few pictures of Pecan Alley, a road that runs through some old and massive pecan trees. The trees were once part of a large plantation and are over 100 years old.

The Old Sheridan Barn

A really good photographer that I follow on Instagram recently posted a picture of a grand old barn near Sheridan, which was sadly starting to fall apart. I reached out and she was kind enough to point me in its direction. So one Sunday afternoon I hurried over to get a few pictures before more of it collapses. But along the way I stopped by an old church near Alexander, which has also been left alone and abandoned.





I drove south and eventually reached the old barn. It sits right outside of Sheridan, which has a population of about 5,000 and is the county seat of Grant County. It looks like the loft inside the barn has collapsed, along with some of the interior walls. The shell of the exterior is still holding up, but who knows for how much longer.





It is a very photogenic old barn. I wish I had the opportunity to get pictures of it earlier.







My apologies for posting so many pictures of just one barn, but it was such an interesting old place that I couldn't help but take a ton of pictures...



Advertisements used to hang on both side of the old barn. The ads on one side were completely faded and gone. But on the other side there remained the remnants of few previous signs (one for a bank and the other for real estate, maybe?).





Scattered around the barn were pieces of the metal roof, which had curled and twisted off from the barn like they were peeled off with an old-timey can-opener.





I headed back to the car and the welcome embrace of air-conditioning, and started to drive back home. But along the way I made a quick stop along this road that seemed to go through a tunnel of overhanging trees.



And then I quickly pulled over to get a picture of this abandoned building, which may have once been a market (according to a sign that was almost completely covered by vegetation).







And one last shot, before heading back to Little Rock:

A Drive In The Delta

I had the day off from work, so I took advantage and made one more drive into the Delta of eastern Arkansas. The main purpose of the trip was to visit the old Bacon Hotel (the subject of the previous post here), but I hoped to squeeze in a few other neat places. It was a typical summer day in Arkansas - hot and humid and usually fairly miserable when you weren't sitting in air conditioning. So luckily the car AC was working well as I drove along. The first stop was the small town of Olyphant, which still has this old cotton gin. The gin sits near the site of the last train robbery in Arkansas, back in 1893.



On November 3, 1893, a 7-car train from the St. Louis, Iron Mountain and Southern Railway pulled over on a sidetrack to allow another train to pass around 10 PM. The train was running from Poplar Bluff to Little Rock, and was mostly filled with wealthy tourists who had just attended the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago. Three men boarded the train and robbed the passengers of about $6,000, and then shot and killed the conductor. The search for the robbers was widely covered at the time, and they were captured a few months later and sentenced to death for the crime. The train tracks still run through Olyphant.



I went back to the car and headed east. I stopped by the old Weldon Cotton Gin, which was built in 1939 but ceased operations in the 1980s. It still sits, rusting away but still in fairly good shape.







The inside of the gin still had all the old machinery, which looked massive and took up most of the interior. I pointed the camera through the windows and tried to get a few shots.





I was startled when the current resident of the gin (I think it was an owl) got annoyed at my taking pictures and flew off with a loud crash of wings.



Parked nearby was this old GMC truck, left to rust away under the shade of a tree.



I hurried back to the car and the AC, but made another stop at an old abandoned church. I've gotten a few shots here over the years, and was sad to see that it is looked pretty rough now. The doors have been boarded up (presumably for safety reasons), and it looks like the building may collapse at any moment. It's sad to see a great structure like this being so close to being lost.



I headed on, making another quick stop at these small silos along the side of the road.



From there I reached Whitehall and stopped at the old Bacon Hotel. After wading through tick-filled grass, I headed back to the car and headed south towards the freeway. Along the way I stopped again at this old business, which looked to have been closed for awhile.



I next headed through the small town of Cotton Plant, which used to have some great old historic buildings in it. But unfortunately, the town has recently been the victim of an arsonist who has burned down several old and abandoned properties. It is a shame, and a depressing reminder of how fragile some of these old structures are and how quickly they can be destroyed and lost.



Before getting back onto the freeway, I stopped by one last old building. This old home, which may have been a sharecropper cabin at one point, was sitting along a dusty dirt road.