One of the unique things about large countries like the USA is that when something outlives it’s purpose it’s rarely removed and replaced but abandoned and left to rot. People just move to a new piece of land or a new city and build there instead, which means, if you know where to look, there are a number of ghost towns and crumpling farms and homesteads dotted around the countryside.
To the passer-by these ruins mean nothing and are barely noticed, but if you scratch beneath the surface there are some amazing stories left behind. An example of this is the third image here, which used to be the Graham Hotel, built in 1826, which was the first of 5 hotels serving the Gold rush town of Auraria, Georgia. Or the Jarrell Plantation in the fifth image. Built by John Jarrell in 1847, it was a 1,000 acre cotton plantation originally farmed by slave-labour which survived the Civil War and ran until John’s death in 1884.