My welcome to Wood Lake was anything but warm or inviting. As I turned off Highway 29 and onto Main Street, I was met by two older women in a Cadillac who started to follow me around , staring. They left after a while, but returned for more of the same, and then there was the guy in the gray pick up truck who was uncharacteristically unfriendly for a Nebraskan and stopped to ask what I was up to. Just taking pictures I said, why he asked, because that's what I do I said. He said ok and pulled off. Other people stared too, but I went about my business otherwise unmolested, but unsettled, wondering why people would be so protective of this beat up old town that was mostly boarded up anyway.
What I found out talking to the postmaster in the post office which is the two story building to the right in the first photo, is that three nights ago, at about one in the morning, this hidden, peaceful little ghostly town, whose only operating business (that I could see) is the post office, was attacked by a band of vandals who drove through town, broke most of the windows, and then drove off. You think of this kind of senseless violence happening elsewhere, but here in this almost non-existent place. I'm sure that the residents were more than unsettled by this impossible occurrence, hence their vigilance when I entered town.
The postmaster told me that windows were broken in cars and stores in Valentine as well, 70 he said, and that all of this occurred on the last night of the county fair. Drunks, he figured. But we all get drunk now and then and don't do mean, senseless stuff like this, I said. He just shrugged.
He told me the present post office building used to be the railroad administrative office for the area, when there was still a railroad. When they left, the PO moved in and until recently the old postmaster lived upstairs. No longer.
This is the old hotel. The windows were broken here too, but not all boarded up. The plate glass from the broken window to the left was exceptionally thick. Had never seen such thick glass, and standing by the now exposed interior, I felt very cold air pushing out of the building, very cold. It had no electricity, and the it had been quite warm, unseasonably hot even, during this summer of the drought, so why so cold?
These are pretty much all of the buildings on Main street in Wood Lake. A small town that may never be the same now that such senseless violence has touched their community.
Pablo
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