People rarely look at those spots, yet architects and trade workers took the time to craft them with wonderful designs.

They even included decorative design elements on the back facades.

After at least five years of sitting vacant, the Royster-Clark facility is finally being torn down.

It’s going to be real interesting to see what pops up in its place. I’m hoping a new neighborhood library is included, which I’ve seen in the proposals.

Roof supports at Miller Park.

When I arrived, it hit me that I stupidly forgot my tripod. So I set the ISO fairly high, and the shutter speed to the lowest setting that I thought I could hold the camera steady.

Although the images were a bit grainy (from the high ISO), I didn’t think they turned out too bad.

There is an old barn in the middle of Governor Dodge State Park. A reminder of a farm that existed years ago on the same land.

I enjoyed looking at all the details of the aging structure — especially the places that had vague remnants of the barn’s last coat of paint.

Whenever I see old buildings like this, I wonder about their history. Who lived there? What was the farm like in its prime?

Will this barn still be standing 50 years from now?

Church or Italian restaurant?

It’s pretty obvious there is a former brass factory below.

But do the bicyclists and skaters realize they’re riding with the ghosts of railroad trains that once passed over the same trail?

There’s been talk of turning the former Garver Feed & Supply Company (above and below) into an arts incubator.

The spirit of an old tree is my favorite Madison ghost. It’s a bronze casting of a sculpture created by Ho-Chunk artist Harry Whitehorse. It was made from a storm damaged hackberry tree that once sat on this spot.

The sculpture’s face looks out over an ancient effigy mound (where the tall native grass grows in the above photo). The shores of Madison’s lakes are home to many more ghosts — over twenty effigy mounds which can be found on public lands.

There are many clues to the past out there, although they’re easy to overlook.

Krause Grocery & Meats (like 99% of other neighborhood grocers) no longer exists.

Some buildings stand empty, home to only the ghosts of businesses that used to inhabit them.

Others, like the former Capital Heat & Power, are still performing similar functions under newer names.

Still others, like the former Kupfer Iron Works, have been transformed, and given new life.

The steel gantry from the former iron works is one of my favorite things about Madison’s Goodman Community Center. Now there is a solar collector mounted above the gantry’s crane, and a playground underneath.

Do any of the children gaze at the gantry and wonder what it was used for?

I could have spent hours walking around the old building and taking photos,

In keeping with the site’s historic nature, I decided to post these in sepia-toned black and white.

Many of the old fixtures, like the sliding metal exit door with counterweight, are still a part of the former factory building.

From the Jefferson Building in Iowa City.

The old Iowa Capitol building is now a museum, and “focal point” of the University of Iowa.