Documentary Small-town Vibes

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Gearannan
 
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I found myself in Weatherford, Texas a couple of days ago. Weatherford is a small town approximately 40 miles west of Fort Worth.

This mural on York Street is currently being restored.

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I came across a guy working on a 1954 Ford pickup truck. He had converted it into a hot rod. These ladies were painted on the engine.

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The back room at Buchanan's Art Gallery and Metaphysical Shop

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Just found this thread @MiguelATF
What a gem, and the pictures from all others, as well. I just realised that movie industry has made these sceneries so familiar for me as well, that I can almost feel nostalgia. Never been in such a small towns, though. And scenery in my country is totally different. Fairly large country with relatively small number of people. Long, lonely roads and barely recognisable villages/towns time to time. We Finns tend to like spending time on our own, and that's how it has been also 😂
 
Matero said:
Just found this thread @MiguelATF
What a gem, and the pictures from all others, as well. I just realised that movie industry has made these sceneries so familiar for me as well, that I can almost feel nostalgia. Never been in such a small towns, though. And scenery in my country is totally different. Fairly large country with relatively small number of people. Long, lonely roads and barely recognisable villages/towns time to time. We Finns tend to like spending time on our own, and that's how it has been also 😂
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I grew up in a largely suburban city but visited larger cities often. My first encounters with small or smaller towns came during family car trips, and later trips with friends, where we wound up driving through parts of the local state or the countryside which were much more remote or rural or occasionally wild & savage than what I was familiar with. And, along the way, the roads or highways would occasionally pass through small towns - which always fascinated me. Years later, going away to college, I lived in a very small city which was basically more like a town than a city - and loved it. Now, many decades later, I've left cities behind and spend most of my time in the small town where I live and also in other towns - though I frequently visit friends or family in larger cities... which, in a way, I think is a little like having the best of two worlds.

If you have the occasion, I urge you to take a road trip or two to isolated places... it's really quite a different experience, for more reasons than I could possibly begin to put down, here.
 
MiguelATF said:
I live in an area with multiple smaller towns or cities, in southern Oregon. Talent, my adopted home town, has a population of approximately 7,500 souls. Neighboring Ashland, home to the tourist attracting OSF (Oregon Shakespeare Festival), has a population of around 25,000, give or take. Phoenix, just to the north of Talent, has a bit more than 5,000 inhabitants, while Medford, the truly 'enormous' (by southern Oregon standards) city, has maybe 50,000 residents. It also boasts a small regional airport, and several large Costco-style box stores. The point being that life in smaller towns and cities - where everyone seems to know everyone else - has a different rhythm and vibe to it, than life in L.A. or San Francisco, not to mention NYC or Mexico City. The other thing about smaller towns is, they don't have endless suburbs which stretch on for miles and hours; when you reach city limits, there is often farmland, woods, or open country just outside of town - something that doesn't happen all that much when one lives in the larger metropoli. Small towns have old Diners, ancient Mom & Pop grocery stores, and occasional inquisitive quadruped visitors, including deer, raccoons and the ubiquitous coyotes, who sometimes stroll about casually, in search of the nourishment we all need.

I'm starting this thread to both document my own small-town images - and those of anyone else who'd care to post or participate.

This photo was taken in downtown Phoenix, which suffered the same disastrous wildfire 2 years ago that burned its way through parts of my town, and burned nearly a quarter of Phoenix itself, including this portion of its admittedly rural downtown. The local donut shop burned up - but, surprisingly, the large fiberglass donut sculpture out in front of the old store, survived. Now the donut shop has been rebuilt into a new building, which, supposedly, will reopen again... soon.

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Not all small towns have a donut shop. Talent, where I live, has several coffee shops, but no dedicated Donutery. But in the near future, when one has a donut fix, Puck's is only 5 minutes away.

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A few lifetimes ago, when I lived in southern California, there were dozens of donut shops around. But here, in southern Oregon, where espresso-centric Cafés proliferate, having a local donut place (which serves relatively weak coffee) ... suggests that maybe the world isn't as screwed-up as one might have feared.
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Great idea, and coming from London originally, and living in what's becoming a very crowded England, I have always been fascinated by photos of rural American small towns, I'll enjoy looking these. 😄
 
A drive through Pine Creek, Montana...beginning on the outskirts until there is only a small remnant of a stone cottage.
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Village party ("Fläcke" lit. means "a village - not a town - with a local market" - from the middle ages) - showing the national soccer team's next match in order to draw more people. Switzerland has reached the quarter finals of the European Championship - rare enough to be an (extra) reason to celebrate - and do it in company.

M.
 
Most small towns I've been in or lived in have at least one vacant dirt lot with one or two dinosaur-like non-operative ancient pickup trucks. Also, depending on the particular town, you can usually also find at least one ancient rusted Volkswagen corpse - and one rusting cadaver of a Volvo that must have been someone's daily driver back in the 60's.

This ancient rusting Volvo is parked in a dirt lot just outside of Ashland, Oregon.

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