Shawnee threads are more common than Akron threads around here, but they seem to show a decline just in the past couple years. The USPS has closed their Shawnee branch and three core buildings are now marked condemed.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sad. One fire, and it could spread and this town could cease to exist.

These places scare me!

I keep saying "vintage Twilight Zone sets" and "Danny Elfman should write a film score for the place."

Whenever I see these appalachian threads, especially Shawnee, this song gets stuck in my head.

I find these places so fascinating.

Thanks for the thread, Ink.

Thanks for the re-visit, Ink. Discouraging to see these buildings steadily going down, but understandable. I recall the old school building was demolished a few years ago and several other historic structures that were photographed and shared in earlier postings are now absent.

 

The town badly needs outside investment to transform it into the regional tourist destination that it deserves to be. It is located within the boundries of Ohio's only national forest (Wayne) and is the best preserved of the towns within Black Diamonds district. With that in mind, the loss of even one historic structure there is significant. One deep pocketed investor could save this small town, but the likelyhood of that happening is remote, just as is the town itself. This is truly a sad story.

I agree John; the location in a national forest combined with unique architecture should make a good combo for some local tourism.

^^Agreed.

Thirded.

 

There are buildings all over the place in small towns in Ohio that probably have historic merit. For example, there is an old school in Harveysburg (Warren County, next to Caesars Creek Lake) that is in private hands; it is mostly intact and has this cool art deco signage lettering on the front. But places like this are usually closed and used for storage or are semi abandoned, and we lose a few every year. Basically, history slowly erodes and there is no sense of place any more.

 

I see older small towns as most vulnerable because almost nobody considers them to have any historic or aesthetic merit, and the land always seems to have a "higher use" for some junk consumer crap like a Circle K or Valero store.