Some new photos from Fort Wayne

[Out to Lunch]

That is an excellent reason, of course. I am surprised by the restrictions imposed on you as a custodial parent!

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

That is an excellent reason, of course. I am surprised by the restrictions imposed on you as a custodial parent!

Its like that for any single parent here. Its to keep vindictive women from moving across the country just to keep their childrens' fathers from having a relationship with the kids.

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

I spent a day at the beginning of 2009 photographing in the tiny town of Corunna, Indiana. There is a relatively new bridge in the middle of the town that carries State Road 327 over the railroad tracks. It was built with little concern for the small town's history, passing right in front of old buildings like this abandoned bar.

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

This windmill is at one of my favorite places to photograph, an abandoned sheep farm in rural Allen County, a few miles south of Fort Wayne.

 

[victoriapio]

chris,
I applaude your photos and especially what you are doing for your son. As you probably know, your effort will make a big difference in his life - and yours too.
OC

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

chris,
I applaude your photos and especially what you are doing for your son. As you probably know, your effort will make a big difference in his life - and yours too.
OC

Thanks OC, I appreciate it. I do enjoy having my son with me. I missed him terribly when I lived in Santa Fe. The cost of driving 1500 miles each way to see him was too much, I only got to see him a few times in the two years I was there. He did get to spend part of a summer there after I saved enough money to take his mother back to court again.

It is worth the economic hardships we have had to have him with me. He is doing so much better now. When he first came to live with me, he would barely talk to anyone, and though he is still kind of shy around people he doesn't know, he is much more outgoing and social. His mother made life very hard for him.

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

Here's another shot of the barnyard and windmill at the abandoned sheep farm. The sheep lived in the fenced area around the windmill.

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

The Sheep Farmer's house, veiled in fog on a cold winter day.

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

I have photographed this beautiful little toolshed many times over the years. It is just outside the barnyard fence on the abandoned sheep farm on Pleasant Center Road, east of Bluffton Road, on the southern edge of Allen County, Indiana. When I first photographed this place eight years earlier, there was an old man living here, and his flock of sheep grazed in the fenced yard behind this building.

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

When this supermarket on Fort Wayne's south side was opened in 1956, it was advertised as the largest grocery store in the country. Originally called Eavey's, it was bought by the Fort Wayne based Scott's Foods chain in the late 1960s. In 2007, Kroger bought out Scott's, whose stores were located throughout northeast Indiana, including several Fort Wayne locations. Kroger closed the Decatur Road store, with its famous giant cornucopia sign, in January of 2009.

The store's abrupt closing upset a lot of Fort Wayne residents, who feared that the well known landmark would be demolished. As of 2012, the empty store and its iconic sign still stand, but there are no plans for it to be used for anything new in the foreseeable future. The store opened in a prosperous middle class area that has become an impoverished, high crime neighborhood in the intervening decades.

 

[DanOnRoute66]

I made these photographs of one of the many Payday loan places on Fort Wayne's south side this morning. They were shot 5 minutes apart as the sun was rising...the light was changing rapidly!

Excellent photos, Chris. Sad to see these leeches invading my home state, though.

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

Excellent photos, Chris. Sad to see these leeches invading my home state, though.

Thanks Dan. We've had check-n-go and several other check-cashing 'poverty parasite' businesses in Ft. Wayne for a while now. Probably ten years or so. Saddens me to see them too, but they're a symptom of the problem, not the cause.

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

I found this framed print, A Song of mother's love, on the wall of one of the upstairs bedrooms in an abandoned farmhouse that stood at the corner of Airport Expressway and Coverdale Road, near Fort Wayne International Airport, in southwest Allen County, Indiana.

When I photographed the house the first time, in 2002, it was locked up, so I only photographed the outside. Years later, I went back and the doors were all open. The inside was full of interesting things. The house was demolished in 2011. I made this one at the end of 2008.

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

This is in the same abandoned farmhouse outside Fort Wayne as the "Mother's Love" photo in my last post. The TV is a General Electric, which looks like something from the 1960s. The little picture on the wall above the television, which doesn't show well in a small web image, is hands folded in prayer.

 

[jwc57]

I love that TV shot. I wish I could come across something like this when I'm exploring abandoned homes and stores.

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

I love that TV shot. I wish I could come across something like this when I'm exploring abandoned homes and stores.

Thanks. I see a lot of interesting things in abandoned houses around here. The best was the house full of dolls a couple of years ago.

 

[jwc57]

We discussed the dolls in another thread....I'm not reliving those memories. LOL

I've seen some very interesting things in abandoned homes, but around here such things are few and far between. Vandals and "recyclers" are big problem. Most of the abandoned homes are 80-150 years old. It doesn't take long for vandals to destroy the guts of the house or the "recyclers" to strip it of woodwork.

A photo of one item is posted in the "abandonment" thread. The house that was taken in was a victim of arson just last October.

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

This little building on Bluffton Road in the Waynedale area of Fort Wayne has been home to a number of small businesses over the years. The embroidery shop that now occupies it recently hung a small American flag in the front window. I photographed it last night as the sun was setting.

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

I'm scanning some old negatives from my early days. This is from 1999.

I photographed this soybean field at sunset, looking west from Ellison Road in southwest Allen County, Indiana. The field, just south of my grandpa's house, often floods after heavy rains. The land was part of a huge swampland that was drained a century ago to make way for farming.

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

I photographed this building on Fort Wayne's Main Street downtown yesterday evening after my son and I had dinner at a restaurant next door.