Post Office-gas Station Ghost Town Wagoner Arizona 1968 #1 Metal Print

Wagoner, Arizona's earliest homesteads date from 1864 when the town was named after Jaye Edward Wagoner. The town had a two story hotel with 10 rooms, stores and many business.

Almost all the structures that were still standing burned down in the 1940's.

This post office/gas station reminded me of one of my favorite photographers, Walker Evans. The building slowly disintegrated away, with nothing left today.

A few ranchers remain in the area.

I first became obsessed with photography and motion pictures while growing up in post WW2 Manila in the Philippine Islands in the late 1940's/early 1950's. Film noirs were a particular influence. But my first love remains the theater. I acted in numerous amateur productions from 1958 to 1978. In 1979 I earned a MA in drama from the University of Arizona; earlier getting a BA in English from the University of Minnesota, where I co-founded the first film society on campus and ran it for four years. While at the U of A, I studied with the master black and white photo essayist W. Eugene Smith (1918-1978) the last year of his life. I am the last person cited in Jim Hughes' definitive biography of Gene, as I wrote about attending his final...