Discovering the ghosts of California and beyond, one road trip at a time.
Especially old ones…
Thank you all for your kind comments, recommendations, and suggestions while I was cruising Route 82. I’m now back home, planning my next journey. Meanwhile, I leave you with a few additional photos from that trip that didn’t fit into the daily blog posts. Enjoy!
This morning I awoke around 7:15, and looked out my window to see the world still cloaked in darkness. I figured it was still too early for the sun, since I was on the western edge of the eastern time zone. After my morning ablutions I returned to the window, but it was still dark outside. I looked up to see a blanket of black clouds covering the sky. The sun was entirely AWOL.
Undeterred, I got in my rental car and began to head out of Albany. But as I was passing through the historic downtown what do you think I saw? Yes, it was another Union Station. For those of you keeping score at home, I’m now up to four on this trip.
Albany’s Union Station was constructed in 1913. It replaced an earlier depot that had been built in 1857, but wasn’t able to accommodate the vast increase in rail traffic. Union Station continued to serve trains until 1971, after which it was slated to be razed. However, preservationists in the town mobilized to protect the building from the wrecking ball that was knocking down so many old buildings in the 1970s. Union Station was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1975.
The station was renovated and became a museum. It was part of a larger “Heritage Plaza” project that includes several other historic buildings, including the old freight warehouse. There’s also a Georgia Northern steam locomotive and rail cars on the tracks behind the station.
Having gotten my daily Union Station fix, I got back onto US 82 East. The wind had picked up and it was beginning to rain. As I drove out of town I saw public works crews blocking off streets and clearing drains.
Then, all of a sudden, the leaden skies fully opened up, and lightning started flashing like paparazzi from hell. This continued for the rest of the day. And in the mid-afternoon I started receiving tornado warnings on my iphone.
Thankfully, US 82 was not closed down by the storm, so I carefully made my way across Georgia with my wipers working overtime and only a few incidences of hydroplaning.
Because of the weather, I didn’t make many stops today. But I did break for lunch in the city of Waycross (pop: 14,000). Like so many of the places along Route 82, Waycross sprung up as a railroad town. In fact, its name references the town’s location at the intersection of six railroad lines. The town’s large, 1911 railroad station (can you guess its name??) was at the center of those rail lines, and it now houses the Chamber of Commerce and serves as a visitors center.
The guy at the visitor center encouraged me to visit the nearby Okefenokee Swamp, since Waycross is “the closest city to the Swamp.” Be that as it may, it would still require a long drive along a narrow road through peat bogs during a major downpour. Maybe next time.
Instead, I took a leisurely drive around the town and encountered two historic theaters. The Ritz theater opened in 1913 as a vaudeville house called The Grand Theater. In the mid-1930s it was extensively remodeled into a movie theater and its name was changed to the Ritz. It closed in 1977. However in the mid-1980s a group of Preservationist citizens resurrected the theater as a live performance venue. Today it’s the city’s main stage for community theater.
Waycross’s other theater has a less successful story. The Lyric Theater opened in 1923, and like the Ritz, it showed movies in the middle decades of the 20th century. I can’t find when it closed, but They Shoot Horses Don’t They? was playing there as late as 1970. For my money, the Lyric is far more interesting looking than the Ritz, but its interior is probably beyond salvation.
The reason I came across those theaters is because I was looking for a Studebaker dealer. Let me explain:
Loyal reader Victor R sent me a link to a database of Studebaker dealerships all across the country. The database lists two dealerships in Waycross: Johnson Motor Car Co. at 302 Albany Ave, and J.N. Stinson at 406 Tebeau St. The first address is now just a vacant lot, but there is a building at the Tebeau address. I think the current building is not the same as Stinson’s dealership, though, because according the database Stinson was in business in 1925. And what I saw today is clearly not a 1925 building.
Eventually I got back onto Route 82 to complete the final 60 miles of the trip. The weather was worsening again, but it was still driveable. A cup of coffee from a Waycross coffee bar kept me alert.
