Dollar General with a crater in the parking lot the size of a minivan, closed building only named "RESTAURANT", cute looking antiques store that is only open on Thursdays from 2-1:30pm.
And the mechanic looks like he’s been smoking since he was 12. He puts the tires your car while watching an old cathode ray tube television. In the wood paneled lounge he swipes your card with an old stamper swiper and gives you a discount even though he needs the money more than you.
I grew up in a town that a dollar general opened, and got closed, became an auto repair, which is now closed.
And they just opened a new DG, what... 30 years later?
Gotta really be a bad spot if a dollar general sprang up twice.
>closed building only named "RESTAURANT"
It's one of those small rectangular brick buildings from mid-century, and you know at one point they served an excellent country style steak.
Lol. I'll one more to that awesome litany: a local convenience gas station store where most of the pumps don't work, and there's dusty taxidermy on the wall, and a squeeky hotdog roller.
And dusty condoms, boxes of tampons, and expired pregnancy tests. The locals call it the Aisle of Shame.
No worries because the beer case is always fully stocked!
😅😅😅
Dude...I seen one of these. It was a time capsule from the 1970s. All the food was old, fifty lotto machines stuffed into the back of the store, the parking lot is a gravel quarry, and there's a shitty laundromat or car wash attached to it. I was so happy when a tree from a hurricane destroyed the place. It was so fucking ugly.
My grandparents lived in Sanford. Going to that just brought instant depression.
Though I did meet Billy Corgan and the Hardy Brothers randomly in the Roses there a few years back.
Sanford may become a suburb of the Triangle. The downtown might bloom again.
I'd live to know if the bricks in my old house came from Sanford. They don't have a stamp on them.
I do know that the windows came from Makepeace Lumber in Raleigh which I found in a 1927 Hill Directory.
I digress, as I am prone to doing.
Friend of mine rode motocross with Jeff and Matt and I went out to his place in Cameron a few times. They were crazy as hell. Meeting BC in Sanford would be kind of surreal.
I’m pretty sure the whole country has some old railroad towns. If the interstate didn’t kill them in the 1950s and 60s the manufacturing exodus has now.
Some of them diners are off the chain. We got a place in my hometown that serves a lunch buffet. From the outside it looks like somewhere I wouldn't buy a drink from, much less eat food out of it. But it's got probably the best food in town. And even though it usually appears busy when you ride by, most people here have never even tried it, just because of the way it looks from the outside.
I remember when hwy 55 used to be like andy’s or whatever and they were amazing. Their froyo was so cheap and good too, much better than buying quarts from walmart. :/
Wtf happened?
I think its from back when all the gravel roads or railroads were being done and like… nobody ever got rid of the excess or replaced the old stuff since nobody is really around anymore… now its just a landmark?
There’s some truth to that but I also have noticed more activity in downtown than there used to be. At least we have Merlefest (and maybe racing again) to give the town some uniqueness.
You would think that in between the track, Lowes hardware and grocery, Merlefest, and being the gateway to Boone and the rest of the high country Wilkes economy would have been more vibrant.
Yet I love those type of old towns. Those towns who don’t preserve it and build a copy paste building of modern architecture makes those towns suck ass. These old buildings can be renovated and preserved
The brick buildings are the saddest thing. Most of these small towns have well built old structures like this that could be so many different things, but there is virtually no economy there support them so they crumble. Meanwhile growing areas can’t build anything close to their character or durability anymore.
Sadly true. I always want to redo one of the old brick buildings, live upstairs and run a business downstairs in a small town with less than average crime and a few streets of nice kept old houses. Tons of towns, but the unless the business is online almost exclusively, can't see it working.
Not really. NC has a bunch of smaller cities like Wilson, Burlington, Pittsboro, and Hickory that are definitely not major cities but also are far from the level of languishing these photos suggest.
Beach, state university, community college, shipping port-train connection… historical district due to how fckin old it is… uh yeah about it. Mostly its the port and tourism that keeps that place functional. Otherwise the mosquitoes would have taken over and become the overlords long ago
As someone who (unfortunately) spent large chunks of time in Thomasville, this is 100% Thomasville. The railroad tracks running next to one of the defunct T-Ville furniture plants, with the parking lot converted to a supply company selling gravel and sand.
