74 Years Later

In 1939 while working for the Farm Security Administration documenting farmers during the Depression, photographer Dorothea Lange produced several images in North Carolina. One of my favorites (directly below) was entitled Crossroads Store, Person County, North Carolina. Shot on the porch of Baynes Store in Gordonton, it is an image of black sharecroppers and the store owner taking a break on a Sunday afternoon. Simply put, it's an extraordinary photograph.

I was up in Person County and stopped by the crossroads. The old store still stands there some 74 years later, and is now used as a barn. Part of it on the left has been torn down and the signs, the steps and the pumps are long gone, but the same cedar posts still hold up the porch roof.

(Top and bottom photographs copyright 2013 by Dan Routh. Center image by Dorothea Lange/United States Library of Congress)