[Leica] Schoolhouses in Indiana

[jayanand at gmail.com (Jayanand Govindaraj)]

They look absolutely deserted - except for the one photograph with cycles.
Why is this? Is it that schooling has moved on to better buildings or more
central locations, or the people living in those areas have moved on?
Cheers
Jayanand

On Sun, Jan 27, 2013 at 4:40 AM, Chris Crawford <
chris at chriscrawfordphoto.com> wrote:

> Yeah, its just sitting there. I don't know who owns it anymore. Back when
> I photographed it, the schoolhouse was owned by an elderly woman whose
> house was across the street (I stood in her front yard to photograph the
> schoolhouse). She said her mother had been a student at the school! A few
> years later, the old woman died. I know it is relatively well preserved
> inside, because a historic preservation group was allowed inside to
> photograph it several years ago.
>
> Most of these schoolhouses are in very bad shape. Most are gutted inside
> (they originally had walls separating the classroom from the entranceway
> and coat room), many have been used as barns or corn storage buildings
> after cutting away one of the outside walls. There are several that were
> converted into homes, and are still inhabited and well maintained, but
> that involved destroying the interior to build walls for the various rooms
> a house has, and adding plumbing, which none of these ever had. They make
> poor houses, in my opinion, because they are VERY small. I know of one
> that is a two story schoolhouse! It is an art gallery now.
>
> Most of the schoolhouses were built to a more or less standard design. A
> few have two classrooms. Most in northeast Indiana were built between 1880
> and 1910 and abandoned in the 1950s. There used to be one schoolhouse
> every two miles on a grid pattern so that no student had to walk more than
> one mile to get to school....this was before automobiles were widely
> available, and long before school buses came into use.
>
> I have photos of more schoolhouses here:
> http://chriscrawfordphoto.com/chris-results.php?category=48
>
> Most on that page are outside Fort Wayne, but one is in Kentucky and a
> couple othersare in other parts of Indiana. I have a lot more photos to
> add, once I scan them.
>
> --
> Chris Crawford
> Fine Art Photography
> Fort Wayne, Indiana
> 260-437-8990
>
> http://www.chriscrawfordphoto.com  My portfolio
>
> http://blog.chriscrawfordphoto.com  My latest work!
>
> http://www.facebook.com/pages/Christopher-Crawford/48229272798
> Become a fan on Facebook
>
>
>
> On 1/26/13 3:14 PM, "Nathan Wajsman" <photo at frozenlight.eu> wrote:
>
> >Beautiful. I have seen some of those in North Florida, but this one looks
> >much nicer. Is it just sitting there, deteriorating?
> >
> >Cheers,
> >Nathan
> >
> >Nathan Wajsman
> >Alicante, Spain
> >http://www.frozenlight.eu
> >http://www.greatpix.eu
> >PICTURE OF THE WEEK: http://www.fotocycle.dk/paws
> >Blog: http://nathansmusings.wordpress.com/
> >
> >YNWA
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >On Jan 22, 2013, at 2:00 PM, Chris Crawford wrote:
> >
> >> This is the second photograph that I made of the abandoned one-room
> >>brick
> >> schoolhouse at Besancon, Indiana. It was made in 1998 as part of my art
> >> school graduation portfolio.
> >>
> >> http://chriscrawfordphoto.com/chris-details.php?product=1590
> >>
> >> --
> >> Chris Crawford
> >> Fine Art Photography
> >> Fort Wayne, Indiana
> >> 260-437-8990
> >>
> >> http://www.chriscrawfordphoto.com  My portfolio
> >>
> >> http://blog.chriscrawfordphoto.com  My latest work!
> >>
> >> http://www.facebook.com/pages/Christopher-Crawford/48229272798
> >> Become a fan on Facebook
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> Leica Users Group.
> >> See http://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for more information
> >>
> >
> >
> >_______________________________________________
> >Leica Users Group.
> >See http://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for more information
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Leica Users Group.
> See http://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for more information
>