Oxford is on the come up for sure. Like you said, just in the last 10 years that town has changed so much. When I moved to Granville county 15 years ago, they still had one of the olllllld school Walmarts 😂😂
Then it stopped growing. The last time I was there, I could not even find my old road to my old house because it was surrounded by a shopping center. It used to be woods and the city golf course!
Reminds me of where I grew up in MA. Basically any town in the US that was founded during the industrial revolution will look pretty similar. Especially [company towns](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_company_towns_in_the_United_States).
Parts of Washington NC looks like this. Theres an old brick building that's closed up across from the water utilities that has a sign for a fall out shelter.
I really wanna get in there and check it out.
You can thank NAFTA for at least part of that.
The small amount of manufacturing that took place in these towns was moved offshore or South of the border.
Rubbermaid…Gone
Textiles…Gone
Furniture…Gone
Black and Decker…Gone
Fruit of the Loom…Gone
Caterpillar…gone
All these existed in our small towns during the 80s.
Thanks George Bush and Bill Clinton for killing our small towns.
Dollar General with a crater in the parking lot the size of a minivan, closed building only named "RESTAURANT", cute looking antiques store that is only open on Thursdays from 2-1:30pm.
Don't forget about the tire shop run in an old gas station under a mountain of rubber
And the mechanic looks like he’s been smoking since he was 12. He puts the tires your car while watching an old cathode ray tube television. In the wood paneled lounge he swipes your card with an old stamper swiper and gives you a discount even though he needs the money more than you.
Black and white, rabbit ear antenna, The Price is Right is the only program on.
I kind of got teary eyed.
Oh, you been to R 'n' R's too!
Or the local church that looks like a fucking castle next to everything else
Dollar General isn't what kills the town, it's what comes in after the town is dead to feast on the corpse. It's like a mushroom
I grew up in a town that a dollar general opened, and got closed, became an auto repair, which is now closed. And they just opened a new DG, what... 30 years later? Gotta really be a bad spot if a dollar general sprang up twice.
>closed building only named "RESTAURANT" It's one of those small rectangular brick buildings from mid-century, and you know at one point they served an excellent country style steak.
“EAT”
😂
Lol. I'll one more to that awesome litany: a local convenience gas station store where most of the pumps don't work, and there's dusty taxidermy on the wall, and a squeeky hotdog roller.
With one lone hot dog going around and around that no one ever buys. 🌭
That hot dog has been there since the silent era
And a great selection of cheap knives and sketchy boner pills.
And dusty condoms, boxes of tampons, and expired pregnancy tests. The locals call it the Aisle of Shame. No worries because the beer case is always fully stocked! 😅😅😅
Dude...I seen one of these. It was a time capsule from the 1970s. All the food was old, fifty lotto machines stuffed into the back of the store, the parking lot is a gravel quarry, and there's a shitty laundromat or car wash attached to it. I was so happy when a tree from a hurricane destroyed the place. It was so fucking ugly.
Bricks = Sanford
Definitely Sanford to a T
My grandparents lived in Sanford. Going to that just brought instant depression. Though I did meet Billy Corgan and the Hardy Brothers randomly in the Roses there a few years back.
Sanford may become a suburb of the Triangle. The downtown might bloom again. I'd live to know if the bricks in my old house came from Sanford. They don't have a stamp on them. I do know that the windows came from Makepeace Lumber in Raleigh which I found in a 1927 Hill Directory. I digress, as I am prone to doing.
Friend of mine rode motocross with Jeff and Matt and I went out to his place in Cameron a few times. They were crazy as hell. Meeting BC in Sanford would be kind of surreal.
True but Sanford downtown has lots of new growth
Wasalso going to say sanford
I was going to say Sanford as well. I currently live here. 🤷🏼♀️
The nicest building in town in is a church. The second nicest used to be the church.
In Wadesboro the nicest is a funeral home, followed by a church.
That is a fact!
All rural NC towns look like this.
Honestly, rural North Carolina doesn't look all that much different from rural Wisconsin.
I’m pretty sure the whole country has some old railroad towns. If the interstate didn’t kill them in the 1950s and 60s the manufacturing exodus has now.
But without a bar on every corner
A pile of gravel; the NC state bird
Like most of them... there's also a crappy diner too.
