This dilapidated structure lingers in my periphery on my way to work every day. From the highway in Alexander County, Illinois it is barely visible in the distance. I was always intrigued by the small black smudge standing alone amidst miles of flat, fertile Mississippi River bottomland.

On May 12, 2022, I found myself slightly early for work and decided to take a detour down a dirt road to see if I could get any closer to the mysterious old building. A giant cloud of dust billowed behind me quickly turning my blue car brown. A mile later, I found myself right alongside the abandoned woodshed I had been so curious to see.

Its worn wood walls stand as a reminder of a bygone era. After the Great Flood of 1993, federal regulations made it nearly impossible to build new structures in a floodplain. Generations lived and died in homesteads along the Mississippi River, but due to the ever-increasing likelihood of flooding, this structure is one of few that remains in a dying place.