What happens when high schools die
According to this site, the school in Pettit has been closed since the 1960s, when it merged with the school in the nearby town of Levelland. Closing the school is generally the dying gasp of a town; of course the declines don’t start with a school closure, but seem be exacerbated by them.
Nowadays, the old school buildings are fenced and cattle and goats wander freely around what’s left of the place.
I can’t explain the wrecked pickup.
Pettit, Texas
photographed 2.16.2014
Posted on February 28, 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, pettit, pettit high school, pettit texas, photo a day, photography, texas. Bookmark the permalink. 8 Comments.
Excellent photo, it has an interesting eerieness to it. I bet the inside would lend itself to some amazing photos.
LikeLike
Thanks, Shane, and welcome to the blog! I’d love to be able to get inside this place, but the fence – and a herd of cows! – keeps that from being an idea that I am willing to implement!
LikeLike
The pickup is left over from the final Senior Prank!
LikeLike
That’s a good point – I hadn’t thought about it that way!
Sent from my iPad.
>
LikeLike
I’ve been meaning to ask…does no-one ever demolish a building when it is no longer used – just leaves it to decay and rot instead? I guess it is cheaper to leave it, and I also suppose it has something to do with the vast amount of space available.
LikeLike
That’s a good question, Andy. Very few of these places are demolished; they are just left to the elements. Sometimes, an old farmhouse will become storage when the family builds a new place, but that’s not the norm. Usually they just fall apart.
And, yes, around Lubbock, we DO have plenty of available space. I am writing this from Central Texas, where it’s much less open, and in my travels today, I saw a lot of abandoned places. So I guess it’s just the way things are?
Of course, in more heavily vegetated locations, like where I am now, the abandonment can be harder to see because it gets covered up by plants within a few growing seasons. On the high plains, around Lubbock, it’s a more arid climate so we don’t have the kind of plants that grow up enough to hide an entire building!
LikeLike
Larry grew up on a farm 4 miles southeast of Pettit and went to school here through the seventh grade. The grade school was on the south end of the building. During his early years, the school had plumbing, the farmhouse did not.
LikeLike
I’d guess that the school hasn’t had plumbing (operational, anyway) in a while….
LikeLike