Flowers to the Rescue

 Rock City Barn GA-33. Old U.S. 411, Murray County, Georgia. 

When See Rock City, Inc. asked me to find and photograph every existing "See Rock City" barn, they gave me a box full of old file cards -- more than 500 of them, in fact, that the barn painters had used to keep track of their work. I sorted the cards and organized them be state, by regions within states, and by highways, and began traveling and photographing whenever I could take a few days away from my studio. In all, I traveled about 35,000 miles in 14 states over an 18-month period in my old Chevy Blazer, visited all 500-plus locations, and found about 250 barns still standing in some sort of condition. I also, along the way, found about 20 barns that had been lost from Rock City's records. This was one of them.

                                       Some of the file cards with Rock City barn locations.

Someone told me about a Rock City barn on old U.S. Highway 411 south of Chatsworth in Murray County, Georgia, so I went looking. Arriving at the location, I found a barn on each side of the road, neither with a visible "See Rock City" sign, and some older people sitting on the porch of a nearby farmhouse. 

Walking up, I asked them about the barns. They told me that this barn had a "See Rock City" sign at one time, but had been re-roofed so long ago that even the new roof had rusted. 

Since there was nothing outstanding about the sign-less barn, I had to find something else to make a good picture. The thick, colorful growth of flowers in the foreground was it. 

This was Louise's favorite picture from the Rock City Barns book project, so I put it on her dedication page.

(Canon EOS A2 film camera, Canon EF 24mm f2.8 lens, Fujichrome 100D film.)

Signed copies of the new second edition of Backroads and Byways of Georgia are available. The price is $22.95 plus $3.95 shipping. My PayPal address is djphoto@vol.com (which is also my email). Or you can mail a check to me at 8943 Wesley Place, Knoxville, TN 37922. Include your address and tell me how you would like your book inscribed.

Check out the pictures at my online gallery: https://davejenkins.pixels.com/  Looking is free, and you might find something you like.

Photography and text copyright 2023 David B.Jenkins.

I post Monday, Wednesday, and Friday unless life gets in the way.

Soli Gloria Deo -- For the glory of God alone.

Tags: photography    travel     Georgia     old U.S. Highway 411     barns     See Rock City     Rock City Barns    Canon EOS A2 camera    Canon EF 24mm f2.8 lens    Fujichrome 100D film     film photography