East Liverpool, Ohio, once lovingly referred to as the “Crockery City” and the “Pottery Capital of the World,” is the classic definition of the Rust Belt. Much like Pittsburgh’s reliance on steel mills and Cleveland’s manufacturing plants, East Liverpool depended on the pottery industry because of ample natural resources, access to newly laid railroads, the Ohio River, and an untapped market.
Abandoned Posts
The factory that produced the first welded steel pipe is partially abandoned. Wheeling Steel’s Benwood Works dates to 1884 when Riverside Iron Works, its earliest predecessor, became the second mill in the area to produce steel.
Once a bustling healthcare facility, the St. Joseph Riverside Hospital in Warren, Ohio, has been reduced to a desolate shell, ravaged by scrap metal scavengers, water damage, and fire.
Coming fresh from a visit to Vermont, I ventured on the back roads around upstate New York. The country was far too beautiful to pass up with rolling, overcast skies for as far as the eye can see. Autumn colors were plentiful. Rounding the corner, I look over and out of the corner of my eye, I sighted derelict locomotives. I did a quick turnabout in the car and hurried back. This was too photogenic to pass up.
Sometimes, I revisit an old friend and discover something new, such as the long-abandoned Jefferson School in Wheeling, West Virginia. I had not discovered much about the historic structure other than its demolition in 2013.
The historic community of Sang Run is located along the Youghiogheny River in the mountains of western Maryland. The drive to this remote pocket of the state is not the easiest, with twisty blacktop roads alternating between forested hillsides and open valleys.
When the Dennison Hotel on Main Street in downtown Cincinnati, Ohio closed in 2011, it marked the end of a hoteling era. The single room occupancy extended stay facility once competed with the Browne Hotel, Fort Washington Hotel, Fountain Square Hotel, and others — all of which are long closed and demolished.
America is not unique in having desolate shopping malls, but the sheer number of underperforming, closed, and abandoned malls—including the mammoth Century III Mall near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania—should give cause for alarm.
Several years ago, I was able to visit the former printing operation for the Crowell-Collier Publishing Company, once the world’s largest magazine publishing house, in Springfield, Ohio.
Before the completion of the Detroit Harbor Terminals complex along the Detroit River in Detroit, Michigan, most of the commodities and raw materials used in Detroit were shipped first by water to Cleveland, Chicago, or Toledo and sent to Detroit via the railroad.
The Fisher Body Company Plant No. 21, located in Detroit, Michigan, produced automobile bodies for General Motors (GM). The Albert Kahn-designed facility was constructed in 1919 to provide wooden automobile bodies for a variety of companies, later manufacturing exclusively for GM. As early as 1930, GM downgraded the status of Fisher Body’s Plant 21 as being inefficient. GM began moving body manufacturing from Plant 21 to other, more efficient locations. However, the limousine body assembly was moved to Plant 21 from GM’s Fleetwood plant in 1955 because its output was only about 1,000 cars annually. On November 29, 1982, GM…
The Detroit House of Correction, also known as DeHoCo, is a former prison complex near Detroit, Michigan.
An outstanding residence in the center of Coudersport, Pennsylvania, Old Hickory, has been abandoned for nearly 30 years.
Growing up in Raceland, Kentucky, I knew some of the significance behind the town’s name. It was named for the “Million Dollar Oval,” a horse racing track.
The Abandoned segment that was featured on KET’s Kentucky Life in 2015 has been nominated for an Emmy.
Before diversifying into wholesale leather production in New Albany, Indiana, the Moser Leather Company primarily manufactured high-quality leather for harnesses and collar manufacturers.
Once a strategically important city at the juncture of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers, Cairo, Illinois, is in terminal decline after decades of racial turbulence.
The series of buildings at the corner of East 9th and Monmouth streets in Newport, Kentucky, is fascinating, and after years of neglect, is being renovated.
National Acme, located in Cleveland, Ohio, was one of the largest manufacturers of machine tools in the United States. It began as the merger of two notable machine tool manufacturers, the Cleveland Twist Drill Company and the National Acme Company.