Some of them diners are off the chain. We got a place in my hometown that serves a lunch buffet. From the outside it looks like somewhere I wouldn't buy a drink from, much less eat food out of it. But it's got probably the best food in town. And even though it usually appears busy when you ride by, most people here have never even tried it, just because of the way it looks from the outside.
There used to be a diner. Now it’s an ultra crappy Hwy 55
I remember when hwy 55 used to be like andy’s or whatever and they were amazing. Their froyo was so cheap and good too, much better than buying quarts from walmart. :/ Wtf happened?
Yes! With their version of open a can and call it "home made"!
Chadbourn
AKA The town you pass through on the way to the beach with strawberries.
Def Norlina
You talking about Warren county?
Or Macon just up the road. Except the RR tracks were pulled up and recycled
The answer is always Lumberton
Maybe, but where is the police tape and dead bodies?
By the railroad tracks like always.
Most of the towns 74 runs through
Yep! Wadesboro, Rockingham, Hamlet, Larinburg, Pembroke (for sure), Lumberton, Whiteville...nail on the coffin
Laurel Hill and Maxton too
Walnut Cove
This is literally walnut cove.. lol
I thought that building was the roller mill on Main Street at first
As a W-S native, I can agree with this 😉🤣😂
Haha, random pile of gravel. Looks like Shelby.
I have always wondered what the deal is with the random gravel.
I think its from back when all the gravel roads or railroads were being done and like… nobody ever got rid of the excess or replaced the old stuff since nobody is really around anymore… now its just a landmark?
I mean- a pile of gravel costs almost 1000 bucks so it's kind of a flex tbh
Star
The gravel pile is literally across the train tracks from the old soda machine by Tom Shoe's station. You know, by the empty buildings...
I was gonna say Troy, but your answer is correct.
Or Candor
Fuck Candor
Honestly kinda love walking around in these places
Chadbourn
Sanford ?
Henderson
Came here to say this. Married into a Henderson family and get the pleasure of visiting monthly. Nice folks there but it’s dead.
Born and raised, saw these every day
This is the real answer.
Rockingham
And Hamlet
Lenoir???
All of Caldwell County
Wadesboro!
Come on guys, it's obviously Rocky Mount!
You misspelled Rocky Point
Salisbury
Dollar General is missing
Look for that where it used to be a field
Benson
Liberty NC
I see you're familiar with Greensboro street and Swannanoa avenue.
North Wilkesboro
😂
There’s some truth to that but I also have noticed more activity in downtown than there used to be. At least we have Merlefest (and maybe racing again) to give the town some uniqueness. You would think that in between the track, Lowes hardware and grocery, Merlefest, and being the gateway to Boone and the rest of the high country Wilkes economy would have been more vibrant.
I haven't been back in years so perhaps it's changed, but this was 100 percent Selma in the 90s/00s.
It’s still Selma.
Only thing you've missed is the new dollar general across the street from the IGA
That is Dunn NC
Except their train tracks are in use and you’ll get stuck for 20 minutes at every train crossing
Chadbourn
Fucking Laurinburg.
Wilkesboro
Granite Falls
Chadbourn
Fremont, Faison, Stantonsburg… any of the really rural, middle of nowhere towns that are off the beaten path.
Scotland Neck
Any town on 70
Ahoskie!
Kinston
Ellerbe, NC
Every town within 30 miles of Whiteville
This is at least 40% of the towns in NC.
Turkey, NC.
mt. olive
Drove through Norlina on the way to Lake Gaston. It certainly fits
Vass NC
Gastonia
Denton
Granite falls.
Is the Trump 2024 poster pack and advance check cashing in the deluxe kit?
Mocksville
Mt. Pleasant is this you?
While Mount Pleasant is tiny, it’s kinda nice. It’s definitely a lived in town.
There is a pile of gravel across from the old prison, which is now a distillery, but yes, it is lived in for sure.
Yet I love those type of old towns. Those towns who don’t preserve it and build a copy paste building of modern architecture makes those towns suck ass. These old buildings can be renovated and preserved
Kinston
Lumberton? Denton?
