The Lonaconing, Maryland silk mill, last operated by General Textile Mills, is one of my favorite buildings to photograph. From its early 20th century machinery to its dated calendars and papers, it is remarkable that this testament to industrial heritage remains standing well over 50 years past its closure.
I visited the long-abandoned Van Nattas Pumping Station in Ithaca, New York while on a life-changing several-week-long road trip to the Finger Lakes in 2016.
Many years ago, I night hiked into the Indiana Army Ammunition Plant (IAAP) in southern Indiana—the most substantial industrial abandonment in the United States. Sprawling over 19,000 acres, IAAP was overwhelming.
I recently I visited the abandoned Genesee Power Station in the Southern Tier of New York on two separate occasions, and from my first visit early in 2017, not much has thankfully changed. Absent a camper’s fire in the turbine hall, nothing has been scrapped, nothing has been graffitied, nothing has been vandalized.
I piloted a drone over the abandoned Genesee Power Station in the Southern Tier of New York on a recent evening.
Along the southern harbors of Buffalo, New York are the ruins of several elevators. Some of those giants, such as the former Cargill Superior, and Canadian Pool, have been derelict for decades, but they can all point their decline to the development of the St. Lawrence Seaway and the unpreparedness of Buffalo’s industrial leaders as the reason for their closure.
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 with its reliance on steel mills and Cleveland with its manufacturing plants, East Liverpool was dependent around the pottery industry because of ample natural resources, access to newly laid railroads, the Ohio River, and an untapped market.
I recently ventured to the remains of Universal Atlas Cement in Penn Hills, Pennsylvania. The cement factory opened in 1906.
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.
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, formerly produced automobile bodies for General Motors.
The Moser Leather Company manufactured high-grade leather for harnesses and collar manufacturers before expanding into wholesale leather in New Albany, Indiana.
National Acme, located in Cleveland, Ohio, was one of the largest manufacturers of machine tools in the United States. National Acme began as the merger of two notable machine tool manufacturers, the Cleveland Twist Drill Company, and the National Acme Company. National Acme’s (later Acme-Cleveland Corporation) home base was the manufacture of machine tools, but those operations soon became a…
The Van Nattas Pumping Station, located in Ithaca, New York, was constructed by the Ithaca Light & Water Company in 1893. It was built on the site of the Van Natta & Jones Mill.
Several weeks ago, I revisited the Indiana Army Ammunition Plant. IAAP, which manufactured smokeless gunpowder and other ordinances, was the largest of its type in the world at the time of its completion.
Exploring a temple, observatory, and factory on the road towards Cleveland, Ohio was a good way to cap off a trip to the Rust Belt.
The last remnant of the historic Stearns & Foster Company in Lockland, Ohio tumbles down today. Interstate 75 in Lockland, Ohio will be closed around noon for about 30 minutes while the smokestack is demolished.
Demolished in 2011 and 2012, the Power Plant 401-1 and 401-2 was constructed for the Indiana Ammunitions Depot in southern Indiana.
Kentucky’s oldest iron furnace helped win the War of 1812 down in New Orleans.