Blog Archives
side entrance (with grill)
Side entrance to the Cotton Club, with a little grill and some other crap providing a Maginot Line of defense between a vacant lot and the door. Also, I happen to have first hand knowledge that the door was locked, because I’m agile enough to get around the strategic defense placement.
Cotton Club
Lubbock, Texas
photographed 1.17.2025
cigarette smoke and beer (+ dust)
The place has been closed since the 1980s, but I swear I could smell cigarette smoke and stale beer when I was there last weekend.
I thought maybe I heard some west Texas musicians, but there’s every possibility that it was just the damn unrelenting wind blowing around my head.
Cotton Club
Lubbock, Texas
photographed 1.17.2025
what it looks like inside a dust storm
It was hard to tell if this old house was coming or going…either way, I have some concerns about the stability of the right-hand side. It’s developed a bit of a droop.
To be clear, the dust was NOT blowing the day I was there. But it was definitely a possibility given this place’s location in the middle of a cotton field, which was itself in the middle of an arid region. My mind assumed the dust and through the Magic of Editing™ I was able to get the photo to look the way a dust storm feels. (If you’ve never been in one, you ought to head out here and give it a try!)
Scurry County, Texas
photographed 11.26.2025
fall (in more ways than one)
There is a lot of weird stuff to look at in Mineral Wells.
I can’t wait to go back.
Mineral Wells, Texas
photographed 11.29.2025
nazareth hospital (and barbed wire)
At some point this was a hospital – the Nazareth Hospital – and then at a different point it was abandoned and had sheet metal over some of the windows and a barbed wire fence around it.
Here are some things I learned from the internet.
The place opened in 1937; in 1931 the Holy Sisters of Nazareth purchased it and renamed it. It was used as a hospital until 1970, when a new facility was built. After that, the building was used for a variety of things until it was abandoned in the early 2000s.
And now, for $99 you can spend six (after dark) hours inside the place with “experienced paranormal investigators” and discover the “secrets” of the place. The fact that the website promoting this adventure misspelled “skeptical” makes me, well, skeptical about the whole setup.
Mineral Wells, Texas
photographed 11.29.2025
One Day | One Image 