When I chose to go to Freeport it was a kind of random decision. It also was serendipitous. There are signs in Freeport of economic difficulties, as in many small towns in Michigan and the wider Midwest–e.g., buildings in rough shape and/or for rent. But this town has life and it’s interesting.
The village’s population is about 500. The first white settlers arrived in the 1850s. A couple of brothers, Samuel and M. S. Roush, founded Freeport in the 1870s. The town grew in anticipation of the railroad coming. Agriculture in the region around it drove its early growth and economy. So too did lumber. Here’s the view coming and going through the main drag.
Many of the local businesses have decorated for Halloween and been done up really well. The character in the cover image is creepy and cool. (See a full-size version below, at the end of the blog post.) Here are a few more Halloween decoration images from Freeport.
The village features a feed mill, like many towns and villages in the area. There’s also a lumber mill, a print shop, a web design business, a gun shop, an archery store, a general store, a pub, some small manufacturing (just outside the village), and more. And, of course, there’s a lot of farms in the area, including a large dairy operation near the village. Freeport also features an active historical society. Here are images of the feed mill, the print shop (with an ad from the historical society in the window), the general store, and the archery store.
The village has a couple of churches in and around it, as you might expect. One old church building looks to be used as a home now, but I was not sure. One of the churches, called The Gathering Place, seems to have both a worship space and office space. Their architecture drew my attention.
I’m not quite sure what the second building once was or what it’s being used for now. It looks sort of like a firehouse, but Freeport seems too small for a large firehouse. Perhaps it was a livery stable from the nineteenth century.
I made a few interesting images of architectural views and reflections in windows. The two galleries below are a few that I really liked. The first gallery is 1×1 images. The second is of one of the beaten-up buildings in town that does not look to be used at the moment.
It was a cold morning and early afternoon when I went to Freeport. The cloud cover was changing constantly and tended to be heavier to the north and thinner to the south. As a result, some of the images are gray looking while others have brighter light. For the first time this fall, I noticed that my hands were cold. Winter is coming!
Here’s a full-size version of the cover image. I hope everyone had a fun and safe Halloween.
No Ordinary Light 