Some new photos from Fort Wayne

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This scene is right across the road from the house in my last post. I made this photograph a few minutes earlier, before the sun had come out.
 
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Another photograph of the "Emoji Chair" in front of Fire Station #10 in Fort Wayne, Indiana. The firefighters change the face on the chair periodically. When I made this photograph, it had a kissing face.
 
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Milan Township #6 Schoolhouse is located on the corner of Doty Road and Brush College Road in rural northeast Allen County, Indiana. The one-room brick school was built in 1902 and closed in 1923.

Most of these schoolhouses in Allen County have the date inscribed on a gable stone set high in the front facade of the building. This one is unique in that the date is on the keystone in the arch over the doors.
 
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Maples United Methodist Church is located on Church Street in the tiny town of Maples, Indiana. This side of the building was in shade on a sunny day; the sunlight coming through the windows on the other side of the church made one of the windows glow with light.

The town of Maples, located in southeast Allen County, only has six streets! The town has a grain elevator, a bar, and this church.
 
robert blu said:
Love this last photo Chris, very effective. And love your Maples Inn photo, great B&W!
robert
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Thanks, Robert.

The photo of Maples Inn was from my first visit to Maples; I didn't make it back to the town until yesterday. I looked at the photo of the bar when writing the story for the church photo and realized it had been 5 years since I had been there last! Time flies.
 
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This tire swing hangs from a tree next to a soybean field on State Road 37, just north of Bruick Road, in rural northeast Allen County, Indiana.

The tire is cut to look like a horse.

I photographed it on a morning at the end of August.
 
Chriscrawfordphoto said:
It is a shame to see Sears in this condition. My family shopped there all the time when I was young. I still have some Sears Craftsman tools that my father bought for me when I was younger, and he still has some he bought in the 1970s. They were great tools, but sears moved production to China several years ago and we quit buying.
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As a tool afficionado, I can't tell you how disappointing it was when Craftsman tools stopped being Craftsman tools. The change was dramatic. Now, I'm not trying to deride China, but the Chinese made tools starting in the late 70's, and definitely during the 80's, were quite poor. Those made during the 90's and 00's were not worth owning at all. (again, this is not exactly a fault of China, but rather of poor manufacturing that happened to be easy to do in China during these years). Around this time (late 80s to present) I stopped buying "new" tools entirely. I have new Craftsman tools (given to me) that failed on first use, and I have tools made over 100 years ago that continue to function as well as the day they were made. Today, most of my tools are 50 to 150 years old. These are "working tools" that are used for their intended function. I don't abuse my tools and take care of them (as taught by my dad). So, they continue to take care of me.

I don't like to tell too many people, but buying old tools is a better value than new. I don't tell people because then they go out and snap up all the old tools before I can. My best tools came from yard/barn sales. Of course, you need to have a good eye to know when a tool has been "used up" and beyond its useful life. But it can also be surprising (and satisfying) when I restore a tool that would have been dismissed for "dead" into a beautiful (I find tools beautiful) fully functional work of art.


I nearly cried when this happened. 1930's Stanley 720 chisel (1/4-inch) snapped while trimming a mortise...:(

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The Church at Garrett is a nondenominational church located in the old Keyser Township #5 Schoolhouse on the corner of County Road 54 and Randolph Street (State Road 327) in the small town of Garrett, Indiana.

This is the front of the old schoolhouse, which was built in 1914. The church's sanctuary is located in an addition to the building built in the 1940s (on the left side of the old school, when looking at the front of the building). They're building a very large addition to the back of the building now.

The original schoolhouse is unique in that it has a basement; most of them I have seen in Indiana do not.
 
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The Silver Screen Cinema is on Randolph Street (State Road 327) in the small town of Garrett, Indiana. It was built in 1939 as the Gala, and was later renamed the Silver Screen. It closed in 2014 because the owners couldn't afford to convert it to digital projection.

Small, locally-owned theaters like the Silver Screen held on longer in small towns than they did in the larger cities, where giant multiplex theaters drove the little ones out of business years ago.

The company that owns the Silver Screen also owns the Strand Theatre in Kendallville and the Auburn-Garrett Drive-In, both of which were still open when I made this photograph in September, 2018.
 
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The front of the retail showroom at Waynedale Plumbing Supply. The new faucet display is on the left. Wayne brand well pumps and sump pumps are on display under the window.

Because the building doesn't have air conditioning, the front door is left open during the summer.

Waynedale Plumbing is on Lower Huntington Road in the Waynedale area of Fort Wayne, Indiana. The store was built in 1946, and has been owned by Virgil Hoke since 1950, when he and his now-deceased older brother bought it. Very little has changed there in the intervening decades!

There is a "For Sale" sign in the window. Virgil, who is now 84 years old, is trying to sell the store so that he can retire.
 
Chriscrawfordphoto said:
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Great pic showing still bright colours along with the decay. Bittersweet.

Chriscrawfordphoto said:
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There is a "For Sale" sign in the window. Virgil, who is now 84 years old, is trying to sell the store so that he can retire.
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Retire at 84? I don't know him but I'm sure he deserves it. Wow.

Your documentation of 'Fort Wayne' really is something that has historical context. There is such a profound feeling to this, exacerbated by the purposeful lack of people. I'd get this together somehow and submit it to the Library of Congress.
 
Huss said:
Great pic showing still bright colours along with the decay. Bittersweet.
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Thanks. The theater is a neat old building. Its too bad it couldn't stay open. A modern multiplex theater opened in Auburn, a town a couple miles east of Garrett, and that killed the Silver Screen in Garrett.

Retire at 84? I don't know him but I'm sure he deserves it. Wow.
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I really never expected old Virgil to retire. He is the kind of guy who hates having nothing to do, and he never married or had kids, so he has no grandchildren to spend time with. He's having back problems and is in a lot of pain, that's why he is finally retiring. If his health had held out, he'd keep working.


Your documentation of 'Fort Wayne' really is something that has historical context. There is such a profound feeling to this, exacerbated by the purposeful lack of people. I'd get this together somehow and submit it to the Library of Congress.
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Thanks; I'd love to see them go to a museum, but I can't afford to donate them now. Selling prints is my main income source since my stroke, and I'm barely surviving. After I die I may donate my work to a museum if someone wants it, but for now I have to keep it.
 
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I'm still working on my backlog of old work. This is the first of six abstract images that I made of the sky in Churubusco, Indiana back in June, 2017.
 
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An American flag hangs in the window next to the entrance to Hoosier Barber Shop on Randolph Street (State Road 327) in the small town of Garrett, Indiana.

Randolph Street is Garrett's "Main Street."
 
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