It seems that I’m always able to sense when I start to approach the Atlantic, and today was no exception. I don’t know if there’s a scent in the air, or if the landscape changes (definitely the density of trees thinned out), or if the development patterns change, or maybe the style of architecture is different. All I can say is that it felt like I was getting close to the end of the continent. I was anticipating the satisfaction, the closure, of arriving at that final Route 82 sign that says “END” on it. Like this one at the eastern end of Route 60:
The rain was getting heavier, but I just knew I was almost there. I fixed my eyes on each sign I passed, straining to see past the rain on the windshield and the rapidly-sweeping wipers, anticipating the dopamine hit I would surely receive when I caught side of the “END.” And then, suddenly…I’m on US 17 north! What happened to US 82??
It took me some retracing of my steps to sort things out, but the bottom line is that there’s no END sign. Instead, there’s what I’ll call a “handoff” sign that marks both 82 East and 17 North simultaneously. This is the easternmost sign for US 82.
Well, that was anticlimactic. But no matter. I had safely made it to Brunswick, that’s what mattered. And to celebrate, I took a picture of the big stew pot that supposedly was used to make the first Brunswick Stew in 1898.
There only remained two things left to do: First, I got my Brew of the Day (see below). And then, tomorrow, I will do a Mystery Travel Task that will complete an important collection for the Boilard Travel Archive. All will be made clear tomorrow. Now it’s on to the:
BREW OF THE DAY
Today’s BOTD came from Weber’s Growler Factory in Brunswick. It’s an interesting place, with forty beers on tap to fill your growler or to drink there by the glass. They also have a lot of bottled beers and an extensive selection of cigars. Sadly, they also have one of the most disinterested, unfriendly bartenders you’ll ever meet.
I was overwhelmed by the menu, so I asked for something local. Turns out the only beer from a Brunswick brewery is a Mexican lager. Lagers really aren’t my cup of tea, especially on a stormy winter day. So I asked if there was anything from elsewhere in Georgia. I ended up with a “De-stress Express” from Georgia Beer Company in Valdosta, GA.
Interestingly, though I didn’t plan it, the De-stress Express is quite similar on paper to the Stone Xocaveza I drank last night. They are both stouts that are intended to evoke a mix of coffee and chocolate. But while Stone’s effort tasted flat and uninteresting and even a little off, today’s entry from Georgia was a winner.
De-Stress Express’s chocolate and coffee tastes don’t fight against each other; they complement each other. The coffee keeps the chocolate from being too cloying, and the chocolate keeps the coffee from being too bitter. Some light hoppiness is present, nicely balanced by the creamy, milky lactose. Today’s beer also had more carbonation than Stone’s, which helped to create a foamy head and to provide a nice tickle on the tongue. The beer comes across quite bright and fresh, which is a bit unusual for a stout. Perhaps that’s because it’s a local brew? Mouthfeel is very full-bodied and creamy. Definitely for sipping rather than quaffing. It took me almost half an hour to get through mine! ABV is a manageable 6.5 percent. I wish I could get it in California. Four stars out of five.
Only a short drive along Route 82 from my hotel takes one to Alabama’s capital city. Montgomery (pop: 200,000) is far and away the largest city I’ve been to on this trip. Montgomery was, of course, ground zero for the Civil Rights movement in the 1950s and 1960s. Throughout the downtown you encounter murals, statues, commemorative plaques, and other installations marking aspects of Montgomery’s civil rights history.
Montgomery’s streets are filled with many dozens of such iconography of the Civil Rights movement. Clearly the city’s official attitudes have changed greatly since the 1950s. And yet, it’s also evident that the city has not fully reconciled its history. The dissonance is captured in the city’s “great seal,” which I spotted on one of the historical markers:
By way of background: For many years, the city seal included the “Cradle of the Confederacy” phrase, but not the reference to the Civil Rights Movement. The latter phrase was added in 2002, in an effort to take the sting out of what sounded like a paean to the confederacy. And yet, to me this seems to simply highlight the simultaneous existence of two conflicting mindsets: an embrace of Montgomery’s history as the capital of the Confederacy, and an embrace of its role in promoting the Civil Movement.
