Autumn Adventures II

Fearing that the end of nice autumn weather might soon be upon us, I headed out this morning north of Pullman to the Elberton area. We'll start with something a bit different from my usual oeuvre: a shot of the old church in Elberton, a ghost town of sorts active in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and disincorporated in the 1960s.

According to Whitman County Parks signage, Elberton thrived in the late 19th century when a sawmill, a flour mill, and other businesses typical of the time and place supported the town. Orchards, especially plums, were also important to the town, as was the processing of prunes. There was even a three-day annual picnic. At its heyday, the town would have had 400-500 people.

Fires, floods, and the depletion of local timber in the early twentieth century precipitated Elberton's decline.  Perhaps the Great Depression was also unkind to the town. No highways run through the town, and it's unclear to me whether this helped further the decline, or whether highways bypassed the town after that decline had already begun. Only a handful of people live in the general vicinity now, and not much of the old town is left. There's the old church, of course, an old bridge, lots of open fields, and trees of various sorts. Whitman County Parks owns quite a bit of the area, but there isn't much visitor use development apart from a few old picnic tables, an interpretive sign summarizing the town's history, and a ropes challenge course for groups.

One wonders, wandering around silent overgrown fields, what it would have been like to visit or live in the town at its height. What would have it been like so see the area when it was bustling with people, when plum orchards blanketed the valley floor, when the town hummed with activity? One also wonders how it disappeared. On a certain level, the answers are obvious - disasters, the growth of nearby towns, resource depletion, economic conditions, and so forth. But on another level, individual residents and businesspersons would have chosen to move or invest elsewhere at various points. How strange it would be to see your town disappear in your lifetime.

Before I visited Elberton, I stopped at a viewpoint uphill from the old town, along a gravel road. The first two are probably the most interesting of the lot; I had fun with backlighting, as you see. I had to time these just right; I wanted the sun to light up the tops of the cottonwood trees in the center.

Here are two wider views, looking roughly south over the Palouse River and its valley.

The final two images are again from near Elberton, near the Palouse River. I was enjoying the warm sunlight and the autumnal colors around the river. F/29.

Final image F/5.6.