Gestville - Hotel

General store section of the building

 After several photo trips to Gestville, I have compiled a few after gaining access to a large, old building alongside the Kentucky River's Lock Number 3. This old building is recalled by many locals as the Gestville General Store.
Much time has passed since it had been occupied by store owners, and rented out as low income housing for a while. Nearly every room has an iron fireplace mantel, and the structure appears to be late 19th Century, which would be all indicative of this building having once been a hotel.

Note the ashtray

Drennon Springs is the next stop past the locks, where many wealthy people in the late 19th Century stayed for the reputation that the sulphur springs healed various diseases. This leaves Gestville to be a place where river boatmen were to stay the night. The locals tell of two different taverns in town, one directly across the street from the hotel. The dam and lock are no longer in use, but was active in the late 19th and early 20th Centuries. All evidence indicates that this was a river boatman's hotel.
The interior looks worn out, yet much of the railing and floors look to be hand made and from local trees. Locals tell of their parents and grandparents ordering supplies from downstream towns such as Frankfort. I can imagine luxury furniture and beds in each room.
It seems that decades of abuse and many years of neglect has left this onetime gem a rotting shell. Its former glory now rests with chairs sitting in lonely, dark rooms next to empty beer cans and even an ashtray mounted in a wall. Water damage has buckled the walls and warped the hardwood floors.
An upcoming article on the history of Gestville, KY, is on its way. Much of what was planned for this town likely called for such a large hotel in the center. Until then, here are some teasers: Gestville was zoned and planned to be another thriving river city like Cincinnati and Louisville along the Ohio; a combination of a crippling cholera outbreak and the rise of the locomotion were likely culprits to the exodus of Gestville; of the at least three churches in Gestville, only one of those congregations exist today.

As many of you guys know, I am not a big fan of PhotoShop. However, I had some fun with one of my photographs making it appear old and worn.

PhotoShop made this photo fun.

Abandoned Methodist Church in Gestville

A while ago, I crawled into this abandoned church in Gestville, KY. I am fond of abandoned structures, yet most partial to photographing abandoned churches. This perhaps is the original Catholic church built in the early 20th Century, and later utilized by Methodists when the Catholics abandoned the structure. As far as locals recall, this building housed Gestville Methodist Church.

View from near the entrance of the building

Gestville Methodist apparently thrived during the course of the middle 20th Century, but the aging congregation dwindled in numbers until only three regular attendees continued to show up and eventually the structure was abandoned. In the photograph to the right, the desolate pulpit bids farewell to the setting sun as the piano and stove rests in the shadows by the stage.

The church piano rests quietly

The stagnant air and muffled sounds of nature filtering through the walls gives a sense of isolation. There is an odor of aged hardwood and a mixture of dust and dirt from a long human absence. Only a few items remain in the building. An old piano (which does not play) sits lonely in a diagonal position near the stage. A few bookshelves containing some hymnals and random papers sits quietly toward the entrance doors. The pews have been removed and refurnished for Grub Ridge Church.

The stage is littered with broken glass and the letters and numbers used for church attendance and hymn boards. Only the padding from beneath the carpet remains from where the center aisle once led people to the stage. The building is hollow, silent, and at rest. No longer are these walls echoing the sounds of singing. No longer are these walls echoing the sounds of preaching. There is a deathly silence.

What force drives a church structure to become abandoned? What disease grows until the life inside such buildings breathe their last breath, turning the voices from shouts to whispers to silence? Standing on the stage where the pulpit once stood and viewing out to where the pews once rested a full congregation, it becomes clear that silence does not speak. Silence does not echo. Silence is not living. Silence is the absence of life, the absence of speaking. Death is silent. This building is silent.