Flyover country, the windswept High Plains, the area derisively dubbed as the Great American Desert prior to settlement—this is a land stark in its beauty and climatically unforgiving to all but the most hardy and persistent residents. Up and down these grasslands reside many old towns, a growing proportion ghost towns or soon to be. One by one, these edifices, relics of more prosperous times, fall into disuse until they literally fall, long abandoned to the elements. The walls of this concrete and stucco structure may outlast wooden houses by hundreds of years. How long will the blue-violet window shade last?