That contradiction becomes clearer as you walk up the street toward the Capitol building. There you can find a series of bronze reliefs depicting aspects of the slave trade and other mistreatment of African Americans. But you’ll also see a solemn statue of Confederate President Jefferson Davis, as well as a bronze star on the steps of the Capitol marking the spot where he took the oath of office.
You’ll also see the empty spots where Confederate flags had flown until the Governor ordered their removal in 2015. But the bronze and limestone Confederate monument that those flags had surrounded still stands.
I certainly don’t presume to tell Montgomerians how to reconcile the various aspects of their history. But I would observe that there is a difference between acknowledging history and celebrating it.
OK, now that I’ve once and for all solved the cultural arguments over the Civil War, let’s move on…
Believe it or not, while in Montgomery I encountered my third Union Station on this trip. Montgomery’s Union Station was built in 1898 for the Louisville and Nashville Railroad. It was one of the country’s busier stations, serving 44 passenger trains from a dozen railroads during its peak. Over time, of course, rail travel diminished and the last train stopped at Union Station in 1979. Since then the station was converted to a visitor center and has been leased to various commercial clients. You’ll note that this structure has been magnificently preserved; the comparison to Texarkana’s crumbling structure is stark.
Railroads were crucial to the development and survival of southern towns. That’s true for the rest of the country as well, of course. But it seems that railroad infrastructure is more prominent in the towns I’ve encountered on this trip than it is in California towns. Maybe that’s just because California has (sadly) been more aggressive in tearing out the obsolete railroad infrastructure and substituting new housing developments and business parks. Whatever the reason, scenes like the one below (from Eufaula, Alabama) seem common on this trip.
This leads to a third thought: I’ve given a lot of thought in this blog to the comparison of thriving and declining historic districts along various US highways, including of course Route 82. I’ve speculated about the influence of local universities, the re-routing of trains and highways (i.e., the Route 66 effect), and other possible factors. There’s also the chicken and egg question about needing funds to redevelop historic buildings, and needing redeveloped historic buildings in order to generate revenue. One thing does seem clear: some of the old towns have managed to successfully preserve and/or renovate their historic districts (let’s call them The Preservationists). Others have knocked down the old structures and replaced them with a Piggly Wiggly or a Dollar General (call them The Replacers). And still others, either due to a lack of will or a lack of funds, don’t do much of anything, and their buildings slowly decay. Call them the Porch-Sitters.
It’s not like any one approach is always the best. Circumstances and resources matter. But it should be clear that I especially appreciate those towns that have found a way to maintain aspects that make their town unique and that connect them with their history. I think the problem with the Replacers is they all end up looking alike, hosting the same Olive Gardens and Kohls and Home Depot and Bed Bath & Beyond.
I feel the sorriest for the Porch-Sitters. I think towns that slowly decay aren’t doing so because they don’t care. Rather, they’ve lost their major employers or their young people have moved away or the interstate siphoned off their drive-through traffic. They fall into a destructive cycle where the population and the infrastructure together age and eventually collapse.
Today I drove through the town of Union Springs, Georgia (pop: 3,300). It’s not a prosperous town; about 44 percent of the population is below the poverty line. The local economy sprung up from the cotton industry, but in the 20th century many of the cotton fields were converted to hunting preserves. Interestingly, the town has capitalized on that change by rebranding itself “The Bird Dog Field Trial Capitol [sic] of the World.” The town hosts annual field trials for hunting dogs every fall and spring, and it has erected monuments and murals celebrating that fact.
The town also restored its historic county courthouse and jail to the tune of about $2 million…
At the same time, however, most of the buildings along the commercial main street haven’t had a facelift in many years.
The one human being I saw on the street was a guard from the courthouse. He didn’t seem particularly interested in showing off his city to a (presumably rare) winter visitor. I’ll be interested to see how Union Springs fares over the next decade. I can’t quite tell whether the balance is tipping toward Preservation or Porch-Sitting.
