Yesterday County

Yesterday County YSTRDY County is a photo journal documenting small town life & the relationships with them. By Ross Theisen.

It’s easy for someone to sit, take photos and write mini essays on how cool it would be to see their hometown put the wo...
09/29/2025

It’s easy for someone to sit, take photos and write mini essays on how cool it would be to see their hometown put the work in and fix itself up a bit. I mean, I’ve got a dozen ideas personally on how I’d love to see that happen and how they could do it. However, it’s not lost on me that it would be the people who live in said-hometown who would have to show up and support these changes to make them worthwhile.

New small business opens up on Main Street? Show up!
New building is built for whatever purpose? Take care of it!

A lot of moving parts go into rebuilding something and it starts at the foundation of the people, and in modern times, that looks like people leaving their houses to experience some local life again.
(If there’s something for them to go out for that is…)

With it officially being , here's some Fall-vibe photos I snagged from my first batch of Crooksville photos. I need to ...
09/23/2025

With it officially being , here's some Fall-vibe photos I snagged from my first batch of Crooksville photos. I need to make it back down to grab some with all the leaves officially turned! 🍂

I wish I started this photo project the moment I moved away from crooksville. There’s so much that’s changed in the last...
08/28/2025

I wish I started this photo project the moment I moved away from crooksville.
There’s so much that’s changed in the last decade. Buildings and landmarks gone, things torn down and apart. Landscapes changed. That’s what happens of course, but I love the idea of documenting things throughout time.
Hence why we’re here now, looking at this page and these photos.
I’d love to find anyone through this who has access to photos of Crooksville, in all shapes and sizes over the years.

Sometimes the phrase “stuck in time” is used to describe small towns. It’s odd though, I wish Crooksville actually felt ...
07/27/2025

Sometimes the phrase “stuck in time” is used to describe small towns. It’s odd though, I wish Crooksville actually felt “stuck in time” at all.
What I see when I visit now (and over years past) is a town that doesn’t really honor or hold onto its past, and also doesn’t allow itself the proper capability to evolve and catch up in the future somehow.
It’s not caring for former spaces and places that gave it that “quaint small town” potential. But it’s also not hitting the mark in properly growing itself either.

It’s not stuck in the past.
It’s stuck in limbo.

Somewhere between what it once was, while struggling to figure out what it wants to be.
Dilapidated buildings unkempt, or, rather unique old buildings and architecture covered up with dull siding to “modernize it”.

And folks, I don’t say this to trash the place. I say it to acknowledge how much of a bummer it is to see. It’s never been a wildly shiny town (not in my lifetime at least) but I’m not asking much here.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, I wish it felt like one of those “cool little hidden towns you’ve never heard of, but feels like a time capsule tucked away.” Crooksville has an identity crisis and I’m not sure I can say it knows how to figure itself out, so it gets more and more stale as time passes.

Not maintaining what it had, while not growing into anything new.

I’ve somehow never really paid attention to how hilly Crooksville is until really noticing it in these photos. ...
06/16/2025

I’ve somehow never really paid attention to how hilly Crooksville is until really noticing it in these photos.

Maybe it’s wishful thinking, but I oddly still see some potential remaining on the streets of my hometown. It’s shown li...
06/06/2025

Maybe it’s wishful thinking, but I oddly still see some potential remaining on the streets of my hometown.
It’s shown little signs of life, but I have this hope in the back of my mind that one day, somehow, it turns itself around even a little bit, tightens its boot straps, and turns itself into something the people who live there (or even left there) can be proud of.

And if you’re seeing this and you do live there or do hold pride in the town, GOOD! I love that and don’t disagree with you feeling that at all. The pride I have in the form of hope is why I’m sharing this project in the first place.

Really, the best case scenario of me sharing this art project, is that it spawns some momentum somehow to initiate some growth, evolution, and fixes to the town. But for now, I just hope y’all think my photos are cool.

Crooksville, Ohio - 5.11.25
05/28/2025

Crooksville, Ohio - 5.11.25

I’ve literally been wanting to take these photos of Crooksville and start this project in general since like, 2018. Bett...
05/23/2025

I’ve literally been wanting to take these photos of Crooksville and start this project in general since like, 2018. Better late than never.

One of the cooler things I didn’t expect from going around town and taking these photos, was the new perspective it actu...
05/14/2025

One of the cooler things I didn’t expect from going around town and taking these photos, was the new perspective it actually gave me on the town. I’ve never looked at the environment like I did when finding photos to take.
I looked at each building, house, yard, alleyway, etc, differently than before.
This is cliche, but I was looking for the coolness or the beauty in spots. Mind you, for a good photo, “beauty” doesn’t always mean perfect and pristine.
Once I went through and edited them all, I felt like I wasn’t even the one who took them. Or even the one who grew up there. Like I was seeing all these spots, that I had driven or walked past hundreds of times, now for the first time.
But I was effectively, through a new POV, and in new light.

I’m starting this page as an art project. For years I’ve wanted to document my hometown and surrounding areas through ph...
05/12/2025

I’m starting this page as an art project. For years I’ve wanted to document my hometown and surrounding areas through photo, just cause. For fun. To document it, to make some art, and also to work on mending a somewhat love-hate relationship I have with my hometown.

Tucked away in South-Eastern Ohio, in , sits Crooksville. The town I grew up in. I’ll save the artsy history lessons and flashbacks for future shares. When I visit this place now, it feels like I’m visiting another planet. It’s weird.

When I say I have a “love hate” relationship with this town (village as it’s actually labeled) I don’t mean in the classic sense of just hating where you’re from. I’m actually angry at it. Angry because I’ve only watched this place decay over the years since I left.
Each time I return, a new building crumbled, something old torn down, more trash scattered, things more unkept.

I’m angry at my hometown because I love it and I want it to be better.

And listen, it’s a real small town in southeastern Ohio. We ain’t getting THAT fancy, I get it folks. But why this place can’t seem to take care of itself anymore bothers me maybe more than it should for someone who hasn’t lived here for a decade. But again, I love it. That’s why.

I grew up here and the idea that this place could’ve somehow became one of those quaint little drive-by towns someone can pass through and see it as a hidden gem, keeps my care and concern for it alive.

This captions already too long, so I’ll save another essay for another time. Here’s some pictures I took to simply highlight the town. Not make it seem better or worse than it is.
Just capture it, as it is, as I go.

Address

Crooksville, OH
43731

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