Forgotten Iowa
April 1, 2015 8:58 AM   Subscribe

A photo blog from some of the less-traveled parts of Iowa. [via]
posted by Think_Long (30 comments total) 19 users marked this as a favorite
 
While I'm generally skeptical of collections of "ruin/abandoned porn", I thought this author did a good job of providing some historical or geographical context for most of the places they visit.
posted by Think_Long at 9:00 AM on April 1, 2015 [1 favorite]


What's the story behind this tumblr? The first post is March 19th, just a few weeks, and the person responsible has posted hundreds of photos for a couple dozen towns. Is someone driving around Iowa for the last few weeks taking all these photos? Are they resourced from somewhere else?

Most of (all?) the context comes from Wikipedia, so it's not exactly digging deep into the history of the towns.
posted by crazy with stars at 9:08 AM on April 1, 2015


Also, a US state called "Iowa"? What is that, Japanese?
posted by Flashman at 9:28 AM on April 1, 2015 [1 favorite]


I'm not sure if you're aiming for humor or what, but it's named for a Native American tribe, like many of the towns, counties, and landmarks throughout the US.
posted by mikeh at 9:49 AM on April 1, 2015 [1 favorite]


Also, a US state called "Iowa"? What is that, Japanese?

Where I come from we pronounce it "Ohio."
posted by Floydd at 9:51 AM on April 1, 2015 [1 favorite]


It's like somebody's memory of a town.

And that memory is fading.
posted by entropone at 9:53 AM on April 1, 2015 [1 favorite]


There's some very interesting framing and cherry-picking for some of these portrayals. There are many, many run-down, relatively vacant towns in the Iowa countryside, but most towns or cities have a handful of decrepit buildings regardless of their population or economic well-being.

The few city squares that seem to be in a good state of repair have text addressing something from the town's distant history, but that obscures the reality of who lives there, and why.
posted by mikeh at 10:07 AM on April 1, 2015 [1 favorite]


I run a blog like this for Ohio, and just from a brief look, I would guess whoever runs this one is actually taking the photos themselves -- the style, framing etc. is very consistent. I'm no photographer and also much too lazy to do anything like that, so I mostly reblog or post pictures that I find on Flickr. And there are a lot of people who take pictures like these. They really do travel around the state and take photos of buildings and old signs.

A lot of small town history isn't necessarily available online unless a historical society has made a concerted effort to make it available, so taking info from Wikipedia makes sense. Even a little bit of context helps. And yeah, it's definitely cherry-picking. I think that's the point. Sometimes these buildings are side by side with strip malls and newer things. Sometimes they're just tucked away on a side street or on the outskirts. But if you live there and have lived there all your life, sometimes you don't really see them anymore -- you don't even think about what this building was, or why it looks the way it does.
posted by automatic cabinet at 10:16 AM on April 1, 2015 [2 favorites]


I actually lived in one of the featured towns, from birth until I was 11, so this was super exciting for me. (One of the photos is of my very very former babysitter's house; another includes the school where I attended kindergarten and first grade.) I still live close enough to have visited a few times in the last decade or so, and . . . there's something very, very small-town Iowa about having your former neighbors tell you they had to purchase and obliterate your childhood home because someone had been running a meth lab in it.
posted by Spathe Cadet at 10:16 AM on April 1, 2015 [6 favorites]


To address mikeh's comment:

I'd say in my specific case, there wasn't much cherry-picking. There are nice, newish, well-maintained homes to be found, but at least 2/3 of the place looks just like the photos. Or worse. If anything, the photos spiff the place up a bit, by cropping out crappier stuff to one side of the picture or another.

(Also I was scrolling through, thinking of a memorable trip to What Cheer, IA, with my husband, several years ago, and thinking, gosh, how could I get ahold of the photographer to suggest that they get some shots from What Cheer, it's all like this, when lo and behold, I run into photos from What Cheer. So: points for thoroughness, photographer person!)
posted by Spathe Cadet at 10:26 AM on April 1, 2015 [3 favorites]


I was mainly thinking of Fairfield when I wrote about cherry-picking. The majority of these are genuinely vacant.
posted by mikeh at 10:37 AM on April 1, 2015


Actual Fairfield is full of rich transcendental meditation disciples, but that doesn't very well fit the theme of the blog. So yeah, there's some cherry-picking there, but some of those pictures are cool.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 10:46 AM on April 1, 2015 [2 favorites]


Reminds me a bit of Robert Hanna's Sketches of Nebraska.
posted by brennen at 11:02 AM on April 1, 2015


I'd agree on Fairfield (also Washington).
posted by Spathe Cadet at 11:08 AM on April 1, 2015 [1 favorite]


Also, a US state called "Iowa"? What is that, Japanese?

Yes. "青話" (Ao-wa, literally "blue(green) story") refers to a state of near-absolute silence in the summer countryside where (one fancied) you could literally hear the corn grow. Iowa was a popular (and exotic) destination for wealthy Japanese post-Meiji restoration, and the former state of Franklin adopted the anglicized Japanese name in 1885.

Almost as quickly as Aowa mania flourished, it subsided around the turn of the century when more and more visitors reported the sensation that paying enough attention to the whispering was opening the door to something numinous (hence the name "怖い入り口" which was anglicized into the misleadingly French-sounding "Des Moines"). As in China Miéville's "Details", after a while, you could pretty much hear anything you could imagine.

These days, the Hawkeye state is populated by perfectly sensible people with less enlightened ears. Whatever could have come through to our reality apparently never has.
posted by kurumi at 11:18 AM on April 1, 2015 [15 favorites]


automatic cabinet: nice blog!

