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 industrial heart of the Rust Belt is western Pennsylvania as once-mighty steel mills, coke plans, and machine shops, scattered alongside railroads, rivers, and highways, have downsized and closed. A globalized economy and increased automation led many jobs overseas; what remained was a shell, unable to be self-sustaining without government intervention.
A hiker at Great Smoky Mountains National Park “discovered” a ghost town? Elkmont? It was long discovered by locals and outsiders alike for decades.
Several years ago, I made my way into the heart of West Virginia to photograph several waterfalls along the Holly River and its tributaries. But as I made my way further and deeper into the recesses of the valleys and higher atop the mountains, I came across lands that were forgotten and fallow. Residences that once tended to untold acres of crops and pastures now lay abandoned and in waste.
Cass, West Virginia is a company town that was constructed by the West Virginia Pulp and Paper Company (WVP&P) in 1901.
Thurmond, West Virginia is a fascinating town along the New River in Fayette County. With just a population of five, Thurmond served as an important stop for the Chesapeake & Ohio Railroad before the advent of the diesel locomotive era.
Deerton, Michigan is an unincorporated community in Alger County that was founded in 1882 when the Detroit, Mackinac & Marquette Railroad constructed a station for a lumbering camp. A post office opened in 1922, and in 1926, a small school was constructed at the junction of Deerton-Onota Road. Today, not much is left in the community – most of the residences are abandoned, although the school still operates.
The last update in the Coal Camp series from January unfolds deep within McDowell County, West Virginia, including Gary, Iaeger and War.