Monday, May 08, 2006

rust reclaims

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This rusted hulk of a building stands at the edge of Burlington, Illinois. In truth, downtown Burlington stretches for only what would be a couple of city blocks, so standing at the edge is not the far of a reach.

A single rail line passes through town and this building is on a small siding. Trains still pass through, but this building seems to have been from another era of railroad history. That small projection on the roof is indicative of some of the local corn cribs, and there is a small tube running down the outside of the building, but the space is certainly not large enough to hold grain to fill rail cars, so it shall remain a puzzle until I can question one of the old-timers in Burlington.

Lots of local photographers love this place, although the "Big Homes - Less Money" are going to be moving into this area, so the old rusted hulk will probably go. For now we'll just call it "photography fodder".

2 comments:

srp said...

The light and shadows along with the rust reds is lovely. I wish there were a place, a town they could build with all these old buildings and keep it that way. People could live there without fear of the developments moving in. It seems like we need a museum like that or our midwest past will end up like the Alamo, looking small and sandwiched between two skyscrapers.

Suzanne said...

I can't tell you how shocked I was when I moved to San Antonio and saw the Alamo for the first time. It was shocking!

Garfield Farm, a local living history museum farm in nearby LaFox is doing a good job of preserving a large parcel of land and various farm, inn, barn and outbuildings in their original state.