Snapshot: Buxton, Iowa (Monroe County)

Photo by Rachel Jessen

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Snapshot: Buxton, Iowa (Monroe County)

by Rachel Jessen
Southern Cultures, Vol. 26, No. 1: Documentary Moment

“All you can see is a moment when the late afternoon light shone down on some old stone and prairie grass. A frame made from a town’s future in the past.”

The photographic form can really only tell us one thing: what was there, once.

This photograph was taken on a muggy June day in Buxton, Iowa. Or, what used to be Buxton—the “town” has long since been abandoned, and all that remains are a couple of dilapidated buildings and foundations of former… factories? Homes? It’s hard to tell. >

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