The small towns in rural Missouri are dissappearing. In the last 50 years residents of small towns and farming communites have moved to bigger, more uban areas leaving places like Mayview MO, once a bustling hub of activity along the Lafayette State Highway, almost deserted. Economic issues, changing family structures, drug addiction, etc., have all contributed to the demise of these rural communities. Public buildings and homes are left, boarded up and abandoned, their former residents long gone, taking the life and furture of these communites with them and leaving a skeleton of what once was. This ongoing project explores these places and what has been left behind.

The U.S. Highway system, which laces through rural Missouri's typography, was created in 1921 to link all of Missouri's county seats and brought traffic through rural communities.

An abandoned church, Mayview MO.

An abandoned and decrepit gas station and general store in Mayview, MO. With the building of the interstate system, which carried travelers away from small towns, many small businesses that had once served the high way traffic, went out of business.

Farmland just outside of Mayview, MO, along the highway.

A view of I-70, which lies 3 miles south of Mayview, MO. During the late 1950s and early 1960s, the Missouri State Highway Department began to build interstate highways throughout rural Missouri to link the major cities. The interstates were built right through the countryside, often taking land from farms and many rural residents saw the interstates as a threat to the economic survival of Missouri’s small towns. U.S. highways often passed directly through such towns, and many service industries sprang up to serve travelers, The interstate system, however, usually bypassed small towns, carrying traffic away from them. Businesses in small towns lost a significant portion of their potential customer base, leading to widespread economic decline.