The Mystery of an Abandoned Farm.
First, consider the place I am going to show you is a tiny dot nestled amongst all of this:
Perhaps you're flying in a plane, looking down and you watch it for a moment wondering what it is. Then the stewardess asks you a question, you turn to answer her, and when you turn back, the place has passed by only to be forgotten.
If you were driving by it on in a car you might look out the window and see this view for a few seconds. Maybe you would notice something unusual about it and become curious.
If you stood in front of it, you'd notice it's not just a farm, but an abandoned farm.
If you're me, you go exploring...
I parked my car near the road where a driveway used to be. I make the following observations: The small building on the west is definitely not in use because the roof is falling down. But the main house doesn't look as bad: Could someone still be living here? Grass is growing over a foot high all over the property but the driveway leading to the farm has definitely had vehicles on it somewhat recently. There is an old red pickup truck on the edge of the property, some equipment in the back behind the houses, and three or four large pieces of oddly colourful farm machinery away from the houses to the east. What kind of place is this?
The red pickup truck is the farthest item to the western edge of the property so I check that out first.
This pickup hasn't been used in so long that rats or something similar were nesting in the cab. Bedding had fallen out of the cab when I opened the door and droppings were present all around. This is (approximately) a 1955 GMC pickup truck. It is 54 years old.
Behind the smaller house that I've skipped for now is another GMC pickup, this one on its side. This is back when trucks were simple: notice all the open space in the engine compartment? I love the huge mechanical horn in the lower left.
At abandoned remote places I see the chassis of cars and tricks on their side and upside down and always wonder who makes the effort to tip them over?
Near the back of the property are two fuel drums. I've got to assume that the fuel would be delivered periodically and these would allow the farmer to fuel up his truck and heavy farm equipment as needed. Don't smoke near the fuel tanks..
Another clue to the farm? Relatively recent oil containers just tossed in a pile. Was this the farm owner or someone using the land after the owner disappeared?
Two stationary engines for unknown uses. Pumps? Generators? Hard to tell.
A peak inside the barn.. The other views made it hard to photograph and hard to get near without getting into danger from snakes, rats.. or whatever else is around.
This hole in the ground lined with study bricks was either part of a well or a storm shelter or a little bit of both. It was located about 12 feet outside the backdoor of the main house.
Here is the back of the farmhouse... It's definitely abandoned. Want to go in? Sure you do!
The first room I enter is a little office area with a desk. As I pan to the left you'll see a door that goes to the bathroom.
You can see hot+cold water pipes through the wall where the bathroom would be.
The desk is pretty dirty. From the looks of -- everything -- its been a while since this house was inhabited. There was nothing in the drawers -- I checked.
Amazing! They left the television..
This is the central space heater that would have provided heat during cold, windy winters. I don't actually think I recall seeing a fireplace anywhere and this makes sense because there really aren't any trees in this part of the country to chop down for firewood. So you might as well skip that and plug in an electric furnace.
Here I realize that there was probably a sink in the middle and this was a kitchen area, too? Homes in America weren't that big for most people until relatively recently and farm houses were no exception.
I found this old catalogue on top of the television set.. The way the paper is torn suggests rats and mice have been tearing away at it for bedding. What catalogue is this and.. when is it from?
Montgomery Wards from 1976! In the days before Walmart people that lived in rural areas like this would get catalogues from Wards, J.C. Penney and Sears as one of their primary shopping methods. Order it by mail or phone and it would arrive in four to five weeks. Even in Maryland I remember paging through these catalogues when I was kid -- perhaps even this issue.
This is the small living room area..
Some pictures, like this one, will look a bit different because I've enabled the flash.
A solitary chair sits alone in the master bedroom. Imagine standing here in this very spot with a howling wind off in the distance on a cold night, a creaky windmill whistling from near the barn and an old wooden door on a rusty hinge creaking open and banging shut against the wood frame. What happens to you next ?
This is the front porch area where our farmer's family would have sat outside after dinner on warm summer nights watching the cars go by.
After I returned from photographing the porch I found a door in the corner of the living room that went upstairs...
Why is there so much stuff up here and less downstairs? One theory is that people -- like me -- who've explored the house after the owners left took things and missed the upstairs. Another theory would be that squatters might have lived upstairs while the windows and walls of the downstairs started to crumble.
When I explore a place like this I'm usually near a quick exit so if something spooks me I can quickly get out. But upstairs I started to feel a bit trapped, turned around to go back down and noticed just how filthy this place is.
