Some new photos from Fort Wayne

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Here's something from my archives, different than my usual work. Back in 2006, I photographed this red and yellow hibiscus flower at the Foellinger-Freimann Botanical Conservatory in downtown Fort Wayne, Indiana.
 
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Hill's Meat Market is a locally owned butcher shop and grocery store on Lower Huntington Road in the Waynedale area of Fort Wayne, Indiana.​

The store, which opened in 1940, is still owned by the Hill family. Everyone in Waynedale buys meat there, and like a number of other small businesses in Waynedale they have thrived despite competition from big chain stores in Fort Wayne.​

This building, where the store has been located for decades, will soon be replaced with a much larger, modern building that is being constructed next to the old one.​

I've got permission to photograph the inside, which looks like a place caught in time from the 1950s, so I plan to do that later this week
 
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This old Wheel Horse garden tractor that belonged to my grandpa, Charles Crawford. He gave it to my dad after buying himself a newer one when I was a teenager. I don't know how old this one is. It was already very old when I used it to mow grandpa's yard when I was a kid.​

I photographed it in my parents' backyard, sitting next to one of the red barns that my dad built when I was a kid.​
 
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This house is on Third Street, just west of Harrison Street, in the Wells Street area of Fort Wayne, Indiana.​

The residents must be hardcore Indianapolis Colts fans. The house is painted blue and white, the Colts' team colors, and a piñata shaped like the football team's logo sits in the front window.​

When I was younger, no one in Fort Wayne cared at all about the Colts. After they won the Super Bowl in 2007, everyone suddenly became diehard Colts fans!​

This was the last photograph that I made in 2015.​
 
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This tire swing hangs from a tree behind the garage next to a vacant house on the corner of Fritz Road and US-33 on the northwestern edge of Fort Wayne, Indiana.

I love tire swings. When I was a kid, my dad hung one from a 30 foot high branch on a GIGANTIC oak tree in their backyard. The tree, which is still there, is over 4 feet thick . Had tons of fun on that thing.
 
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A piece of paper with the Ten Commandments is nailed to the wall inside an abandoned house. Below it is a wooden sign that says: "The future is as bright as the promises of God."​

This is one of three tiny abandoned log cabins that sit next to each other on the north side of US-33, just south of the small town of Benton, in rural Elkhart County, Indiana. The inside walls of the cabin are covered in religious signs and bumper stickers, and photos of classic cars taken from old calendars.​
 
Thanks, Jamie. When I drove past it, I instantly thought that it was the classic Indiana landscape. The backyard tree, basketball, the cornfield. Too bad it was a half mile inside Ohio!


Here's a new photo I shot tonight, close to where I live.

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This beat-up old Pontiac Grand-Am was parked in front of Captain Ron's Corral, a country bar on Bluffton Road in the Waynedale area of Fort Wayne, Indiana. It looks like it was used as a race car, though I've never seen one with spray-painted numbers before. The bar's logo is painted on the hood, and there is spray-painted text all over the car that says the car is going to be a prize in a raffle!

Looks like the old cars I used to see at the rural dirt-track races in southern Indiana. But that was in the early 1960s, and the cars were from the late 1940s!
 
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This tree is in a field along Lima Road (Indiana State Road 3) a little south of Huntertown, Indiana.

I have watched it grow bigger and bigger each year for nearly 20 years now. I made this photo of it Friday afternoon.
 
Looks like the old cars I used to see at the rural dirt-track races in southern Indiana. But that was in the early 1960s, and the cars were from the late 1940s!


There are a lot of small-town racetracks still operating in northeast Indiana. There's one in the part of Fort Wayne I live in (Waynedale) that has been around for decades. Several of my neighbors have old beat-up racecars like that one sitting in their driveways.
 
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Here's another photo from the abandoned cabin where I photographed the Ten Commandments on the wall.

This food shelf is in the front room of an abandoned house. The jars have hand-painted labels for basic foods like cornmeal, peas, brown rice, brown sugar, lentils, and even popcorn. The jar on the right contains, according to the label, "God's Force and Source." Source is misspelled.​

This is one of three tiny abandoned log cabins that sit next to each other on the north side of US-33, just south of the small town of Benton, in rural Elkhart County, Indiana. The inside walls of the cabin are covered in religious signs and bumper stickers, and photos of classic cars taken from old calendars.​
 
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People's Bible Church is on US-33 in the tiny town of Benton, Indiana. Benton is in Elkhart County, a few miles southeast of Goshen. I photographed it last week, a few minutes before I photographed the abandoned house with the religious signs in it.
 
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