Mount Vernon, Pickneyville and more Southern Illinois

[LSyd]

Mount Vernon - population is about 15,000. a micropolitan hub!

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Pickneyville - if my dad had not moved away from the farm, this would've effectively been my hometown. population is about 6000.

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the Illinois High School Basketball Hall of Fame is being built where a historic theater burned down recently. i remember scoring a lot of Transformers and G.I. Joes when the antique mall was a Ben Franklin years after they were out of production when i was a kid.

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Carbondale - home of Southern Illinois University. just a few shots while driving through.

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[Buckeye Native 001]

Stan the Tire Man has some gender issues he needs to figure out

[Centropolis]

ha! you are practically in my backyard, i've done plenty of work in mt v and carbondale. to me mt vernon is sort of the gateway to southern illinois, the landscape starts to roll and the woodlots get bigger and bigger.

it's pretty amazing how badly carbondale, a college town, jacked up it's downtown. sorry to say you didn't miss a lot by driving through.

thanks for the tour! i hope you can someday photograph "southwestern" illinois, home of old belleville, etc just across the river from st. louis (guess i could do that )

i am assuming you are reserving a single thread for paducah-on-the-ohio...looking forward to that. sort of in the bermuda triangle that is upper south/edge of the lower midwest and lower ohio valley.

[ColDayMan]

A long ways from Chicago and Galena.

[Centropolis]

Originally Posted by ColDayMan

A long ways from Chicago and Galena.

Louisville, Kentucky is closer to Chicago than Carbondale!

[kcexpress69]

Nice shots here LSyd!! Thanks for the tour!!

[LSyd]

thanks for the replies

Originally Posted by Buckeye Native 001

Stan the Tire Man has some gender issues he needs to figure out

my thoughts exactly

Originally Posted by Centropolis

ha! you are practically in my backyard, i've done plenty of work in mt v and carbondale. to me mt vernon is sort of the gateway to southern illinois, the landscape starts to roll and the woodlots get bigger and bigger.

it's pretty amazing how badly carbondale, a college town, jacked up it's downtown. sorry to say you didn't miss a lot by driving through.

thanks for the tour! i hope you can someday photograph "southwestern" illinois, home of old belleville, etc just across the river from st. louis (guess i could do that )

i am assuming you are reserving a single thread for paducah-on-the-ohio...looking forward to that. sort of in the bermuda triangle that is upper south/edge of the lower midwest and lower ohio valley.

i totally agree. it kind of scares me to think i could've ended up in college in carbondale, but something about the setting didn't feel right.

i'd love to get to "southwestern" illinois and visit the relatives there. and in st. louis. maybe in a few years.

and yes, paducah and metropolis get their own threads.

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[Thundertubs]

Neat! I need to visit southern IL sometime.

The sadness factor of this house is increased 300% by the askew screen door. It emanates despair and neglect. Just yank that thing off and it would improve everything. That one little screen door is bringing down the whole neighborhood.

[Evergrey]

Does this area feel like "The South" to you, LSyd?

[mrnyc]

interesting contrast to the ny state money earnin mount vernon.

i wonder how many mt vernons there are?

[LSyd]

thanks for the replies

Originally Posted by Evergrey

Does this area feel like "The South" to you, LSyd?

not really, but it kind of does at the same time. both areas have similar positives with very friendly, down to earth people.

my extended family's from the region on both sides. thankfully it's less WASP and more Polish/midwest, more baseball than football, with a close, familiar fondness and connection to St. Louis. unfortunately, it started feeling more like the south in the mid 90's. as is, it works as a nice gentle transition from south to midwest.

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[xzmattzx]

Nice pictures. the houses in Mount Vernon make it look like a place that people want to move away from. Nothing against the place, but it doesn't seem to have any "wow factor", like bright paint schemes or well-tended gardens. It reminds me of a lot of the little depressing towns in the middle-of-nowhere Pennsylvania that I saw as a kid.