This is a shot of the bathroom as seen from outside. The walls to the bathroom have collapsed and the sink, bathtub and other fixtures are gone.
This second small house sits to the west of the property. There was too much grass and greenery around it for me to get near the front porch and attempt to enter so I had to hold my camera up over my head and take blind shots through the widow.
Three pieces of farm machinery and this GMC truck sat alone in the field about 300 feet east of the house in a grassy field. When I passed by on the road the bright colors of the farm machinery made them look like they were still in use. I thought maybe the farm house is shut down but someone is still operating the farm? So I went to take a closer look..
This truck hasn't been operated in a very long time. The branches and grass were the nest of a bird. The bird, now dead, sits near the front edge of the passenger seat.
From the road this tractor looks like its in good condition. There isn't even that much grass growing around it. I climbed up and opened the unlocked door to take a peek inside.
This picture frame caught my attention. I can imagine a farmer spending hours slowly cultivating the field, occasionally looking down at a picture of his wife or family. I opened the frame to see what was in it but the paper was so old everything had faded to black and the paper disentegrated in my hands upon any light touch.
What happened here?
The property is a typical Oklahoma farm on a fairly large acreage of land. A small farm house, a smaller guest or farm hand house and a classic wooden barn still stand. When they were vacated they were probably in normal condition. It's time and the elements that have brought them to their current condition: there is no sign of a tornado ripping half the house apart and killing the residents, causing the farm to halt its operations.
The red GMC pickup truck on the west part of the property was probably old when the farmers left but keeping old trucks from this era running is something folks out here do well so it was probably still running or close to it. On the eastern part of the property three pieces of farm expensive farm machinery and a GMC truck sit as if they were each parked at the end of work one day and expected to be started up and used on the next.
Nothing about this farm looks like it was carefully shut down with the expectation that operations were going to be suspended or that the equipment was going to be moved or sold. In some ways, this farm just stopped one day.
The land around the farm appears to be cultivated today, at least for grass or wheat. But I don't know if this is official or if this could simply be a nearby farmer letting the grass grow so it could be made in to bails of hay and used for free.
There are too many questions with this place. Having visited it, touched it and experienced it in person the unanswered questions haunt me. If I get the chance in the future, I'll return and find the answers.
Perhaps you're flying in a plane, looking down and you watch it for a moment wondering what it is. Then the stewardess asks you a question, you turn to answer her, and when you turn back, the place has passed by only to be forgotten.
If you were driving by it on in a car you might look out the window and see this view for a few seconds. Maybe you would notice something unusual about it and become curious.
If you stood in front of it, you'd notice it's not just a farm, but an abandoned farm.
If you're me, you go exploring...
I parked my car near the road where a driveway used to be. I make the following observations: The small building on the west is definitely not in use because the roof is falling down. But the main house doesn't look as bad: Could someone still be living here? Grass is growing over a foot high all over the property but the driveway leading to the farm has definitely had vehicles on it somewhat recently. There is an old red pickup truck on the edge of the property, some equipment in the back behind the houses, and three or four large pieces of oddly colourful farm machinery away from the houses to the east. What kind of place is this?
The red pickup truck is the farthest item to the western edge of the property so I check that out first.
This pickup hasn't been used in so long that rats or something similar were nesting in the cab. Bedding had fallen out of the cab when I opened the door and droppings were present all around. This is (approximately) a 1955 GMC pickup truck. It is 54 years old.
Behind the smaller house that I've skipped for now is another GMC pickup, this one on its side. This is back when trucks were simple: notice all the open space in the engine compartment? I love the huge mechanical horn in the lower left.
At abandoned remote places I see the chassis of cars and tricks on their side and upside down and always wonder who makes the effort to tip them over?
Near the back of the property are two fuel drums. I've got to assume that the fuel would be delivered periodically and these would allow the farmer to fuel up his truck and heavy farm equipment as needed. Don't smoke near the fuel tanks..
Another clue to the farm? Relatively recent oil containers just tossed in a pile. Was this the farm owner or someone using the land after the owner disappeared?
Two stationary engines for unknown uses. Pumps? Generators? Hard to tell.
A peak inside the barn.. The other views made it hard to photograph and hard to get near without getting into danger from snakes, rats.. or whatever else is around.
This hole in the ground lined with study bricks was either part of a well or a storm shelter or a little bit of both. It was located about 12 feet outside the backdoor of the main house.
