This looks familiar.

I don't know if I've done this before and forgot, or did the pictures so long ago I've been paging through them for a year and think I did them. The style of the filters, the typeface at the bottom of the picture - it's all c. 2015.

Does it matter? What if the city's different now? What if a tornado took it? What if the reality I'm showing you is anything but?

DEEP, MAN. Okay, here are the pictures.

This bank's officers and tellers have been controlled by a green brain that appeared 17 years ago, and has directed their every thought ever since:

For some reason I gave this the Faded 70s picture treatment, which I don't like. The actual 70s were not faded. That's not what things looked like. The earth didn't pass through the tail of some strange comet that desaturized everything and boosted yellows.

You didn't like that 70s bank? Don't worry, we have another:

It's as if reality was so horrible for a few years that they made the windows impossibly narrow to keep the sights and sounds of carnage and despair from dispiriting the employees.

The theater, of course - complete with off-center marquee.

Once it had quite a presence. The marquee is all that's left. More interior shots here.

Wonder who that was? No, not Ray.

The McCasland name would be famed later in the petroloeum field- it's Mack Energy now.

I'll bet the storefronts are original - the Teens and Twenties loved the black tile.

Of course, so did the Thirties and Forties.

On the left: the head of angry, famished life form based on construction equiptment. Wander into the shadows, and be consumed.

In the middle: the sign on the metal grill says ABSTRACTS. If I had to guess, I'd say it was a Fine Dining restaurant - the window is covered up, but it's not boarded up. A close-up view shows a wall of decorative concrete blocks on silver poles over a planter, which says early 70s swank.

I found a historical society document for Duncan that suggests they concentrate on the residential districts, as there's just not much left of downtown to make for a Historical Area.

You can see their point.

It looks as if Mr. Buck is leaning to the side so you can see his name. Get out of the way! Hmph - trees downtown. Whoever thought of such a thing.

You'll have to wait until winter to get the full name.The 2008 version is helpful, even though the resolution's crap: W. L. Buckholte.

It's important to remember these things, and who these people were.

Wish I could tell you more.

A nice little piece of rusticated commercial space; no doubt a bank.

If I seem a bit bored with Duncan, it might because Duncan seems a bit bored with itself.

You know, if I saved these in January 2015, I should see if the Streetview cameras have been back since I snapped these.

Well, what do you know: they have. I took some more grabs.

2014:

2016:

Downtowns of a certain size put a lot of hope in these places - antiques! Cafe! Candle shops! After a few years it's cluttered and musty and the radio's playing the 70s channel and you find something from your childhood in the back and it feels sad and the only people in the cafe are old men with VFW caps. Which is fine; they need a place to go. But if you've been to one of these you've been to a hundred, and the mood is always the same.

An auto dealership? Whatever it was . . .

. . . it's not that now.

Hey, found another bank! The curse of any town: a boom in the 70s.

Can't tell what this is - no signage, as far as I can see - but again, something that ugly has to be a public building, the shape suggests a library.

Windows would just be distracting.

Finally: this is interesting, believe it or not. It really is. First: the angled brick on the left - pure late 50s / early 60s design, a bit of modernism to jolt the straight lines of the street.

Then the inevitable Buckaroo Revival on Books Calore. But what did it used to be?

The address comes back as a movie theater. The Trail. If it looks too small, well, look next door: I think that might have been the anctual theater, and this was the entrance / office. It's windowless and substantial.

If I'm right, then you just learned something you'd never know if you drove through town.

They all have stories and names, mysteries and hidden pasts. Every single one.