Abandoned Hunting – The Abandoned


Cyn and I had some time last weekend to do some abandoned hunting.  We drove through West Central MN (212), NE South Dakota and SE North Dakota.  We were amazed at the number of abandoned farms and homes still standing.  The first two images are two of many that “got away.”  The snow was somewhat of a hindrance.  Minimum Maintenance roads are nothing to mess around with this time of year.  The roads to several properties where minimum maintenance or simply were just not plowed.  GPS coordinates will come in handy for a return trip :-)

The next few images are of an almost abandoned town in SD called Hammer.  There was one home there still occupied – not quite a complete ghost town yet.  Further along you will see that we did find a couple of abandoned homes that we could get to and explore (Montevideo and Big Stone City).  We both would have liked to get inside the 1911 brick schoolhouse in Louisburg, MN, but that just wasn’t possible.

It was a great few days to get away and capture rural decay and commit historic visions to pixels.  The post to follow will include all of the photos of all points in between the abandoned places.

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Collischan Road


Collischan Road was once part of the old Hwy 61 path coming in from the North side of Red Wing.  The road is accessed from Cannon Bottoms Road (46) just North of the Cannon River.  It was part of the historic Mendota to Wabasha military road in the 1850′s.  In 1931 the old road was bypassed by the construction of the first modern road; aligned to the path of which is still followed by U.S. 61 today.  I took a leisurely drive out to Collischan’s end, not far from Lock and Dam #3 and Buffalo and Pickerel Sloughs.  This area is usually a lush wetland area, but it looked a bit dryer than usual, but I managed to find a few reflections to capture.