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| The Halfway Trading Post, Halfway, Kentucky | |
U.S. Highway 231 runs 912 miles from St. John, Indiana, just south of Chicago, to Panama City, Florida, crossing the Ohio River from Rockport, Indiana to Owensboro, Kentucky on a mile-long, cable-stayed bridge. It does not go through Chattanooga, but intersects at many points with highways that do -- making it a logical route for the Rock City barn painters to decorate with their signs.
Not many of those barns are left these days, but there were still a few when I was working on my book Rock City Barns: A Passing Era. I found one just north of Spencer, Indiana on a memorable day in 1995 when my Dad rode with me as I looked for barns in south central Indiana, and others were found in Tennessee and Alabama. I only found one in Kentucky, at a little wide spot in the road called Halfway, because it's halfway (roughly) between Bowling Green and Scottsville. I think it may be a four-lane now, but when I was last there it was still a two-lane highway.
Martha Shaddix
Martha Shaddix always wanted to own a Rock City barn.
As a young girl growing up in Florida, she rode up through the South in the back seat of her parents' car to visit relatives in Georgia and North Carolina. Watching the road, watching the barns go by, dreaming of a barn of her own. With a See Rock City sign, by golly.
Her dream came true in 1978 when she bought the old store at Halfway, Kentucky, complete with a See Rock City sign. Opened in 1923, the Halfway Trading Post was, at the time I was making photographs for the book, one of only two country stores still in operation bearing the Rock City message. The other is in west Tennessee and has not been maintained by Rock City for many years.
Life is kinda slow in Halfway, except on U.S. Highway 231, where traffic is kinda zippy. Martha opens up her store every morning, six days a week, and since she's the Postmistress too, she goes out and raises the flag first thing.
After the Rock City Barns book was published Martha sold it in her store for many years. Whenever I passed by that way (not far off the route to my parents' home in Indiana) I would take her a fresh supply.
(Canon EOS A2 Canon EF 24mm f2.8 lens, Fujichrome RDP 100 film)
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(Photograph copyright David B. Jenkins 2020)
Soli Gloria Deo
To the glory of God alone
Yesterday I drove down to McCormick's Creek State Park, just east of Spencer, to see my younger son. Thanks to the pandemic I haven't seen him since Christmas, the longest I've gone not seeing him since he was born 21 years ago.
ReplyDeleteI took US 231 south from I-70 -- and saw that very Rock City barn you mentioned. It's the first one I've ever noticed, probably thanks in large part to you sensitizing me to them!
I had my Nikon F2 and a zoom lens with some Ilford HP4+. I drove back and forth by that barn three times trying to find a safe place to park to photograph it. I never figured it out. I didn't want to pull into the farm property; I didn't want to attract attention, I just wanted one quick shot.
Jenkins' Law of Photo Ops states that "The photogenic qualities of any photographic subject seen from a vehicle are in direct inverse proportion to the possibility of finding a place to park within any reasonable distance."
ReplyDeleteGlad to know the barn is still there.
ReplyDeleteI am an old friend of Martha Shaddix. She worked in a daycare center in California and took care of my children. I am trying to find her now and having trouble. Is she still alive? I sure do hope so.
ReplyDelete