I wish I knew why I love stuff like this. But I do.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 11:38 AM on April 1, 2015


Makes me long for an early summer road trip driving from town to town, stopping for picnics under shade trees or walks along creeks and back roads.
posted by BlueHorse at 11:43 AM on April 1, 2015


Thanks! I'm mildly resentful of the Iowa one for being so nice. I'm no judge of photography, but to me these are good, clean, consistent pictures that convey something big and empty about the rural decay of the midwest. Sometimes a lonely, bad emptiness, sometimes an emptiness that, if not precisely good, seems more like a call.
posted by automatic cabinet at 11:59 AM on April 1, 2015 [1 favorite]


There are many, many run-down, relatively vacant towns in the Iowa countryside, but most towns or cities have a handful of decrepit buildings regardless of their population or economic well-being.

I finally started getting back into photography in the past month, and yeah, Iowa is a goldmine if you want to shoot run-down buildings. Large parts of downtown Sioux City basically look like an industrial district that produces only bespoke hand tools to be sold on Etsy and never used. I'm posting this from a barely-renovated boiler plant that once upon a time generated steam heat for the downtown area and is now studio and gallery space. I feel like in the future small midwestern cities will be the new Florida for retired hipsters.
posted by jason_steakums at 12:34 PM on April 1, 2015 [2 favorites]


I grew up in a small town in Iowa.

To elaborate on the Riverside section: it really was declared the future birthplace of Captain Kirk. As such, it has (or used to have, I haven't lived in Iowa in years) the best thing ever: TrekFest. Imagine a small-town fair AND a convention. It was two, two mints in one. The parade would have a VW full of Tribbles, a firetruck full of cheerleaders throwing candy, and a float from the local bank. There was a little kid tractor pull and episodes of Star Trek aired in a barn. Plus you could buy "Kirk Dirt" from the space behind the barber shop.

It was glorious.
posted by fifteen schnitzengruben is my limit at 12:47 PM on April 1, 2015


Love the photographs. Thank god I'll never, ever, be anywhere near the place.

Oh look, somebody built themselves a grand brick house! The town I grew up in had one skyscraper and it featured in the tourist guides to the place. Along with the fish farm and the relocated central market. What was that line about going to Pylea - sometimes you need to go home once to understand why you're never going back.
posted by glasseyes at 12:56 PM on April 1, 2015


Thank god I'll never, ever, be anywhere near the place.

I'll pass it along next time I see him, but -- why? You understand that these photos aren't representative of the state as a whole, right? That we live in houses and use silverware and read books and stuff just like people?
posted by Spathe Cadet at 1:24 PM on April 1, 2015 [5 favorites]


I've spent a lot of time travelling to, through and around Iowa. Have you ever heard of an Iowa Hostage Taking ?

It's what happens when one, most assuredly sensible, Iowan is driving down a 65 MPH highway at 53.58736 MPH and they are then passed by one of their neighbors or cousins or siblings who are doing 53.58737 MPH. Mirrors don't work the same in Iowa as they do elsewhere, so traffic will pile up behind them from one end of the county to another.

Those houses and buildings in the photos ? They weren't abandoned. The people who lived and worked there went out for a drive and they are trapped behind two other Iowans on the highway. Forever.
posted by Pogo_Fuzzybutt at 1:42 PM on April 1, 2015 [3 favorites]


I've had a couple jobs where I travelled all over Iowa. I thought I'd know a few of these locations. There were more than I thought, and boy are some of them forgotten.

India Cafe pictured in Fairfield is some pretty good eating, and Fairfield is a booming metropolis compated to most of these places. It's more like what "small town Iowa" is really about (with the addition of some eccentrics and the shops that cater to them).

The next level are the towns with a gas station or bar still in business. And then there are the places that claim 54 residents and have no commerce to speak of. They're the towns that lost their fight to keep a local school (of maybe 100 students K-12) instead of consolidating with a larger neighbor. When the schools go, families follow. All that are left are empty-nesters and seniors. And time takes its toll on that population. But even these places are only a 20-minute drive from a real grocery store and a bank, etc. In all but western-most Iowa, an actual town with tens of thousands of people is probably less than an hour away. It's isolated, but on a lower scale than you find on the plains and points west.
posted by the christopher hundreds at 1:58 PM on April 1, 2015 [5 favorites]


Keosauqua Iowa. I just remember how much I love saying Keosauqua.
posted by djseafood at 3:44 PM on April 1, 2015 [1 favorite]


That is some pure, distilled, small-town Iowa, right there.
posted by BrashTech at 4:37 PM on April 1, 2015


One of my great-great-grandfathers is, I gather, buried near the curiously-named town of What Cheer, in Keokuk County, Iowa— I was glad to see some pictures of the place: many thanks for the post.
posted by misteraitch at 2:37 AM on April 2, 2015


In all but western-most Iowa, an actual town with tens of thousands of people is probably less than an hour away.

And oh boy, the politics out that way are... interesting.
posted by mikeh at 9:29 AM on April 2, 2015


Also, a US state called "Iowa"? What is that, Japanese?
Where I come from we pronounce it "Ohio."


I believe in Iowa, it's pronounced "We're actually probably more progressive than you."
posted by entropicamericana at 10:27 AM on April 2, 2015


I don't care how you say it, as long as you don't confuse it with Idaho.
posted by BlueHorse at 6:18 PM on April 2, 2015


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