Missouri Mill House in Decline

Charles Gerner, from the National Park Service, snapped this photo in 1934 while on a explorative trip to the area to assess its potential as a Recreation Demonstration Area. Pictures of farms and homes, such as this one at Missouri Mill, may have influenced a Washington newspaper's description of the area. "It was a dismal countryside of eroded, sterile fields, dilapidated little farm houses, ancient graveyards overgrown with blackberry brambles, cut-over woodlands, abandoned mining operations."