Abandoned Michigan

THE CRUMBLING, collapsed farmhouses across the Midwest are difficult to ignore. There seems to be at least one on each plot of farmland that line the back highways, and they all seem to have fallen apart in identical fashions. Why? And why are there so many? There is a particularly gruesome one just down the road from a farm we worked on. It sits in an oddly well kept field, despite the barn’s state of neglect. One night after a long day of work, I ask our host Dave about it. “When you’re out this far from the rest of civilization, the farms have to be maintained and passed down through families. The farm dies with the last family member that’s interested in that way of life, and small parcels of rural farmland become essentially worthless. The younger generations are moving away more frequently. The buildings are left to the elements. Vermin take refuge. Rot sets in. The structure is weakened until it can’t bear the weight of the snow, and falls into itself.” These structures seem to be a reflection of a generational shift; pieces of the past that we either can’t, or choose not to bring with us.