Almost three thousand souls. Wikipedia says "Bicknell was laid out in 1869 by John Bicknell, and named for him." Okay then. Vincennes is the cloest big town, at 16K. It's close to the Illinois border, in the southwest part of the state. You've never heard of it and you'll never think about after today.

Why, it’s the Flatiron of Bicknell!

Buildings like these give character to an intersection, just because they’re different. A testament to the ability to commodify space whenever possible.

It could benefit from some love, though. The planter and the field of gravel isn’t doing much for the intersection.

Let's study one blasted block. I think that’s a Google Car distortion, not a temporary bend in space. Unless one brings the other.

Remnant of a departed neighbor on the left.

The Google caught it before it was removed:

The entire block looks doomed:

A perfectly fine store front once. Wonder what was sold here.

There’s a quality of despair that attends these old places in their last days. There’s something about this that feels vindictive.

The other side of the street:

Ah - perhaps it was the automotive center of the town, back in the bustling 20s?

Recent view.

The other side of the street:

It's like they just sawed off a hunk.

I’m getting a strange vibe from this town. As if they painted everything white to cover some damning stain.

This is a before pic, but eventually it’ll be an after pic, too.

I thought it was RWIN, and that the H of the lower “hardware” was somehow wrapping around a corner, untilI figured it out.

The shadow fooled me into thinking the corner was notched.

Sweet Jeebus, the indignities these old citizens must endure. The siding. The fake rock. A sliver of their neighbor still grafted to their side.

Not, perhaps, the best advertisement for the product.

Bricked up windows, scoured cornice, despoiled ground floor, but probably here for the duration, unless -

Oh well

Here’s a solid old fellow, with his windows converted to modern standards. Buckaroo’d awning. Nothing special, but it doesn’t look as if it’s going to fall down tomorrow.

These twins are so intent on asserting their own distinctiveness they have different types of shingles on the awnings.

I’m a fan of glass block windows, but I think in this case it makes the side look closed off and remote. Quite a statement of security to have big plate-glass windows on a bank, though. I guess if they thought anyone was going to rob them, they’d come in the front door, not make a lot of noise breaking a window.

Presto . . .

Change-o!

Roll back time a bit. If that’s original, it was an ungodly mess of a facade.

Your Hopperesque main street view.

This town may have had the worst architects in the state - at least when it came to rehabbing. The way that corner pole looks like Long John Silver’s pegleg. The Buckaroo’d overhang goes inside the pole. I tell you, it’s almost irredeemable - but if someone wanted, this could be brought back to a dignified state.

Or not.

Our last building: this can be explained by someone ripping out the projecting bay, I think.

And then they made another brick wall but left the windows but closed them up?

It’s confusing.

Not that it matters.