Where highways grow quiet and trains no longer run, the grasslands offer a silent eulogy.
My name is Grant Douglas Miller and the landscapes I photograph memorialize windswept ruins and rusting artifacts of the American West.
I capture the remnants of bygone lands before time washes them away forever.
I grew up in a town with a population of 135 — the sort of town where you know the exact population. My hometown was like many scattered across the western United States. When the railroad shut down, the jobs dried up and the few businesses closed. Most people moved away, and any remaining wealth the town had went with them.
As kids, we explored the ruins and invented stories about the people we imagined lived there.
This home has sat empty since my childhood. We used to ride our bikes out this way to explore the abandoned buildings and swim in the creek nearby.
Highways and passenger rail lines used to pump the life blood of rural America. Now the railways have shut down and interstates bypass these places. As the old arteries died, so did many towns. This home sits on the wide-open prairie just south of Last Chance, once a popular highway stop.
Doug was kind enough to let me take is photo. He cracked a joke and wished me a good day. The place closed a few months later.
A storm was rolling in and the wind was beginning to pick up. The bright white siding and green vines created a stark contrast against the darkened skies. The grass waved in the wind like an ocean. How many more years will this little farmhouse stand?
This bus has clearly had many visitors. It would have made the ultimate fort when I was a kid. As an adult, it felt more like a temple, with a reverent silence that was only broken by passing trucks.