Abandoned Iowa: Images of the Vacant Heartland

by Mitch Nicholson

Overview

For as long as civilization has grown and thrived, victims of progress are inevitably left behind. Abandoned Iowa: Vacant Heartland captures evocative images of what life once resembled across the Hawkeye State. Readers embark on a photographic journey through the lens of Nicholson’s camera as they experience the deteriorating buildings and structures of Iowa’s past. Images of disregarded structures allure the reader with the echoes of their previous existence. Discover forlorn farmsteads where weeds and briars are the only crops; dilapidated schools with blackboards still clinging to crumbling walls; condemned churches whose congregations have long moved on; and decommissioned bridges that no longer provide safe passage. Broken windows reveal the warped and haunting confines of structures once warm and inviting. Take a tour of Iowa’s past via the forsaken present. Abandoned Iowa: Vacant Heartland exhibits images of past lives across the rural communities and small towns that epitomized life in the heartland of Iowa, while providing a look into the genesis of the photo-journalistic endeavor now known to thousands of social media followers as Abandoned Iowa.
Find more Abandoned Iowa content at Facebook.com/AbandonedIowa and Instagram @AbandonedIowa.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781634992350
Publisher:	Fonthill Media
Publication date:	08/24/2020
Series:	America Through Time
Pages:	96
Product dimensions:	6.30(w) x 9.10(h) x 0.40(d)

About the Author

MITCH NICHOLSON is part historian, part photographer, and the principle content creator for Abandoned Iowa. After becoming enamored with the aesthetic of abandoned structures, Nicholson established Abandoned Iowa on multiple social-media platforms as a digital gallery during his freshman year at college in fall of 2010. Since then, Abandoned Iowa continues to grow. Nicholson still resides in a suburb of Des Moines, Iowa, and continues to produce photographs and videos under the Abandoned Iowa banner while working professionally in the IT field.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments 4

Preface 5

Introduction 7

1 Bridges 13

2 Schools 37

3 Main Street 68

4 Churches 77

5 Homesteads 90

Epilogue 96

Editorial Reviews

Nicholson’s photographs of decrepit bridges, forsaken farmhouses, deserted mom-and-pop stores, empty churches and orphaned schools in small towns across the Hawkeye State are haunting and inspire a sense of awe. Captured with somber beauty, these images have the potential to steer readers into eerie emotional territories, as they did for me, even evoking a sense of nostalgia or loss for places I’d never heard of, let alone visited.Little Village MagazineThe images are accompanied by text providing details about the structures, their locations and the historical context that led up to their inglorious demise. Unsentimental and objectively captioned, the information contained herein provides fascinating dimensions to this gallery of forgotten monuments of Iowa life.Little Village Magazine

From the Publisher