Tag: School

School had been out for just a few months when this photograph was taken of the former Fairmont School in Cincinnati, Ohio.

When I attended the University of Kentucky, I traveled the back roads of my state – a lot. On one of my excursions, I came across the abandoned Buckeye School. Back then, its lot was filled with relics of the past, namely automobiles. Jaguar, Jeep, Land Rover and Volkswagen carcasses lay scattered around the several acre lot. But I never went inside the actual school, and despite my vows to find the owner of the property – I graduated from school and moved away.

The Frenchburg Presbyterian College in Frenchburg, Kentucky was the first high school in Menifee County and offered a broad education for 50 years. The facility closed in May 1957 after serving 500 students and 30 staff. After closure, the buildings became home to a nursing home and retirement facility that operated for a few years, and later, a Boy’s Rehabilitation Center by the Commonwealth’s Child Welfare Agency. Most of the buildings are used as residences or as offices.

Driving down Gratiot Avenue in Detroit, Michigan late night in the summer of 2011, I came across the former Eastern Catholic High School. The obviousness of its abandonment, with its blown out windows and the hulking structure contrasting to the vast, empty lots surrounding it, made the four-level school all the more interesting to enter and photograph.

In the aftermath of my photographic expedition at the Milton-Madison Bridge, as I traversed the winding roads of Trimble County, Kentucky, an unexpected discovery awaited me. Upon turning onto a side road, I serendipitously happened upon an antiquated schoolhouse, a vestige of a bygone era.

Caesar Creek School, located in Caesar Creek Township in rural Greene County, Ohio, was constructed as a high school in 1908. It began serving elementary students in 1927, and a small addition was constructed in 1957 that included two classrooms, two indoor restrooms and a gymnasium. Caesar Creek closed in 1967.

The coalfields of southern West Virginia, once teeming with life and industry, now stand as somber reminders of a bygone era. My recent journey through McDowell County, deep within the heart of the state’s coal country, unveiled a landscape etched with the remnants of a once-thriving mining empire, now grappling with the harsh realities of economic decline and depopulation.

Wheeling, once a prominent city in Virginia and later West Virginia, now faces enduring challenges. Despite landmarks like Centre Market, West Virginia Independence Hall, and the Wheeling Suspension Bridge, there’s a sense of something missing.

Beautiful, warm weather, coupled with explorations of various historical and abandoned structures, always beats off the winter blues.