The topic this week was chosen by Pauline from New Zealand.
Gem, Kansas-
Ten miles from my home, I'm told this community was once larger than Colby. That must have been a century or more ago. We have about 5,000 full time residents. In 2008, the population of Gem was listed at 87, down from 96 in the 2000 census.
A long time resident of the community told me that a couple of farmers bought this building for one dollar when the school closed in the 1960's. They were going to tear it down and recycle the bricks. They planned to ship them to California, selling them as used bricks, only to find out that the mortar was harder than the bricks!
High School
Gem, Kansas- Methodist Church
Gem, Kansas-drugstore
Gem, Kansas-
Ten miles from my home, I'm told this community was once larger than Colby. That must have been a century or more ago. We have about 5,000 full time residents. In 2008, the population of Gem was listed at 87, down from 96 in the 2000 census.
A long time resident of the community told me that a couple of farmers bought this building for one dollar when the school closed in the 1960's. They were going to tear it down and recycle the bricks. They planned to ship them to California, selling them as used bricks, only to find out that the mortar was harder than the bricks!
High School
Gem, Kansas- Methodist Church
Gem, Kansas-drugstore
23 comments:
Great photos. This is exactly how I interpreted the theme this week. The buildings in your photos are aged and weathered and yet, they are beautiful to look at.
Great photos but so sad to see old and disused buildings once full of life but still lovely to look at.
Sara
Such interesting photos Mary. Don't you wish those buildings could talk???
great take on the theme. It looks like a ghost town.
Wonderful shots. The old school looks abandoned...so sad.
Looks like a frontier ghost town. The church and that old drugstore look like something out of a Wild West movie set. Maybe the KS film commission needs to put Gem into its guide for movie makers.
Lovely shot of the bell tower! I envy you this photographer's paradise...
you wonder why a town just up and dies. I love the wooden Meth church - would like to see more of the building. good shoot out.
these are all fabulous!love the church bell. great shoot out!!
How interesting, you can't much more aged and weathered than an almost empty town. Great idea for the theme.
I can imagine the owner of the drugstore living upstairs and being disturbed all hours of the night by mothers needing medication for their family. Well, that's my story and I'm sticking to it. Good job.
I LOVE the weathered wood of the church! And the date on the school is very cool! Oh the memories in those buildings!!!
Very nice photos. I love to see all the little towns in Kansas :)
These are some of the best this week. Good work!
It's wonderful how you caught the light on that bell and the tower. The last photo seems hauntingly sad. Sad but lovely.
Oh so very nice ...loved the church and the drugstore!!!
I love the second photo most. aged but still beautiful. thanks for sharing!
Really great shots - I love the church one. Who would have thought that "Aged and Weathered" would yield such beauty!
I hope the bell is not aged to be rung.
Great photos
I have always thought it would be fun to live in a disused school like that. The expense of converting it to a home would be outrageous, but wouldn't it be cool?
Living in the old church (which certainly does have the stamp of Methodism on it!) would be fun too.
The drugstore...oh I would want to sniff and touch those boards. It makes me think of the long-unused "hired man's room" on the farm where I lived while very young. Completely abandoned, but still something, if only memories, alive in there.
These buildings are full of stories and history. Some one needs to preserve them and save them. I guess it would be next to impossible to even try to research anything. It would take forever. The school reminds me of those around my neighbourhood in Canada. Thanks for this interesting photo shoot.
Oh, that old building - how many ghosts and stories there must be!
I loved the photos but they also make me sad to see buildings from the past sit unused and then falling down. Just like all the barns here that are disappearing.
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