C Street 1

November 8, 1952. C Street, looking north. A lonely Saturday morning in Virginia City. I’m not sure what these buildings were used for back then. Stores? Homes? Or were they just abandoned? My vote is for abandoned.

A few people are milling around further downtown, but no one comes here. Dirt sidewalk, crumbling awnings, this is a part of town nobody cares about.

June 19, 2004. These days, the town is alive again. It’s hard enough to find a place to park during the week, much less on a Saturday. The awnings still sag a little, but now that’s called “charm” instead of “neglect”. And you can’t see it, but the dirt sidewalk has been replaced wih a boardwalk running all the way through downtown. The buildings in this part of town are now filled to the brim with gift shops, jewelry stores, leather wholesalers, even an attorney’s office. The building that used to be on the far left, though, didn’t survive. That spot is now home to a grassy lot.

And I do believe that, after fifty years, those are the Same. Exact. Telephone poles.