Fern Falls

I had the day off for President's Day, which was great timing because the waterfalls in the Ozarks were roaring after some heavy rains. Luckily my good friend and hiking buddy Zack Andrews had the day off as well, so we decided to meet up and try to hit a waterfall or two. We first decided to visit Fern Falls, which is a scenic waterfall that is reached by a fairly easy hike in the Ozark National Forest.

The weather was forecast to be cloudy all day, but I was annoyed to see huge breaks in the clouds as I drove up Hwy. 7. We started the hike with the hope that some clouds would end up blocking the sun (which would make waterfall photography easier). But alas, that never happened. Luckily the waterfall was still mostly in shade so we were able to get a few pictures. Here's the view of the 42-foot Fern Falls, taken from under the bluff line.



I guess we will have to return in the spring to see all the ferns?



And one last shot, taken while standing in the mud behind the falls:

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.

It Was A Dark And Stormy Night

Some stormy weather was moving across the state, which meant it might be a good time to get the camera out for a few pictures. So after getting the kids to bed, I hurried downtown in the hopes that I might get some interesting pictures of lightning. So naturally, the storms never produced any good lightning over downtown Little Rock. They did succeed in making lots of rain, which managed to soak my camera.

My first stop was at this parking deck downtown. I've been going here for awhile, trying to get a good shot of lightning over the view of the Little Rock skyline. And once again, I had no luck with the lightning. So I settled for this shot instead....



On the other side of the parking deck is this view of the old Albert Pike Hotel. The hotel was built in 1929, and has been converted into apartments.



I got back in the car and drove around downtown. I really wished I had an umbrella with me when I ran out in the pouring rain to get this shot of the Old State House.



From there I drove around a bit more, and made a few more stops. I was trying to get some artsy-fartsy pictures of reflections in the rain puddles. But I didn't really manage to get any good pictures. What I did manage was to get my poor camera soaked, which caused it to start acting a little funky. The rain started to let off by the time I made it to the Junction Bridge.



I headed over to the state capitol, and tried for a few pictures there. It wasn't raining, but the low storm clouds managed to capture the shadow of the capitol dome lights.



I made one last stop at the historic Little Rock Central High School before heading home and putting the camera in a bag of rice. The school and the grounds look great, it's crazy to think that the school is now almost a hundred years old.

Back To The Delta

I had to run an errand in Stuttgart, so I grabbed the camera and headed out with Elliott (my two-year old) for a little drive out to the Delta. Luckily Elliott loves sitting in his car seat (as long as he has a cup, snacks and a bunch of toy cars with him - which he calls his "beep beeps"). So we made sure we had all of his accoutrements and were on our way.

As I headed east, I made a quick stop by this old abandoned building near Scott. Many thanks to the great photographer Laurie Skillern on Instagram who shared some background info about this old place. This was probably once the company store for the Jones Colony, which was an agricultural resettlement area. There used to be a sign here that once read "Hamiter-Little Estate 1879," but the sign was probably knocked down when the front overhang collapsed.



A few years back this old building was surrounded by old junk cars. There used to be a mobile home behind the old store, but it caught fire and burned down. The flames spread to the old store, leaving it partially burned.



I pulled over down the road and got a quick shot of another old abandoned store, this one well hidden behind overgrown vegetation.



And nearby was this old home, which had a recent roof collapse.



After finishing up in Stuttgart, we got lunch and then headed towards home. I did a small detour to look for some interesting old buildings, and managed to find this old shack sitting back in a field, surrounded by cows.



Elliott fell asleep as we continued north, and I made a quick stop at the old Idlewild school. This one-room school was built in 1921.



The school closed in 1949 when it was consolidated into the DeVall's Bluff school system.





As Elliott snored in the backseat, I drove over to DeVall's Bluff. Which is a small town (population around 600), but one with a deep history. The town was founded along a bluff on the White River in the 1850s. At the start of the Civil War, DeVall's Bluff was just a boat landing, a store and a home. But during the war this was an important and well-fortified spot. When the Arkansas River was low, many boats couldn't travel upriver to Little Rock. But they could go up the White River to DeVall's Bluff, where shipments could then be put on the rail line that connected to the capitol city. Union troops liberated DeVall's Bluff in 1863 and the town's population grew with both soldiers and refugees.

There are many old and historic buildings in DeVall's Bluff, but some are not in the best shape. I parked the car and took a peek through the door of this abandoned building, which had a collapsed roof.



The front doors and windows of the building had been boarded up, probably for years. Wonder what this store sold back when it was open?



Next door is the old Robinson Building, which was built in 1913. The building was deteriorating and in need of serious repair, but it was recently purchased by a group called DRIFT (Developing Rural Infrastructure for Tomorrow). They removed the roof and stabilized the structure, and are looking for plans to rebuild the interior and roof and convert the building into a multipurpose space.







The Robinson Building was named as one of Preserve Arkansas' Most Endangered Spaces in 2022. But it is nice to see that there is hope for this space, when so many other buildings in the Delta have been lost.

Lee Theater

The Lee Theater in central Little Rock is an old abandoned movie theater that reflects accurately the time period in which it was built. The theater was built in 1940 in the Art Moderne style, which grew from the Art Deco style of the 1920s. But its construction also showcases another aspect of life in the South - segregation.



The theater was designed by Jack Corgan, who worked out of an architectural firm based in Dallas. The firm designed over 400 movie and drive-in theaters across several states. Corgan would also help design a terminal for Chicago's Love Field (which included the first ever moving walkway in an airport), and also the JFK Memorial in Dallas. The Art Moderne style became popular during the Great Depression, and it can be found in the Lee Theater's facade. The front of the building has a "large expanse of decorative tile and stucco on the front façade, patterned tile bands, streamlined awnings, neon lighting, round windows."

But the interior was designed for segregation. The Lee Theater had a seating capacity for 950 people on two floors, however the balcony was reserved for "Negro" use only. Besides the balcony, the theater also had a separate entrance and bathrooms. The goal of the separation was so that Black people "[would] not come in contact with white patrons in any way nor at any time,” which according to a news article from the time was a "wise precaution in the South." But theater balconies were not an ideal place to watch a movie, with it being farthest away from the screen and at an elevated angle that was not calibrated for the projector. The segregated balconies would become known derisively as the "peanut gallery," the "buzzard's roost" or the "crow's nest."

The Lee Theater showed movies until 1957, when it closed and the building was used by an electrical supply company. When that company relocated to a different building, the Lee Theater was left empty and vacant. It was about this time that segregation would officially end in Little Rock, thanks to a judge's order in 1963 that opened the city's movie theaters and Robinson Center to Black people on an equal basis with white people.

The Lee Theater never re-opened, and it sat empty for decades. A few years ago, part of the roof collapsed and also brought down the old balcony. It now sits in a tall pile of rubble in what would have been the lobby of the old theater. When I visited last week, the only one going through the narrow gap in the boarded-up door inside was this stray cat, who seemed to be living inside. 

On the side of the theater, trees and vines have grown up alongside the old building.





The Lee Theater was named one of the state's most endangered historic places in 2015 by Preserve Arkansas. Despite its condition, the Lee Theater stands as the only stand-alone movie theater built before World War II that is still standing in Little Rock. Although it is not sure how much longer the brick and stucco walls of this old place will withstand the forces of weather, gravity or the bulldozer.