Fife thousand souls. The Wikipedia entry editorializes a bit: "Brewton was ranked as one of the 100 best small towns in America in Norman Crampton's book, The 100 Best Small Towns in America(1995) Brewton has a unique combination of wealth, natural resources and good public schools that are unusual for rural South Alabama."

The tornado done took the whole town, but spared the theater?

Actually, no. As far as I can tell from cinema treasures, this was a reconstruction of a downtown movie theater, put on the outskirts as a community-info center.

Odd, but not unwelcome.

I don’t know what he’s doing to that tree.

I know what the truck is doing, and that’s carrying trees away.

That poor building in the middle. Even in its prime, it was a misbegotten thing.

“I need a way to let folks now we’re not open for business, today, or ever.”

Welcome to the Exhibitionists Who Like to Stand on Tippy Toe Center, how may I help?

Good Lord:

That’s the definition of writhing with ornamentation, and I just hope they let everyone out before they glassed it up for good.

Well, they tried:

When you play the game so fast on a slow card, and the textures don’t load when you enter a new room:

Running the railroad smack down the middle of main street has a peculiar effect on the siting of the buildings, and the way they relate to each other, or don’t.

Luttrell Hardware, 1912. Seems that was a good year for Brewton.

One of the largest stores between this bigger city and another bigger city, according to the historic preservation nomination form.

We know it had a neighbor, once.

One could speculate that the store that collapsed, or burned, was called Anti’s.

You wonder if the fellow who built the place on the left ever kicked himself, because heck, he could’ve put up another story, too. Rented it out. Made a little extra.

The possibilities of that second floorf, fascinate me. One guy with a desk and a filing cabinet? Or a rented room for hired men?

Some towns get the ornate Federal buildings. Some get grey WPA machines for living. And then there’s this style . . .

. . . which isn’t.

That’s it.

That’s Brewton, more or less.