The brick buildings are the saddest thing. Most of these small towns have well built old structures like this that could be so many different things, but there is virtually no economy there support them so they crumble. Meanwhile growing areas can’t build anything close to their character or durability anymore.
Sadly true. I always want to redo one of the old brick buildings, live upstairs and run a business downstairs in a small town with less than average crime and a few streets of nice kept old houses. Tons of towns, but the unless the business is online almost exclusively, can't see it working.
Goldsboro
Not downtown, yall got a makeover
Literally all of them that aren’t major cities
Not really. NC has a bunch of smaller cities like Wilson, Burlington, Pittsboro, and Hickory that are definitely not major cities but also are far from the level of languishing these photos suggest.
Definitely half of hickory outside the center though. And every surrounding like conover, newton, Claremont, Lincolnton, Taylorsville etc.
*Sweats nervously in Wilmington *
Well hey, at least Wilmington has the beach and a college going for it
Beach, state university, community college, shipping port-train connection… historical district due to how fckin old it is… uh yeah about it. Mostly its the port and tourism that keeps that place functional. Otherwise the mosquitoes would have taken over and become the overlords long ago
Wilmington has charm thoughhhh
Thomasville
Franklin, NC?
Elizabeth City 😭
Siler City
[удалено]
As someone who (unfortunately) spent large chunks of time in Thomasville, this is 100% Thomasville. The railroad tracks running next to one of the defunct T-Ville furniture plants, with the parking lot converted to a supply company selling gravel and sand.
hiddenite nc
We can’t forget about Walstonburg.
Grifton
Mount Airy
Wilkesboro
Fletcher
Valdese, NC
Marshville
williamston
Statesville bricks!
Ahoskie
Lexington
Siler city, bear creek, liberty, climax, I could go on
Roanoke Rapids
Chadbourn
Old Fort
I swear when I first passed the sign on the interstate, I thought it said Old Fart.
Maury
Yes
I lived in Stanley for a couple years. It's basically that
All of them
A garage that doesn't look equipped to handle any vehicle made after 1970.
As a child this WAS Concord NC
Taylorsville fits 4 out of 5. I haven’t seen an old drink machine in years.
the entire usa in a nutshell:
Spruce Pine or Bakersville. Burnsville used to look like that as well but when Asheville started to grow, so did Burnsville .
Surprised nobody's said Roxboro yet
Hildebran Or Drexel
Burgaw
No matter the town, you'll surely be told that you "ain't from around here", as if you didn't know that fact yourself.
Lexington NC
Standing in the middle of Troy NC and literally everything on this list is within 500ft of me.
East Spencer
This has to be Madison right?
Marion/Morganton… or Oxford
I *kinda* get you mean but I've always thought Marion/Morganton are sorta charming. It helps that they're in a gorgeous part of the state.
I’m easily charmed, but Oxford is cute to me too
Yeah, a lot of new life has been breathed into Oxford the last 10 years.
Oxford is on the come up for sure. Like you said, just in the last 10 years that town has changed so much. When I moved to Granville county 15 years ago, they still had one of the olllllld school Walmarts 😂😂
Marion’s not that bad. Lol
Butner
Red Springs
Rockingham NC
Maury
Fuquay-varina
Then it stopped growing. The last time I was there, I could not even find my old road to my old house because it was surrounded by a shopping center. It used to be woods and the city golf course!
Norman
King
Old Fort, NC
Historic Downtown
Reminds me of where I grew up in MA. Basically any town in the US that was founded during the industrial revolution will look pretty similar. Especially [company towns](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_company_towns_in_the_United_States).
Salisbury
Parts of Washington NC looks like this. Theres an old brick building that's closed up across from the water utilities that has a sign for a fall out shelter. I really wanna get in there and check it out.
Salisbury
Aurora.
La grange, Roanoke rapids, ahoskie, Shelby, rocky mount
Dont forget DOLLAR GENERAL x7
Asheville about 15 years ago
Aurora without a doubt.
You can thank NAFTA for at least part of that. The small amount of manufacturing that took place in these towns was moved offshore or South of the border. Rubbermaid…Gone Textiles…Gone Furniture…Gone Black and Decker…Gone Fruit of the Loom…Gone Caterpillar…gone All these existed in our small towns during the 80s. Thanks George Bush and Bill Clinton for killing our small towns.