About 40 miles further down Route 82 is the town of Eufaula (pop: 13,000). This town seems to be firmly in the Preservationist camp. Large, plantation-style homes line a section of US 82 as you come into town.
The core, historic business district, meanwhile, has a large number of shops, restaurants, cafes, professional services, and even a historic theater. I had lunch at a Mexican restaurant that was completely full of families and couples.
On a green, tree-lined strip in the middle of Main Street is what looks like a tombstone for a fish.
When the fish (a bass) was caught in 1973, the fisherman (Tom Mann) decided to keep it in an aquarium–sort of a half-ass catch-and-release, I suppose. Mann named the fish Leroy Brown (after the Jim Croce song) and taught him to jump through a hoop he held over the water. Leroy Brown became a town celebrity, and lived for seven years in that tank.
When Leroy Brown died in 1980, Mann held a funeral for him, and it’s said that over 500 mourners attended. The Governor of Alabama even declared it a day of mourning. I’m not making this up. For reasons too complicated to get into here (but not here), Leroy is not buried under this tombstone. But the town fondly recalls his memory.
And since we’re on a whimsical note: Today I had another opportunity to explore paranormal phenomena (after my failed Crossett Spook Light experiment). I learned of a place just a few miles off Route 82 in southwestern Georgia that’s been informally dubbed “Gravity Hill.” At first I thought it might be one of those roadside tourist traps like the Mystery Spot, but it’s actually just an unmarked, lonely stretch of narrow road in the countryside. Here’s how it works: After cresting a gently rolling hill, one drives down to the low point, just before the road begins to climb again. Stop your car here, put it into neutral, and let your foot off the brake. Gravity Hill is supposed to pull you backwards, uphill.
Although skeptical after the Crossett experience, I was willing to give it a whirl. So I cruised to the outskirts of the town of Fort Gaines on a narrow country road. I stopped my car at the low point, put the rental car in neutral, and released the brake. Nothing. I was about to declare this another fraud when I noticed that I was very slowly beginning to roll backwards, up the hill I’d just come down. The car gradually picked up speed until I was rolling uphill at maybe 10 mph. I repeated this several times, and it worked each time. I even recorded this video so you can judge for yourself:
I guarantee there’s no trick photography or anything like that going on. You’re seeing exactly what I saw. You may think it’s some kind of natural illusion or something like that, but I prefer not to think about it too hard.
I lost an hour due to a time zone change when I entered Georgia, so after my gravity experiment I decided to hunker down for the night in Albany, Georgia (pop: 69,000). Tomorrow I plan to reach the coastal terminus of US 82 in Brunswick.
Brew of the Day
I stopped in at the Mellow Mushroom, a pizza restaurant in Albany. It’s part of a multi-state collection of such restaurants, but each one is locally owned. And the company began in nearby Atlanta, so my guilt from eating at a chain restaurant was attenuated a bit.
As you might imagine, the “mellow mushroom” theme is expressed in the decor and menu in the form of psychedelic trips, Jimmy Hendrix, the 1960s, and general hippie-ness. The sculpture in front of the restaurant says it all:
Anyway, this place has a surprisingly large beer menu. So, along with my pepperoni-bacon-jalapeno pizza, I ordered a Stone Xocaveza imperial stout.
Now, San Diego-based Stone is a reliable brewery, with big, hop-forward beers. I especially like their Arrogant Bastard Ale. The Xocoveza looks inviting: the color is of a ruby-shot Coca Cola. It has no head to speak of, and in fact there’s little evidence even of carbonation. But none of this is fatal for a stout. And the nose is quite inviting–it smells of chocolate, maybe a hint of anise. Let’s see how it tastes…
(Sip. Gulp. Gag.)
This is quite possibly the worst Stone beer I’ve tasted. Flat as my feet. It’s like the half-finished glass of generic-brand root beer you put in the refrigerator and then forgot about. For a month.
