RICHMOND, Va. -- Virginia is filled with history, which is why tourism is a big, almost-sacred industry.
Much of it is polished and pretty – think Yorktown, Williamsburg, Monticello, Tredegar Iron Works.
But two urban/rural explorers say Virginia’s real, left-behind, in-the-raw history is getting big attention around the world.
These are the folks who sneak into long-vacant factories, motels, churches, diners, hospitals, homes and estates to photograph them as they decay.
It’s a hobby, a passion, that began in Europe in the ‘90s, explains Dusty Bottoms, one of our tour guides during Thursday’s exploration seen in the video accompanying this story.
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“It’s a pretty tight-knit community” of explorers around the world, he said. “We’ve become friends. A lot of them come to us and explore with us.”
Virginia is flush with it, he explained as we toured a huge, long-vacant church south of Richmond.
His fellow explorer, the well-known Among The Ruin, said, “It’s the richness of the history that’s left behind. People, you known, they pass by this building every day and they don’t realize what’s here. The artistry, the artwork, the craftsmanship that went with these buildings. Once they’re gone, that’s it. And we’re here – we’re documenting through photography what’s left.”
The church was filled with pews, pianos, organs, kitchen and day care gear, old computers, Bibles, hymnals – you name it. Much of it as it was left a generation ago.
And lots of it is falling down. History in motion.
“There’s a subculture of urban explorers that find beauty in decay,” Dusty Bottoms said while sitting in a very dusty deacon’s chair. “We like stuff that is decrepit, that has a history, and Virginia is full of it.”
Their photographs are powerful and evocative, seen by fellow explorers around the world.
They travel extensively – old mental hospitals, long vacant homes, abandoned estates, old motels, empty girl schools.
Yes, they often enter without permission, but Thursday’s visits violated no no-trespassing signs.
In fact, the front door to the old country diner we visited was open, everything left as it was when it closed years ago – except now coated with dust.
Coffee cups, salt and sugar shakers on the counter. Dishes stacked in the kitchen. Pots and pans on and by the old gas stove. Dirty dishes in the sink. Handwritten menus. A rotary phone. Old cans of Schlitz beer and all kinds of spices and supplies still in the stockroom.
We visited a sprawling former factory in Petersburg that was once apparently the largest luggage maker in the land, some of it dangerously falling down.
For these explorers, many of their favorite sites – old Masonic and Moose lodges, churches and old mental hospitals – tell a gritty tale of how we lived all those many years ago, and how times have changed.
“It’s feeling it,” said Dusty Bottoms. “It’s understanding what was once was. And sharing it with the public on social media.”
History, in the raw, as it fades away. You can really feel it this way.
