The Perryton Project
July 17th, 2022
My last big project, The Class of ’69, was cut short by the plague. For a long time I’ve wanted to start another project, but the plague made that impossible for a few years. But I’ve now begun to photograph my home town, Perryton, Ohio. It’s a tiny town. Fewer than 100 residents. It’s not on the way to anywhere. Just a little place out in the country that was pretty much a perfect place to grow up in the 1950s and 60s. And it is little changed today.
The photo above is from the town cemetery. As a kid (and still, I guess) I was always fascinated by that big monument and statue.
That’s the house I grew up in. It has changed quite a bit. It’s been abandoned for years and is in very sad condition. My dad would have hated to see it today. It’s changed hands quite a few times since my parents sold it and moved to a new house they built on a hill above the town. It appears it is for sale after a foreclosure now. My dad built the addition on the left when I was in the 8th grade. It added running water and an indoor bathroom for the first time.
The Methodist Church across the street from the home where I grew up.
The Church of Christ a few houses down the street from my childhood home.
When I was a kid one of our neighbors fixed this place up and opened an antique shop. She hired me to sweep up. My first job. It’s a very attractive private home now.
A couple miles from Perryton was the Perry Elementary School. This is where I went to school until high school. The year I started first grade (there was no kindergarten) the addition to the right of this photo had just been completed adding a gym and, for the first time, indoor restrooms. The outhouses remained throughout my time there and were often used during recess.
Perry Elementary has been closed for many years and is now used by a couple businesses, from what I could tell. I couldn’t resist taking this photo of what I saw in one of the old classroom windows.
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