Ghost Town trip #2 for the Boxster.

[Retroman1969]

With temps in the 70s and a nice hazy partly cloudy day, how could one not put the top down and go exploring?!
Once more, the Daily Boxster served as an all terrain vehicle without complaint and made it a really fun trip. In hunting down more ghost towns we ended up driving for 11 hours and to some of the most remote forgotten regions of SW Oklahoma and around the Quartz Mountain area. Some surprising discoveries along the way.

















Continued...

[EJ-Fresno]

Really nice colors !
What camera are you using? Photoshop?

[Retroman1969]

[Retroman1969]

[Chuck W.]

A lot of history and stories there. Cool pictures.

[jotoole]

ashes to ashes...

[Jamesp]

Thanks for sharing those pictures. Whenever I see old abandoned buildings I imagine the lives that built them. They were brand new once and the pride of those that built them.

[jdlmodelt]

It's sad to see parts of our Great Nation that have fallen by the wayside. Great photos. Great memories lost long ago by someone long forgotten.

[Retroman1969]

Thanks guys!
That fascination with long forgotten bits of life is what keeps me going on these excursions.
It gives me a more solid and grounded view of history through the eyes of the people that were there.
In an odd coincidence, my dad, who grew up about 40 miles south of the school in the final pictures remembered the place when I showed him the pics. He said it was a bustling community called Plainview. The school was a consolidated rural school that in the 1930s and 1940s was one of the most modern and the above gymnasium was the largest in the county. His high school (Mangum High) played basketball games against Plainview. He still vividly remembers their bright yellow uniforms. Dad described how in the 1950s, there was a sudden dropping off of the population in communities like Plainview as more and more kids left to attend college and never came back.
By 1957 the school was consolidated with Willow (and later Mangum) and shut down. It has been abandoned since, now with even the nearest farm house many miles away.

[BIGJake111]

I always love seeing your photos! The ghost town settings always make your photos seem like press shots.

[itsnotanova]

I want that U.S.TIRES sign. Would look good in the garage

[78F350]

Originally Posted by Retroman1969

So, on Sunday I went out for lunch and saw a really nice Austin Healey Sprite in the restaurant parking lot. I parked next to it and took a couple quick pics on the way in:




Other than the strangeness of seeing those two shots, I really love you post. Great pictures! Thanks for sharing.

[Retroman1969]

Originally Posted by EJ-Fresno

Really nice colors !
What camera are you using? Photoshop?

I currently use a Canon 7D with Sigma 10-20mm and Canon 80-200mm lenses. I process them through Photoshop CS6 with NIK Efex Pro 2 plug-in.

Originally Posted by BIGJake111

I always love seeing your photos! The ghost town settings always make your photos seem like press shots.

Thank you Jake! I really appreciate that.
I'm trying to step it up a bit because I want to put together a book about ghost towns in Oklahoma. There's one that's been out, but was published in 1977 so it's woefully outdated.

Originally Posted by 78F350

So, on Sunday I went out for lunch and saw a really nice Austin Healey Sprite in the restaurant parking lot. I parked next to it and took a couple quick pics on the way in:




Other than the strangeness of seeing those two shots, I really love you post. Great pictures! Thanks for sharing.

That's so weird, same angles of the same platform car shot one day apart!
When passing, my friend said "stop here! Is that a Sprite?" Even as the MG version it warranted a look. Just cool cars!

There were actually 4 US Tires signs on that old garage, on all 4 sides of the roof. I'm going to guess dating back to the late 30s early-mid 40s.

[Frodo]

Nice work, fella.

I especially like the goat pic. They seem to be challenging your presence in their domain, in no hurry to get out of your way..

And the gravestone...so much to read in that face, the face of someone who died way too young, a handsome fella just getting started, with so many unfulfilled plans for life. It's hard not to be touched by that image.

[BoxsterLS376]

Very freaking cool! Thanks for sharing!

@ Frodo - agreed, couldn't have said it better~
J

[jaykay]

Awesome post!

[BruceH]

Thanks for the great pictures

[Retroman1969]

Thank you so much for the great comments everyone!
Browsing the cemeteries, when available, gives a good barometer of the community and a rough timeline of events and history of the town. It can be a heartbreaking experience as well. It was a hard, hard life then. From what I've seen, you were lucky to make it to adulthood, and if you did, you were lucky to make it to 40. If you were over 50, you had one foot in the grave no matter who you were. Anyone over 70 was an oddity.