Forest Fair Mall/Cincinnati Mills/Cincinnati Mall’s days are numbered under a new plan to tear down the mall for redevelopment.
Category: Explorations
An abandoned railroad bridge over the Levisa Fork in Pike County, Kentucky seemed a little out of place.
Red Ash, established in 1891 by the Red Ash Coal & Coke Company, was a significant coal camp located along the New River in West Virginia.
Snaking through the southern reaches of Floyd County, Kentucky is the remains of the Chesapeake & Ohio Railway Long Fork Subdivision that connected to some of the most prosperous coal mines in the state.
In my travels through West Virginia, I frequently encounter abandoned roadside churches, relics of a bygone era.
Nestled along a quiet side road in the heart of Appalachia, there lies a relic of times long past, a two-story house that whispers stories of the bygone era.
This guide explains how nitrocellulose (smokeless powder) and black powder was produced at Indiana Army Ammunition Plant in Charlestown, Indiana.
My friend Ben and I were excited to explore West Virginia, aiming to visit locations featured in the Fallout 76 video game. Despite Ben’s tight schedule, we hoped to see key sites like the New River Gorge, Seneca Rocks, Mollohan Mill, and Dolly Sods. However, the extensive driving distances and winding mountain roads required us to condense our plans.
The mountains and hollers of West Virginia are dotted with the remnants of communities past, reminders of earlier times when gossip was exchanged at post offices, when general stores were locally owned, when education was tailored, and when neighbors knew their neighbors. Braxton County is no exception, with the region’s heyday coming in the early parts of the 20th century when employment was mostly centered around extractive industries: coal mining, timbering, and natural gas production. Its population peaked decades ago with nearly 24,000 residents. Today, just a few small cities call this mostly rural county over 12,000 home: Sutton, Gassaway, Burnsville, and Flatwoods, primarily nestled along the Elk River and Interstate 79. With 516 square miles to explore, you don’t have to travel far to get away from the hubbub of activity, and that’s where you encounter Wilsie. Located at the juncture of two branches of Dry Fork, not much remains other than an old general store and an old post office that closed in mid-2005, surrounded by the remnants of an old school and several shuttered houses. Interestingly, the false front of the general store was cut off and tagged with the name of the store and a reminder that it was “closed for remodeling.” It doesn’t appear that any work has been completed on the buildings which are in a state of severe disrepair. In the vicinity of Wilsie is a long-abandoned two classroom school, one of hundreds that dotted the hollers and hilltops of the state. Simple…
Located in rural Monroe County, West Virginia is Sinks Grove, named for the many sinkholes throughout the area. It could be mistaken for just another rural community that is slowly disappearing into the landscape, but I found it fascinating for the variety of abandoned and historic buildings that still existed. The most visually interesting out of all of them is the shuttered Bob & Bob Speleo General Store with its handpainted sign that is adorned with the faded motto “Cavers Serving Cavers.” Constructed circa 1910, it was operated as a general store and gasoline station by numerous proprietors including Roy and Edna Burwelll between 1959/60 and 1974. The building was then purchased by Bob Liebman who operated “Bob & Bob,” a spelunking supply business. Liebman was born in 1942 in Los Angeles, California, growing up with an interest in trains, bowling, caves, and caving. 1 In 1968, while attending San Jose State College, he went on his first caving trip to Soldiers Cave with a club named the “Alpiners.” The club provided helmets and carbide lamps. Hooked on underground exploration, Liebman joined the Southern California Grotto and then the National Speleological Society in 1969. In 1970, Liebman met Bob Addis at the So Cal Grotto. While traveling down the coast of Oregon after attending a caving convention in White Salmon, Washington, the pair stopped at a hardware store looking for carbide lamps which were becoming scarce. 1 Borrowing money from Addis, Liebman purchased all of the lamps and the pair…
Over the last weekend, I visited the historic but closed Columbia Theatre in Paducah, Kentucky, with a small group of local historians and talented photographers. Developed by Leo F. Keiler, the 2,000-seat Columbia Theatre opened on April 18, 1927. The elaborately designed facility featured Palladian, Moorish, and Greek architecture with a facade of blue and white terra cotta tiles that included spiraled Byzantine-style columns, classical urns, busts of Greek goddesses, a name sign illuminated with 5,000 lights, and a marquee lit with 2,000 varicolored globes. Inside, the theater was furnished in fashionable shades of green, pink, tan, and blue, the woodwork finished in an antique grey, and the columns and ornaments outlined in gold leaf. The walls were adorned with Kentucky nature scenes, while the ceiling contained an art glass installation. Four thousand patrons attended two evening performances that were capped with Elinor Glyn’s feature motion picture “It,” which starred Clara Bow and Antonio Moreno. The Columbia was extensively remodeled with steel and bronze decorative sconces and framing and reopened to crowds on August 14, 1952. A second screen was created by enclosing the balcony, which opened on January 29, 1976. In 1982, the Kentucky Oaks Mall opened on the outskirts of Paducah, which included the construction of a ten-screen multiplex theater. Facing a projected $50,000 loss, owner Jack Keiler closed the Columbia Theatre in 1987. The first step towards the restoration of the theater came in 2004 when the facility was donated to the city by the Keller family, which…
Tucked away under the dense canopy of McDowell County, West Virginia, lies the forgotten Prunty Trade School.
Charcoal timber, iron ore, and limestone supplied material for numerous furnaces that produced pig iron, munitions, and tools in Kentucky, Ohio, and West Virginia. One of the most preserved is the Buckeye Furnace near Wellston, Ohio. The Buckeye Furnace was financed by the Newkirk, Daniels & Company and constructed by Thomas Price in 1851. It initially produced 7½ tons of iron per day, operating 42 weeks out of the year. Output was later increased to 12 tons of iron per day. The furnace was sold to H.S. Bundy in 1862, the Perry Austin & Company in 1864, and the Buckeye Furnace Company in 1867 and was operated until 1894.
Between 1922 and 1923, the Virginian Railway laid down what would become the Glen Rogers Branch, a 15-mile track carved into the rugged landscapes of West Virginia.
often passed by an abandoned roadside curiosity in southern West Virginia for years. During a Sunday drive through the countryside with my girlfriend, I decided to pull off the road and check out a rambling collection of five buildings.
Imagine standing in the heart of the Pocahontas Coalfield region of southwest West Virginia, surrounded by the rugged topography of the mountains. Amidst this landscape lies the abandoned Algoma Company Store and Offices.
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, West Virginia had thousands of schools that were gradually closed through consolidations. The isolated Prosperity School atop Great Flat Top Mountain remained open far longer than others.
Years ago, when I first started to explore the coalfields of Appalachia, I would venture down the Tolsia and King Coal highways toward Williamson, West Virginia. Atop College Hill was the old Williamson Memorial Hospital, a place that I had long wanted to venture inside of. On April 11, 2021, I finally had my chance.