Here is the back of the farmhouse... It's definitely abandoned. Want to go in? Sure you do!
The first room I enter is a little office area with a desk. As I pan to the left you'll see a door that goes to the bathroom.
You can see hot+cold water pipes through the wall where the bathroom would be.
The desk is pretty dirty. From the looks of -- everything -- its been a while since this house was inhabited. There was nothing in the drawers -- I checked.
Amazing! They left the television..
This is the central space heater that would have provided heat during cold, windy winters. I don't actually think I recall seeing a fireplace anywhere and this makes sense because there really aren't any trees in this part of the country to chop down for firewood. So you might as well skip that and plug in an electric furnace.
Here I realize that there was probably a sink in the middle and this was a kitchen area, too? Homes in America weren't that big for most people until relatively recently and farm houses were no exception.
I found this old catalogue on top of the television set.. The way the paper is torn suggests rats and mice have been tearing away at it for bedding. What catalogue is this and.. when is it from?
Montgomery Wards from 1976! In the days before Walmart people that lived in rural areas like this would get catalogues from Wards, J.C. Penney and Sears as one of their primary shopping methods. Order it by mail or phone and it would arrive in four to five weeks. Even in Maryland I remember paging through these catalogues when I was kid -- perhaps even this issue.
This is the small living room area..
Some pictures, like this one, will look a bit different because I've enabled the flash.
A solitary chair sits alone in the master bedroom. Imagine standing here in this very spot with a howling wind off in the distance on a cold night, a creaky windmill whistling from near the barn and an old wooden door on a rusty hinge creaking open and banging shut against the wood frame. What happens to you next ?
This is the front porch area where our farmer's family would have sat outside after dinner on warm summer nights watching the cars go by.
After I returned from photographing the porch I found a door in the corner of the living room that went upstairs...
Why is there so much stuff up here and less downstairs? One theory is that people -- like me -- who've explored the house after the owners left took things and missed the upstairs. Another theory would be that squatters might have lived upstairs while the windows and walls of the downstairs started to crumble.
When I explore a place like this I'm usually near a quick exit so if something spooks me I can quickly get out. But upstairs I started to feel a bit trapped, turned around to go back down and noticed just how filthy this place is.
This is a shot of the bathroom as seen from outside. The walls to the bathroom have collapsed and the sink, bathtub and other fixtures are gone.
This second small house sits to the west of the property. There was too much grass and greenery around it for me to get near the front porch and attempt to enter so I had to hold my camera up over my head and take blind shots through the widow.
Three pieces of farm machinery and this GMC truck sat alone in the field about 300 feet east of the house in a grassy field. When I passed by on the road the bright colors of the farm machinery made them look like they were still in use. I thought maybe the farm house is shut down but someone is still operating the farm? So I went to take a closer look..
This truck hasn't been operated in a very long time. The branches and grass were the nest of a bird. The bird, now dead, sits near the front edge of the passenger seat.
From the road this tractor looks like its in good condition. There isn't even that much grass growing around it. I climbed up and opened the unlocked door to take a peek inside.
This picture frame caught my attention. I can imagine a farmer spending hours slowly cultivating the field, occasionally looking down at a picture of his wife or family. I opened the frame to see what was in it but the paper was so old everything had faded to black and the paper disentegrated in my hands upon any light touch.
What happened here?
The property is a typical Oklahoma farm on a fairly large acreage of land. A small farm house, a smaller guest or farm hand house and a classic wooden barn still stand. When they were vacated they were probably in normal condition. It's time and the elements that have brought them to their current condition: there is no sign of a tornado ripping half the house apart and killing the residents, causing the farm to halt its operations.
The red GMC pickup truck on the west part of the property was probably old when the farmers left but keeping old trucks from this era running is something folks out here do well so it was probably still running or close to it. On the eastern part of the property three pieces of farm expensive farm machinery and a GMC truck sit as if they were each parked at the end of work one day and expected to be started up and used on the next.
Nothing about this farm looks like it was carefully shut down with the expectation that operations were going to be suspended or that the equipment was going to be moved or sold. In some ways, this farm just stopped one day.
The land around the farm appears to be cultivated today, at least for grass or wheat. But I don't know if this is official or if this could simply be a nearby farmer letting the grass grow so it could be made in to bails of hay and used for free.
There are too many questions with this place. Having visited it, touched it and experienced it in person the unanswered questions haunt me. If I get the chance in the future, I'll return and find the answers.
posted by maxwax at
12:00 PM
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