Lost Rock City Barns that Aren't

Going, going. . .

(Click to enlarge)

When I began my barn photography project for Rock City, they gave me a box of old office file cards with all the known barn locations. However, as I began to travel around to find and photograph the barns I soon learned that not all the barns were barns. Some were sheds, some were garages, some were stores; there were even a couple of free-standing silos. There were no records of signs painted on the walls of commercial buildings. 

I also found in my travels that a number of barns (using the term loosely) had vanished from Rock City’s records, but not from this world. As I've written before, I call these “lost barns.” Since the publication of the Rock City Barns book, I’ve found many more; most with the help of readers of my book, but also some by my own explorations. 

But "See Rock City" signs painted on the walls of commercial buildings? They were not in the records I received from Rock City and they were not on my radar until I was driving on Frazier Avenue in North Chattanooga one day and noticed that a “See Rock City” sign was being sandblasted off an old commercial building near the end of the Walnut Street Bridge. I’m sure I had passed it hundreds of times, but it somehow never caught my attention until it was half gone. 

I passed this one every day without seeing it.

Likewise, the sign on South Broad Street. Through most of the ‘90s I had a studio in downtown Chattanooga and passed the sign on my way home at least five times a week. 

So why are these the lost Rock City Barns that aren’t? Well, first because they weren’t barns. They were signs. And second, because they weren’t lost, even though they were no longer in Rock City’s records. They were right there all along, hiding in plain sight.

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(Photographs copyright David B. Jenkins 2020)

Soli Gloria Deo

To the glory of God alone