Main Streets & City Squares
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Nelsonville, OH
I absolutely adore small towns with public squares. Compact, walkable towns, full of fabulous old architecture. I prefer to find them thriving, but honestly the last fifty years have not been kind to Main Street America. Sometimes the best you can hope for is a glimpse of their more prosperous past, a few historical plaques, and a dusty antique store. Towns in Appalachia have been particularly hard hit, suffering from both the loss of industry and population. While some towns have all but rolled up the sidewalks, things are looking up for Nelsonville, Ohio, an impossibly quaint town just outside the tourist mecca of Hocking Hills. Founded in 1814, Nelsonville…
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Breaux Bridge, Louisiana
Breaux Bridge, Louisiana is known for two things. Crawfish and its eponymous bridge. The town is the “Crawfish Capital of the World,” or “la capitale mondiale de l’écrevisse,” if you prefer it in French. And why not, it is Louisiana after all. The first weekend in May each year the town hosts the Breaux Bridge Crawfish Festival, a celebration of all that is crawfish and Cajun. The rest of the year, they have the bridge. The town itself was named for an early Acadian pioneer, Firmin Breaux, who by 1786 was one of Bayou Teche’s largest land owners. It was Breaux who built the first pedestrian suspension footbridge across the…
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Prattville, Alabama
At first glance, Prattville, Alabama seems geographically confused. It has all the hallmarks of a New England mill town, but it is located in the Deep South. One look at the town’s namesake however explains away the seeming anomaly; Daniel Pratt was a New Hampshirite (which is a real word), and the resemblance was by design.
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Flatonia, Texas
I love an old railroad town. If it is located in the West, all the better. Some have survived, some have not. As commerce and travel moved away from the train, people moved away from the tracks. Fortunately, beautiful examples of late 19th century commercial buildings were often left behind. Flatonia’s historic downtown has largely been left intact, and offers a window into the past. It doesn’t offer much else, but for those who love architecture, it is more than enough.
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Shiner, Texas
The Shrine of Shiner. For fans of the beer, a pilgrimage to this small town is in order. Admittedly, there is not much else around these days, but the ghosts of the town’s past and the free samples at the brewery are enough.