Unlike a normal stout, this is not malty. And it’s not hoppy. In fact, it’s not really beer-y. The taste reminds me of meatloaf, somehow converted to liquid form.
But that’s a bit unfair…to meatloaf. I’m not a fan of meatloaf, but I acknowledge that it delivers a blend of different tastes. This beer, on the other hand, is one-dimensional. It lacks the complexity that one seeks in a good beer. What you taste on the front end is what you taste on the back end. And this tastes like back end.
And another thing–this is marketed as an “imperial stout.” In my book, the “imperial” part is supposed to signify a “big” beer, with an ABV that gets into the double digits. This, however, weighs in at a puny 8.1 percent. I suppose that might be about right for some people. But unless you wear a short-sleeved white shirt and place the title “Elder” before you last name, I think you’ll find the Xocoveza to lack the bite you’d expect from an imperial stout.
I give it one star. And that’s just because I like the color and the nose on this beer.
This morning I left my motel in Greenville and resumed my eastward journey on US 82. After about 15 minutes I came to a familiar town: Leland, MS (pop: 3,900). I had come through Leland just last Spring, when I made my storied road trip along the Blues Highway (i.e., US Route 61). You’ll recall that The Blues Highway is a north-south route that roughly parallels the Mississippi River, and it intersects Route 82 in Leland. And as we learned in last year’s blog post, Leland is the birthplace of Muppets creator Jim Henson. Which seems pretty random.
Less random is the fact that the Mississippi Legislature named this stretch of US 82 after native son B.B. King.
About a third of the way across Mississippi I came to the town of Greenwood (not to be confused with Greenville, where I started today’s journey). Greenwood was established at the confluence of the Yalobusha River and the Tallahatchie River. Yes, that Tallahatchie River. The one into which Billie Joe MacAllister jumped, as described in Bobbie Gentry’s “Ode to Billie Joe.” That song references a “Tallahatchie Bridge,” but the bridge Gentry was supposedly thinking about was destroyed by vandals in 1972. A few years later, in 1976, Max Baer Jr (who you know as Jethro from The Beverly Hillbillies) made a movie version of Gentry’s song. The movie used another bridge in the Greenwood area, but this too was demolished in 1987.
We are left, therefore, with Greenwood’s Ashwood Bridge as a decent stand-in for the place where Billie Joe ended his life. This bridge was constructed while Gentry was living in Greenwood age 12, and it stands just a block from the school she attended. So it’s certainly plausible that it was in her mind when she wrote the lyrics.
Indeed, the good people of the Mississippi Country Music Trail have placed a marker at the Ashwood Bridge to commemorate Bobbie Gentry and her song. Appropriately, however, they stopped short of saying that this bridge and the one in the song are one and the same.
If you like, you can watch Bobbie Gentry perform the song here:
So, we got the blues, we got frog puppets, we got the Ode to Billie Joe…what else is this part of Mississippi known for? That’s right, it’s in the middle of the Bible Belt. Exhibit A can be seen on US 82 just outside of Greenwood. It’s a 120-foot-tall, 20-ton cross, complete with spotlights and surrounded by a set of speakers that perpetually play religious piano music. The cross was erected in 2021 by The Rev. Dr. Jim Phillips of North Greenwood Baptist Church.
Now, while that might look to you to be a one-of-a-kind project, take a look at what I encountered just 30 minutes further down US 82:
This one, however, dispenses with the piano music and instead displays a dozen tablets with scripture engraved on them.
I was unable to dig up anything about this second cross, other than it was erected in 2014 and it is 120 feet tall (just like the one in Greenwood). I also learned that evidently there are a number of other, identical crosses scattered around the state.
This second cross is on the outskirts of Winona (pop: 4,500). Like so many other towns from the 19th century, Winona sprung up around a railroad station (and not the other way around). In this case, the railroad was the Mississippi Central. The station and the town were established in 1860 and 1861, respectively. Winona’s rail service was discontinued by Amtrak in 1995, but the station still stands.
