Lost, Texas: Photographs of Forgotten Buildings (Volume 17)

Clayton Wheat Williams Texas Life Series

by Bronson Dorsey, Galen Newman (Foreword)

In Lost, Photographs of Forgotten Buildings , Bronson Dorsey takes us on a tour of old, abandoned buildings in Texas that evoke the mystique of bygone days and shifting population patterns. With a skilled photographer’s eye, he captures the character of these buildings, mostly tucked away in the far corners of rural Texas—though, surprisingly, some of his finds are in the midst of thriving communities, even, in one case, the Dallas metroplex. Most of the buildings are abandoned and in a state of decay, though a handful have been repurposed as museums, residences, or other functional structures.

Encompassing all regions of the state, from the Piney Woods to the Panhandle, the images in Lost, Texas evoke distinctive memories of the past. They grant a sense of how those who preceded us lived and how the Texas of earlier days became the Texas of today. Some of the historic sites include a Coca-Cola bottling plant in Beeville, a lumberyard built over two generations, a beautiful, mission-style schoolhouse raised in a small farming community, the skeleton of a boomtown gas station near the Yates oilfield, and what remains of the only silver mining operation in Texas.

With Dorsey as a guide, readers may explore these hidden and neglected gems and learn the basic facts of their origins and intended uses, as well as the principal reasons for their demise. Along the way and in the background, he quietly makes the case for preserving these buildings that, while no longer central to the ongoing function of their communities, still serve as important emblems of the past.

Genres: Research

244 pages, Hardcover

Published May 11, 2018

Reviews

[Cindy]

I've so come to enjoy traveling on back roads. For me they symbolize taking life more slowly and traveling off the beaten path. This book is a salute to back roads and the often forgotten places that exist on them.

[J.W. Ellis]

Amazing book. Gorgeous photos. Makes me wanna travel to all these spots

[Kerry Pickens]

I enjoyed this book but it’s probably not for everybody. It’s a collection of photographs and history about abandoned buildings in Texas. Since most of us spent long hours in road trips in Texas, you always what some of these old buildings were. Most of the small towns had oil, cotton or tourism boosting their economy until something happened to change things. Just think of the film The Last Picture show, and that’s what is about. A dying way of life, and in fact that movie theater is in the book.
Most of the towns had a railroad depot (that’s how College Station got its name), a school, and a tourist court which is what they used to call motels. Many of the segregated Black schools were built with money with money from the Julius Rosenberg Foundation (the Sears and Roebuck president). We still have quite a few Carnegie libraries but those are included in the book they were converted to other use. I did note that John Meusebach was mentioned in this book, because I have a book about this character on my TBR list.

[Cindy Bonner]

Beautiful photographs. I would have liked more info on the closer buildings, and also for me there were way too many schools. I personally am familiar with some of the towns the author included, and I happen to know in some cases there were abandoned buildings in those towns I would have liked to have seen featured rather than what the author chose.