Early 1900s postcard of Waco, Kentucky,
While heading down route 52 in Madison County, Kentucky toward an old pottery I spotted a town from the past. When I say town I guess I mean -- place -- sort of a four corners.
Before I could think straight I was pulling into a parking spot behind one of the old buildings in town. I jumped out of my truck and started snapping photos of an old general store type of building. It looked original to when it was built.
The present proprietor, Garnette Davis, soon came out of the store and I had to explain to him what I was doing. He was very hospitable after I told him I liked to record folkways. He invited me inside to give me a lowdown on all the old buildings that sat at or near the four corners -- all of them original to the postcard he gave me of the town taken in the early 1900s. Even his general store (third building from the left in the postcard) was in the photo sitting on its corner with the same form it has today.
The back of this former general store, now called Davis Hidden Treasures, had an old addition with a nice set of original double doors.
Preserved in situ, Waco's commercial buildings offered me about six old original commercial buildings to photograph. It was quite a find!
With the postcard in hand and comparing it to what I could view with my eyes I figured that there were about nine or ten commercial buildings when the postcard was produced -- compared to about six extant ones now.
No development of note has come to Waco's four corners. It remains in a time warp of the early 1900s.
This was a day I stepped back in time.
