Some new photos from Fort Wayne

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

Christian Reform Fellowship is a tiny old church on the northwest corner of Doty Road and Milan Center Road, facing southeast toward the middle of the intersection, in rural Allen County, Indiana. The church is still in use, despite its dilapidated condition. The outer walls are leaning outward, as you can see in the windows on the sides of the building!

The building was originally constructed in 1906 as the Milan Center Methodist Protestant Church. That congregation closed down sometime after 1954.

The crossroads where this church is located is marked on maps as a town called Milan Center, but there is no town. Its just a crossroads with a grain elevator, the old Milan Center schoolhouse, and this church. There are no houses nearby, just farmland.

 

[tbhv55]

I laughed at that; Stop Obama? From doing what? He isn't doing anything to stop..he's out of office, you idiots! lol

Sadly, we have similar levels of stupidity on this side of the pond. 🙁

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

Closing time at Fort Wayne's Famous Coney Island Hot Dogs in Fort Wayne, Indiana. Workers clean the grill, which sits in the front window so that passers-by can see the hot dogs cooking through the large front windows.


Founded in 1914, Coney Island is the oldest restaurant in the city. It has been in the same downtown building on Main Street since it opened more than a century ago.

 

[helen.HH]

.

So beautiful, so Divine the stark contrast, made my day Chris...Thanks !

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

So beautiful, so Divine the stark contrast, made my day Chris...Thanks !

Thanks, Helen. 🙂🙂

 

[raydm6]

Closing time at Fort Wayne's Famous Coney Island Hot Dogs in Fort Wayne, Indiana. Workers clean the grill, which sits in the front window so that passers-by can see the hot dogs cooking through the large front windows.


Founded in 1914, Coney Island is the oldest restaurant in the city. It has been in the same downtown building on Main Street since it opened more than a century ago.

I'm enjoying your photographs Chris and the historical narrative.

Question on the above photo: Are those sidewalk delivery grates or rubber mats from the business? Reason I ask is that one seems a bit "off" angle-wise. Adds a little tension to the photograph.

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

I'm enjoying your photographs Chris and the historical narrative.

Question on the above photo: Are those sidewalk delivery grates or rubber mats from the business? Reason I ask is that one seems a bit "off" angle-wise. Adds a little tension to the photograph.

They're rubber mats. I don't know why they were out on the sidewalk, they're normally in front of the door.

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

This abandoned restaurant is on the west side of Hawthorne Road, between Lincoln Highway and Walnut Street, in the small town of Inwood, Indiana.

The old whitewashed brick building has an RC Cola (Royal Crown Cola) sign with the restaurant's name, V & R Country Restaurant, under it. Another sign near the road says the place is called the RC Lunch Room. The RC Cola signs are unique; I have never seen another restaurant with them. Small locally-owned restaurants often have signs provided to them by soda manufacturers, with Pepsi and Coca-Cola being the most common.

Inwood isn't much of a town, just a couple of small streets and a railroad track just south of US-30 in rural Marshall County.

 

[Paulbe]

Excellent photo, Chris! RC Cola is seen a good bit here in the South...
Paul

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

This large roadside cross made of corrugated metal stands at the edge of a field on the north side of US-30, just east of Richey Road, in rural Van Wert County, Ohio.

It says: "Get Right With God."

I made this photograph back in November. Interestingly, a couple weeks ago, I was driving in Paulding County, the next county north of Van Wert County in Ohio, when I saw another cross identical to this one along a highway up there!

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

This old house is on Randolph Street (State Road 327), north of Edgerton Street, in the small town of Garrett, Indiana. The garden arch standing in front of the house has Christmas lights on it.

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

A truck from a restaurant supply company parked on the street in front of Paleteria La Michoacana, a Mexican ice cream shop on Wells Street in Fort Wayne, Indiana.

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

This hand carved wooden Santa Claus stood in front of Alliance Tax Service on High Street in the small town of Hicksville, Ohio. I photographed it back in November.

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

This barn stands in the middle of a snow-covered field at a farm on Parent Road in Allen County, just west of I-469. The mural painted on it advertises the services of "Art by Von," a portrait painter who lives in northwest Ohio. The mural is visible from the highway.

I photographed this barn for the first time in 2013. It did not have the mural back then. There is also a larger barn on the same farm that has a large American flag hanging on the side of it that faces I-469. This highway is the ring road around Fort Wayne, Indiana's second largest city.

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

This barn is on the same farm as the one with the murals in my last post.

 

[KoNickon]

Continuing to love your stuff, Chris. Never seen an RC Cola-sponsored sign myself. A restaurant here in Hartford (now replaced by another eatery on the same site) had a Sprite-sponsored sign; that always struck me as a rarity.

Great light in that picture, too.

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

Continuing to love your stuff, Chris. Never seen an RC Cola-sponsored sign myself. A restaurant here in Hartford (now replaced by another eatery on the same site) had a Sprite-sponsored sign; that always struck me as a rarity.

Great light in that picture, too.

Thanks, KoNickon. I've never seen a Sprite sign. Most of the restaurant/cola signs I see in Indiana are from Pepsi. They're all over Fort Wayne. I see a lot of Coke signs, too, but Pepsi seems to have been most aggressive about providing signs to small restaurants.

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

This abandoned church was in Edgerton, a tiny town on the Indiana side of the Indiana-Ohio state line. I made this photograph of it in 2018. It was demolished in 2019.

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

This is Township Road 152, just east of State Route 49, in rural Paulding County, Ohio. The muddy dirt road has to be the worst road that I have ever seen in the midwestern United States! The sign says "Road Closed When Wet," and you can see why!


I photographed it on a rainy, foggy morning in February.

 

[raydm6]

Chris those last two shots are aweome!