I had a particular reason for wanting to visit the depot: I had read a newspaper article touting a worthy restaurant named “The Tracks” that had opened in the depot in 2019. I found the depot easy enough, but the restaurant had evidently gone out of business.
A passerby saw me looking in the windows and said “You’re scopin’ the place out because you want to open a restaurant here, huh?” I told him I was actually just looking to eat at a restaurant, not open one. He responded that the owner moved his restaurant to another location when the city started construction on a big clock tower across the street. I get the sense that the city was trying to improve the commercial attractiveness of the area, but it backfired when one of their few businesses got angry about the construction noise and dust. I grimly observed that a whole block of historic buildings across the street from the depot were all closed, and none seemed to be about to open any time soon.
I asked my new friend if he had any suggestions for getting lunch. He directed me to a mobile barbecue rig that comes to the area on the first and third Saturday of each month. I thanked him. Then he asked me if the recommendation was worth a few bucks, “so as I could get a cup of hot coffee.” It was.
The mobile barbecue joint was a family affair set up in the parking lot of a State Farm office. The wife (or maybe the daughter) took my order from a trailer.
Meanwhile, the husband (who calls himself “Grill Master Shawn”) and his friend (?) were working the barbecue.
While the cole slaw was forgettable, I have to admit that the pulled pork sandwich was one of the best I’ve eaten. So if you ever find yourself in Winona on the first or third Saturday of the month, check out the Grill Master!
On the way out of town I passed an old Ford dealership, which is in remarkably good shape. According to my research, it was built around 1920, making it one of the earliest buildings dedicated specifically to Ford. (Recall that the Model T had first come out just a dozen years earlier, in 1908.)
This dealership, owned by one E. K. Myrick., was Mississippi’s first Ford dealer.
At the end of today’s travels I came to the town of Starkville, Mississippi (pop: 25,000). Starkville is known for several things, not the least of which is Mississippi State University. In fact, you see the college mascot (a bulldog) everywhere.
But I have known about Starkville for a different reason, since I was a mere lad of 8 years old. That was the year my Dad let me buy a record album for the family stereo, and for reasons now unclear to me I selected the Johnny Cash at San Quentin live album. One of the songs on that album is “Starkville City Jail,” whose lyrics describe how Johnny Cash was arrested for picking flowers in the town in 1965. Or so he says. The full story is here. Anyway, the only thing I knew about Starkville until today was that it was where Johnny Cash got arrested for picking flowers.
Oh, and here’s the song:
Tomorrow I plan to take US 82 through the rest of Mississippi and into Alabama. But first, I need to leave you with the:
Brew of the Day
I got today’s BOTD at a restaurant called Georgia Blue in Starkville, MS. It’s an imperial IPA made by Southern Prohibition Brewing in Hattiesburg, MS. They call it “Crowd Control,” for reasons that I’m unable to divine.
As you can see, this beer is slightly cloudy and has a thick head. The mouthfeel is smooth and pleasing. This beer lacks the strong, bitter hoppiness of the California IPAs that I’m familiar with. As a result of all this, the beer is quite quaffable. In terms of taste, pineapple and citrus notes predominate. But the taste is somewhat one-dimensional. It lacks the complexity you’d want from an imperial IPA. The ABV clocks in at 8 percent. Overall, it’s a serviceable beer, but not worth driving to Mississippi for. I give it 3.5 stars out of five.
After getting my complimentary coffee and scone from the Niles Hotel this morning, I made a final circuit of Alturas looking for one final NCO structure. Apparently the old locomotive shops buildings are still around, but I could not find an address on the Interwebs. There was just this historic photo from the Modoc County Museum:
So I just cruised around the city, trying to hew to the rail line on the theory that railroad shops would be connected to the tracks somehow. Only two structures even remotely resembled the rightmost building in the historic photo, but I think they are not what I’m looking for. Here they are:
Anyone with information or even a hunch (I’m looking at you, Quasimodo) please let me know!
