GRIMES MILL: Fire Rages Under Blustery Skies

This is a hell of a picture, Lannie. There's something amiss tonight in Smallville . It's the biggest thing to hit this burg in years. Oh, the excitement!

Excitement, but no joy, Jack.  That was really an important part of the landscape in this little burg of only about 30,000 people.

 

--Lannie

URBAN LANDSCAPE: Big event for a small town--a major historicallandmark (Grimes Mill) went up in flames. Failing to get many shotsof the fire itself, I contented myself with getting most shots on theperiphery of what was happening. Other shots of the mill in bettertimes are in this folder as well. Comments welcome.

--Lannie

Sorry, Lannie, I was a bit too glib in my comment. I don't think we value the past enough in our rush to embrace the new. As Joni Mitchell sang "you don't know what you've got till it's gone..." (Although I think you had a pretty good idea all along).

Jack, I knew where you were coming from all along.  It is remarkable how iconic even minor landmarks become in small towns.  Every little section of cobblestone is valued, and every encroachment on some old tract or farm or road becomes a big civic issue.  It might not be too strong to say that rather mundane buildings and places become major shrines in small town America.  Perhaps some of that is due to the fact that the European presence in many areas does not go back very far at all.  I would like to see how the Japanese treat their historical shrines by comparison, especially considering how abruptly Japan went from its feudal era into modernity after the American fleet sailed into Tokyo Bay.

 

I moved to Salisbury in 2005, and I have come to treasure each little historic island that survives in an era of more and more strip malls and other manifestations of rather aggressive industrialization.

 

--Lannie

Salisbury Post news coverage by Hugh Fisher:

 

[LINK]

http://www.salisburypost.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20130116/SP01/130119728/&template=artpex#pex1