Abandoned Iowa: Vacant Heartland from Arcadia Publishing

For as long as civilization has grown and thrived, victims of progress are inevitably left behind. Abandoned Iowa: Vacant Heartland captures evocative images of what life once resembled across the Hawkeye State. Readers embark on a photographic journey through the lens of Nicholson's camera as they experience the deteriorating buildings and structures of Iowa's past. Images of disregarded structures allure the reader with the echoes of their previous existence.

Discover forlorn farmsteads where weeds and briars are the only crops; dilapidated schools with blackboards still clinging to crumbling walls; condemned churches whose congregations have long moved on; and decommissioned bridges that no longer provide safe passage. Broken windows reveal the warped and haunting confines of structures once warm and inviting.

Take a tour of Iowa's past via the forsaken present. Abandoned Iowa: Vacant Heartland exhibits images of past lives across the rural communities and small towns that epitomized life in the heartland of Iowa, while providing a look into the genesis of the photo-journalistic endeavor now known to thousands of social media followers as "Abandoned Iowa." Find more Abandoned Iowa content at Facebook.com/AbandonedIowa and Instagram @AbandonedIowa.

MITCH NICHOLSON is part historian, part photographer, and the principle content creator for Abandoned Iowa. After becoming enamored with the aesthetic of abandoned structures, Nicholson established Abandoned Iowa on multiple social-media platforms as a digital gallery during his freshman year at college in fall of 2010. Since then, Abandoned Iowa continues to grow. Nicholson still resides in a suburb of Des Moines, Iowa, and continues to produce photographs and videos under the Abandoned Iowa banner while working professionally in the IT field.