Discarded Wagon Wheel and Woodpile, Forest Homestead, 1960s

Archive & AtlasEstablished · MMXXIII

Discarded Wagon Wheel and Woodpile, Forest Homestead, 1960s — Archive & Atlas

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Discarded Wagon Wheel and Woodpile, Forest Homestead, 1960s — Archive & Atlas

Unattributed 1960–1969

AA-2026-1286CB

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Somebody stopped to photograph a wagon wheel lying in the leaf litter, and in doing so left behind the only real evidence that this patch of woods was once somebody's yard. By the 1960s a wooden-spoked wheel like this had gone from essential hardware to decorative junk in about one generation, the internal combustion engine having made the whole apparatus of horse-drawn transport obsolete faster than anyone could find a use for the leftover parts.

Behind it a lean-to shed sags under the trees, roofed in scavenged tin, the kind of structure built by someone who intended it as temporary and then never got around to replacing it for thirty years. Stacked lumber and salvaged metal siding lie nearby in the confident arrangement of a person who was absolutely going to build something with all of it eventually.

The forest has since done what forests do to abandoned intentions, growing up through the gaps and letting dappled light stand in for the roof that partly isn't there anymore. Nobody in 1960 photographing a wagon wheel thought they were documenting anything, which is exactly why the picture is worth having now.

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