Not built to last
The town’s original name was Ledwig, but the post office rejected that name. So it somehow became Pep.
There’s almost nothing left.
But once upon a time, there was a roadside business in Pep. In current lingo, its business model was not sustainable. Neither was that travel trailer….
Pep, Texas
photographed 2.16.2014
Posted on February 25, 2014, in abandoned buildings, architecture, Photography and tagged 365 photo project, abandoned buildings, architecture, black and white photography, melinda green harvey, monochrome, one day one image, pep, pep texas, photo a day, photography, roadside commerce, texas. Bookmark the permalink. 14 Comments.
One Day | One Image 
I like how the sky fames this scene. Great work!
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Thank you, Victor!
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Great abandoned scene, excellent work!
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Thanks the comment. There are very few things I like to photograph more than scenes like this – glad you like it.
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Perfect composition. This is a shot where all the elements came together.
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Thanks, Ken. This turned out to be a good day for shooting – the three posts before this one and the next four were all taken on the same day.
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So the Post Office has the ultimate say in what a town can be named? Was Ledwig already taken?
Very nice photo and I love the dark skies you are able to capture.
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This wasn’t the first time I seen a reference to the post office changing the name of a town, but I didn’t do any research until you asked about it. According to this article – http://1.usa.gov/1huVpx4 – town names were subject to the approval of the post office; usually I think town names were changed so there wouldn’t be more than one town in a state that had the same name. The state historical society says the name Ludwig “didn’t suit the post office” but doesn’t say what the specific problem was.
(This doesn’t have anything to do with this photo, or your comment, but I also learned that the most common town name in the United States is Clinton – there are 26 of them.)
I am glad you like this shot.
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The photo’s fantastic, Melinda, but there’s no substitute for a sense of humor. It shows.
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Thanks, John. I may have a slight tendancy to make myself laugh, so it’s nice to know I can amuse others as well! (My family says, “Please don’t encourage her – we have to live with her!”)
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Superb, Melinda. Love that trailer in the foreground – slowly disintegrating – great sky, and then there’s that brooding colossus of a building in the background. Thought you might like the dictionary definition of ‘Pep’: “High spirits, energy or vitality”. Hmm – this place seems completely out of Pep – there is none, zippo, zilch, zero. It’s all gone: Dead. It’s all reduced to….wait for it….Detritus. But it makes great photography. All is not lost, after all.
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Thanks, Andy. The town of Pep is the very opposite of the definitions isn’t it? I did see a comment on the state historical society’s entry about the town’s history that the name was chosen because it was a popular slang word at the time and because it conveyed a positive message about the town. So there you go!
Thanks for using “detritus” again…!
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I especially like the camera angle you used here. Did you crouch down? Shoot up a hill?
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Thanks, Linda. No hills around here, so I had to crouch down in those scratchy weeds….
Sent from my iPad.
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