The Place That Made Me Fall In Love With Photographing Rural Towns Too.
Before 2014 most of what I had been photographing consisted of farms along with the barns, houses and other outbuildings located on that land. With the exception of few grain elevators, or a random view down Main Street, I rarely took photos of the buildings in these small rural towns. Synder, Nebraska changed all that.
I don’t have a massive amount of photos from Synder. As a matter of fact only about 15 photos total came from this stop, but when I returned home after this trip in 2014, the photos I took of the old Town Hall and beautiful terra cotta post office won me over so much I started making in-town photos more of a regular thing on these trips.
Platted in 1886 and incorporated 4 years later, Synder has been consistently a small rural town. The first census on record in 1900 recorded 229 people. With exception to a boom in the 1920s when the population grew to almost 500 by 1930, Synder has pretty much had a population in the 300s ever since it was founded.
If you ever find yourself in Synder, make sure to stop into Adie’s Restaurant & Bar. The outside may look like some nondescript boring 1980s rehab, but the inside is a great walk back in time. Complete with a collection of rifles around the walls and a tiny set of bathrooms, so small the sink is a on a wall outside the doors. Which means everyone knows who washes their hands. And yes, the food is good.
