Henry Louis Gates, director of the Hutchins Center for African American Research at Harvard University, prefaced his 1994 memoir “Colored People” with a letter to his daughter, explaining that Piedmont, W.Va., the place that nurtured him, has "mysteriously disappeared".

Piedmont peaked in 1940 with 2600 people, the B&O railroad shops, 10 saloons and 8 churches. Overnight, it became a ghost town with fewer residents in 2015 (870) than in 1855. A visit there is poignant, revealing a town from the past, where each of its buildings has been repurposed or abandoned. It is easy to feel Mr. Gates distress, walking among substantial architectural relics of a better past on now empty streets dotted with decaying buildings and broken windows.

In 1815, Piedmont, WV, housed one edifice known as Widow Burn’s Place. The Widow’s Place may be apropos.

Canon EOS-7D, Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8 L USM lens (at 42mm), 1/100s at f/3.5. ISO 100; automatic white balance