Old Homesteads of the High Plains

There is alot of time to kill while storm chasing that envelopes my curiosity about the Old West and how things were way back at the turn of the 20th Century.   In numerous places on the Great Plains there are old farm homes that tell a thousand tales as they grow old and fade in the memory of time.  Every house I come across is unique and begs to have its picture taken one more time.   Here is a collection of houses and old homesteads that I have taken during my travels on the open prairies of the Great Plains.  

  Old Homestead near Last Chance, CO.

Windmill on another old farm.

Occasionally I will come across an old storm cellar as with this old homestead. The date enscribed in the concrete is "1923."   The entrance was packed full of tumbleweeds.  I can't say I have ever been tempted to go in and peek around.   The fear of the unknown and what you "may" find on the other side of the door is enough for me to just let it rest in peace.   This one is near Akron, CO.

  Near Woodrow, CO.

This was a particularly large farm that had numerous photo opportunities.  I believe I stumbled upon it in Washington County, CO.

This really wasn't something I would consider an "old homestead" initially, but occasionally for something to do I will revisit areas that have intrigued me on chases that I simply did not have time to stop and take in.   This particular house was actually a victim of the Hallem, NE tornado family.  The night of the Hallem Tornado, my chase partner Lou Rohrbacher and I were playing catch up after a series of bad choices.  We started our chase near Minden, NE and missed out on numerous tornadoes near Beaver City.   As storms began firing to the east of us I made the decision to head to what became the Hallem storm.   We didn't catch up to it until well after the damage had been done.   We had just driven thru Western, NE and more storms were firing to the south of us well after dark.   We headed south on SR 15 toward Fairbury when I happened to glance out my window to this grove of trees that had been decimated by a tornado.   We turned around to investigate.   While we were looking at the devastated trees we decided to follow the path of the tornado for a little while before heading south to Fairbury, NE.   The path was littered with downed power lines and we decided to just head south to intercept the new storms.  We happened to turn around in front of this house.   There were overturned tractors in the driveway and people standing around.   There were already EMS vehicles there, so we didn't stop as the tornado probably came thru a couple of hours earlier so there was nothing we could really do, but the impression of the moment had been made in my mind.  I was enroute to KS on a chase one day and my route happened to go thru the Hallem area.  I decided to go check out how this house had faired in the couple of years since that night and was actually shocked to see it had been abandoned.  There wasn't much damage that I remember to the house that dreadful night in 2004, so I was incredibly saddened to see it in this condition.   It only begs of the story of what truly happened that night and why it was left in this state.  

I believe this one is somewhere in Nebraska.  I remember stopping to shoot it on the way back to the Ryerson last summer.

  Photographed along Highway 18 near Shawnee, WY in the summer of 2008.

Photographed this one north of Alliance in the summer of 2008.