Introduction to Fries, Virginia - The area surrounding Bartlett Falls was an idyllic farming community in the Blue Ridge mountains of Virginia. The New River, widely considered one of the oldest rivers in the world, meandered through the cool hollows and meadows.
In 1901, men with pickaxes and dynamite invaded and changed the landscape. Col. Francis Henry Fries, a businessman from Winston-Salem, NC had identified the community and Bartlett Falls on the river as an ideal place to construct a dam to power a textile mill. A factory, a railroad, and a whole town soon sprouted alongside the river, built by The Washington Mills Company (The Company). Town officials named the town “Fries” in honor of the entrepreneur. Would-be mill hands from outside the area poured into the town and made a home there. They produced cloth from the raw cotton the railroad brought into the town.
The town thrived, even in the face of the Great Depression. In the 1980s, however, corporate owners determined that the small factory community was not producing sufficient profit. The mill was stripped of its productive assets. The dam and the power facility were handed over to an outside entity. The residents who had loyally labored in the mill, were left to deal with the dregs left by the former corporate owners.
That was 40 years ago. The infrastructure of the town has gotten older and more decrepit. The burden of supporting the town weighs heavily on the remaining families..
The primary source of economic energy that the town receives is from tourism. A rails-to-trails park was built where the railway once traveled. The New River is a draw to visitors.
US Post Office - Perhaps the oldest shop in town is the post office. The storefront exhibits artifacts from throughout its history. The post boxes likely were installed early in its existence. Store was remodeled in the fifties or sixties and the flooring and cabinetry stem from that era. The disabled parking signage was installed in the nineties. Finally, various outside decorative elements were placed in the 2000s. The photographer used mono-planar composition to confine the eye to a single dimension.
Company Stores - The eye wanders from the foreground to the background in this bi-planar composition. The weeds seem to echo the economic difficulties the town faces.
Slow Times - a once-busy restaurant door reflects the lack of business activity in the town.
Re-purposed - stairs, a sidewalk, a retaining wall, storm sewer are all elements of infrastructure from days when The Company supported the town. The New River Trail Inn is a business which adapted an original house (a boarding house) to the new reality.
Shimmering - the reflection of this 50-year old gasoline pump mirrors the uncertainty the town faces. This pump was installed no earlier than the late 1960s as Sinclair was rebranded on the East Coast in 1969. This photograph exhibits bi-planar composition.
ONLY! = Shadows add to the mood of this single-plane composition. This is a weathered and textured wall of a Company store building. The mostly-illegible sign adds to the mystery.
Guardian of the Stare - a black cat stares down a potential trespasser on its stairs. This film-based photograph displays in depth the aged infrastructure of Fries - the similar houses, the porches with no underpinning, the centenarian sidewalks, and the iron bannisters.
Waiting for a Show - To provide entertainment for the workers, The Company built a recreation center of which the Fries Theatre is a part. The venue showed movies up until the early 1960s. The theatre sat empty and unused for years, until a civic-minded group restored the interior of the theatre and even repaired the neon sign outside. It is now home to popular music gatherings.
Super-Smokeless - the recreational center is heated by an ancient coal furnace. This is a full-color photograph. Due to the lighting and the lack of color in the subject, however the photograph appears to be monochromatic. The choice of mono-planar composition, focuses attention on the details and texture of the furnace.
Duck PIn Alley - The basement of the recreation center (locally known as the “Y”) accommodates a duck pin alley. The alley is still in existence, but due to public health issues, it is not usable. It is one of the few duck pin alleys still left in the state. Lines lead the eye from the foreground into the dark background. The viewer travels from the known foreground into the metaphorical uncertainty of the far end of the alley.
Dead End - this multi-planar composition leads the eye to a closed door with no door knob.
Deep - the Methodist church is the oldest church in town. An unusual viewpoint exploits multi-planar composition, allowing the eye to travel through the photograph as the brain makes sense of the scene.
Gibberish to My Grandfather - The Baptist church is the second of the two churches sanctioned by the Company. My Grandfather was the minister of this church from about 1930 until 1945. This brick church was built during his appointment, replacing a wood-sided church which had been built earlier. My Grandfather left the coal mining area of southwestern Virginia, possibly as a result of the coal wars in that region, to take the appointment in Fries. I reflect on the Coronavirus-necessitated words on this sign and wonder how my Grandfather would interpret them. Drive-in? Why did we just build a new brick church? FM? FM radio wasn’t commercially available until the 1960s. Website, Facebook? What does it mean?
On the Bridge - this pedestrian bridge is an example of the aging infrastructure of the town. While the strong bones are evident in its underlying structure, the concrete covering of the bridge is deteriorating and will soon be unusable. Bi-planar composition emphasizes the distinctness of the man-made structure from the environment in the background, but reminds the viewer how close it is to being absorbed.
Two Doffers - Lewis Hine, the social crusader from the early twentieth century, visited Fries in 1911 and photographed children working in the mill. One of his photographs appears on the left. The caption, written by Mr. Hine, appears on the Library of Congress website with the photograph, “One of the young doffers in Washington Cotton Mills, Fries, Va., going to dinner. Said he was 15 years old, but it is doubtful.” Self portrait of the artist is on the right, created in roughly the same physical location as Mr. Hine’s 1911 photo. The artist was a doffer in the mill while working his way through college in the late 1970s.
Arch - an arched doorway is the last remnant of the mill itself.
Still - the New River reflects an image of the power generation facility. The facility was a key component of the milling operation, but now belongs to an entity outside the town.
No Trespassing - the dam is the last economically viable asset left by The Company. It unfortunately does not belong to the residents of the town. Townspeople had access to the structure and accessed it for fishing. Now, an outside entity owns the dam and the residents are barred from the area. Lighting, desaturation, and color temperature add to the feeling of abandonment.
Abandoned - a flat-bottomed boat sits abandoned and half full of water in the New River. The boat may be a metaphor for the town. Is that a glimmer of hope on the horizon?
Near or Far? - Fries was founded 120 years ago. The factory closed down 30 years ago. Those 30 years have seen a lot of changes. This photograph seems to echo the idea that the past may be (or may not be) closer than it appears.