Around 9:30 am I left Alturas in defeat, and got back onto US 395 north. On my way to Lakeview, OR (which you will recall was the northern terminus of the NCO Railway), I passed a couple of noteworthy sites:
Finally I arrived in Lakeview, Oregon (pop: 2,500).
Just to the west of downtown I found the depot. It looked to be a happening place, with numerous cars parked in front.
But it turned out that these cars all belong to the depot’s owner. For unlike the other depots on this trip, this one is serving as a private residence. The owner’s name is Carmen, and she bought the depot from the second owner (after the railroad sold it). She appears to have changed little of the outside of the building. As for the interior, I can’t say. She steadfastly ignored my repeated hints that I’d like to see the inside.
Interestingly, the tracks immediately behind the depot are still active. It seems there’s a short line railroad that ships goods between Lakeview and Alturas. The tracks are essentially unprotected, and run just a dozen or so feet from the depot’s back door. For a railfan, it sounds ideal. For anyone else, it sounds noisy and dangerous. But I am grateful to Carmen for preserving this piece of NCO history.
It was now finally time to fulfill the whole point of this trip: A return visit to Eagleville, CA. I said goodbye to Carmen and headed back down US 395 to Surprise Junction, then headed east on CA-299. After about an hour and a half I stopped in Cedarville (pop: 425) to get gas and lunch. Cedarville is only 17 miles from Eagleville, but the latter has almost no services, so I made use of the former.
While pumping gas I noticed numerous campers and RVs and VW buses lining up at the pumps. Almost all of them were carrying bicycles and other equipment, and the drivers and passengers all had fluorescent hair. “Burners,” muttered the gas station attendant. In response to my confused look, he explained that these folks were all going to the annual Burning Man event in the Black Rock desert. It struck me that, in their effort to be independent and iconoclastic, they all looked and behaved exactly the same way. That said, I did have to admire the work this guy put into his Burner Mobile.
About 20 minutes after I’d finished my pit stop in Cedarville, I was standing in Eagleville (pop: 45) for the first time in almost half a century.
The first thing I noticed was the general store, which was originally built in 1876. It’s gone out of business, and the owners seem to be trying their luck renting it out as a B&B. I think that might be a stretch. The 150-year-old exterior walls look largely unchanged from when I had last seen it.
Across from the general store was the old (1888) church I’d remembered. It looked almost exactly the same as my memory, though I read it underwent some restoration work in 2000. This time, though, the door was locked. Evidently they are less trusting than they once were. And who can blame them? I also read the church no longer holds regular worship services.
I then went down the street to the street Aunt Alice’s family maintains three homes. The house where we’d spent Thanksgiving in the mid-1970s was still there, seemingly frozen in time. The South Warner Mountains still stand sentry over the town.
Notably, I did not see one living soul in Eagleville. Maybe people stay indoors during the mid-day heat. But l it did feel a little unsettling. I guess some people prefer a quiet, isolated existence. Indeed, the gas station attendant in Cedarville told me he left Alturas to “escape the rat race.” He likes “how small this town of Cedarville is.”
But Cedarville is a metropolis compared to Eagleville. At least Cedarville has a gas station. Most of Eagleville’s erstwhile businesses are long closed. Like the Eagleville Garage.
I think I’d go crazy in a place like Eagleville. But I’m glad it exists, and I’m glad that some people make it their home. We all need to find the place that suits us. In addition, there’s also something reassuring about a memory from my past retaining some physical form.
After melancholy reflections such as these, I got back on the road and started to head home. Hundreds of “burners” shared the road with me as they made their way to the Black Rock desert, seeking to transform one of the country’s most desolate places into a teeming metropolis….if only for a week.
Mail Bag/Miscellany:
I neglected to mention in yesterday’s blog that Uncle Ed’s Dome of Foam includes information on the NGO and its depots. Here is the link.
See also some further input that Ed and others posted in the comments section of yesterday’s blog.
Finally, here’s Edward’s photo of Carmen’s “house,” back when it was serving a very different function.
Chasing Phantoms 
