Twelve thousand souls. History: flashpoint for 1960s Civil Rights strife. (It now has a Black mayor and majority-black City Council.) Lynyrd Skynyrd's plane crashed nearby.

Twins.

The Vitrolite is coming off the building on the right, leaving the tell-tale signs of Glue Pox.

It looks as if a neutron bomb hit in '47.

From these shots, everything seems to have fallen apart, and decline seems unstoppable.

What is this, a crime scene? Or are we meant to keep our distance so the beast can die in peace?

Uh-oh: blurry picture c. 2007

And so. It looks as if it once had a second story, doesn’t it?

I said I’d finish painting it when I finished painting it. Now git off my back

Looks like it was scarred by an acid-thrower.

This vacant area is now a rather nice little park.

Except there’s nothing to do and you can’t go there.

Whew: a nicely-done restoration:

That’s some careful, considerate work. Nothing flashy. What mattered most was the clock, and it seems fine.

Another loss; another building defined by its absence.

But next door is another local gem.

How it looked originally, I don’t know; was it painted?

Commercial-style bank, still performing the same functions as the day it was completed.

Nice little town. A round of applause for a place that did it well. But there's more! That's the next page.