LOSS FOUND: 1724 S. WHITE STATION
Income tax time gets me into a part of town I otherwise don’t have any cause to visit. I took a camera with me when I picked up my completed return this week, mainly to document the state of the old Neely’s, and was saddened to also discover the demise of an old Coleman’s ghost pit. It’s at 1724 S. White Station, and looked like this a decade or so ago when I first visited it.
Driving past this week, it now looks like this as work on the building continues (the Goodwill is still open, awaiting the sign to be put back).
It was a Coleman’s at least by 1970 and into 1974, part of the chain started by A.B, Coleman and Porter Moss and discussed here several years ago. My research stops about there, so I don’t know anything about it before it became a Goodwill. It has a special place in the “history” of this blog, as it is the first ghost pit I visited and photographed. When I decided I wanted to check out one of these ghost pits I was finding around the city, I figured the Goodwill would be easy to get into, and I was right. They were fine with me poking around the old pits, which were hidden by a drywall partition. I shot these.
The interior of the pit is the wallpaper for this site. The construction manager at the site said the pits had been removed some time back, and that the distinctive chimneys were taken down a couple of weeks ago. So goes the evolution of the city’s barbecue landscape. And yes, I did pass by Neely’s, which looks sadder all the time. Leonard’s, which is in the neighborhood, needs a lifeline to dodge this fate.
Happy MIM barbecue cooking contest week, everyone. My record of non-attendance remains intact.
