Ricky Davis 4/26/26 Ricky Davis 4/26/26

The Cross Garden - No Ice Water in Hell…

The Cross Garden - Prattville, Alabama. Photos by Ricky Davis of TRD Photography - Kodak Tri X Film Photography

As I travel a decent bit, I love keeping an eye out sites like Roadside America. Early this year I saw an article pop up somewhere about The Cross Garden in Prattville, Alabama. It caught my eye as I’ve been working on a series of photographs since last summer covering different religious based signs in the South and beyond.

The history of The Cross Garden is quite fascinating. I read a couple articles about it on Roadside America as well as some other sites that actually got to talk with W.C. Rice, who built this amazing site. Mr. Rice has since passed and it’s been upkept by his family. After my visit, I was contacted by a family friend who lives on the property and had seen my TikTok clip from taking photos. I enjoyed getting to talk with her a lot and she shared with me some more information.

Since Roadside America has their article with their interview with Mr. Rice, I’m going to share some of what I discussed in messages with the family friend who reached out. She told me that as a child, Mr. Rice and her granddaddy were family friends and she remembers listening to their conversations. “Mr. Rice was very well-read and quite intelligent.” She stated their are a lot of odd rumors about why he started The Cross Garden but it truly was built as an expression of his faith and a conversation started to witness to others.

So one of the things that struck me the most about The Cross Garden is the dedication to ones faith that one must have to undertake a project like this. Whether you agree with the sentiment or not, this was done by someone who truly believes and is trying to practice what they preach. It’s easy to put up a billboard sign on the road but never have to answer for the message in your personal life, but building something like this at your home and then being willing to talk and discuss things with people who visited, it’s definitely something that someone was following what they believed and I find that commendable. I was told that back in the 70’s and 80’s in the early stages of The Cross Garden, the visitors and interactions were quite memorable.

According to Roadside America, Mr. Rice passed away in 2004. When I found the place it was a lot smaller than what I had seen online from the past. The family friend I was talking with told me it has had a lot of vandalism issues, so it’s not to where it used to be.

As a photographer who enjoys traveling around America, the South in particular, I feel blessed to have gotten to visit and take these photos. I wish that I’d been able to to see more of the site, but there were some no trespassing signs up now, so I worked to stay basically from the road taking photos where I saw the signs. I always try to be respectful of things like that, especially with this being a private residence.

Ricky Davis 12/26/25 Ricky Davis 12/26/25

Revisiting Georgia’s Abandoned Asylum….

Central State Hospital - Milledgeville, GA - Abandoned Insane Asylum - Kodak Tri X Film Photography - Photographer Ricky Davis of TRD Photography

In 2024 I made my first visit to Central State Hospital in Milledgeville, Georgia. It was built in the 1840’s and was in use until the early 2010’s. I made a blog post that really focused in and showcased the history of the facility. It’s here on my blog under Walking the Grounds, definitely feel free to check it out. The history is harrowing but fascinating.

This year I revisiting Central State Hospital. When I went the first time I was mainly working with my digital camera, a Canon 6D, but immediately on arriving I was kicking myself for not having taken any of my film camera’s. So this year I made a trip to Savannah, Georgia and on the drive back, we went through Milledgeville again so I could take my film camera’s and take some photographs again. I got to spend a bit more time there this time as we visited it in the evening, spent the night in Milledgeville, and then went back for a bit the next morning. I shot some 120 film as well as 35mm. I used all Kodak Tri X Film.

So onto the photos!

I love photographing signs. This sign pointing to the Powell Building is all weathered and I regretted not taking a photo of it on my first trip. I love it in b&w.

This is another photo of the Powell Building. It was the main building at Central State Hospital and it was where patients were admitted. It is HUGE. This shot was on 35mm film. The night before I found that with my Mamiya 645, I was limited by my lenses and couldn’t get the wider angle shots that I really wanted to achieve. So I went back the next morning and used my Canon EOS 1-N.

This plaque was on one of the other buildings near the Powell Building.

This is a photo from the Walker Building. It was one of the men’s dormitories there on Central State Hospital’s campus.

This is the doorway into the Walker Building.

This “Quiet Please” sign on the front door of the Powell Building just hit me some sort of way. The energy there is very heavy when you’re walking around. So seeing some of these things there, it just has a lot of emotion to it.

This “One Way” sign was very provoking to me. With the Powell Building behind it, it says One Way with the arrow pointing away from here…

This was a secondary entrance that I saw with a lot of growth around it.

This driveway goes under the porch of the Powell Building. As I mentioned before, the Powell Building was for admittance. This spot really bothered me personally. There’s a door beneath the porch. It seems to me that it was probably used to admit people, but I could also see it being used for removal as well. In it’s use, over 25,000 patients died at the facility.

These were the front steps of the Powell Building. As I was there I couldn’t help but think of the stories they could tell of people going up and down them.

This overlooked the porch of the Powell Building. I could just see a Vincent Price type doctor standing here, overlooking a new patient coming to the facility. You can definitely let your imagination run wild with you here.

The truth is this facility was a dark place. There were many reports of patient cruelty and heinous things being done here. At the same time, I’m sure there were doctors and nurses that truly cared about the patients. At it’s height Milledgeville held over 13,000 patients at one time. It was the largest asylum in America. With numbers like that, and technology being what it was, there were times where people went to far. It would be overwhelming to be in a place like that as a patient or as a doctor. It’s a sad part of our history, but it’s one that doesn’t need to be lost to time, or erased. We must remember our history in order to not repeat it.

These next few photos will finish up the revisit and they are from various places around the campus. I’d love to hear what your thoughts are on this revisit to Central State Hospital.

Ricky Davis 12/22/25 Ricky Davis 12/22/25

Hope is Coming…Scenes from the South

Hope is Coming - Religious Sign series - Scenes from the South - St Elmo, Chattanooga, Tennessee. Photo by Ricky Davis of TRD Photography. Kodak Tri X Film Photography

One of my absolute favorite series that I started working on this year has been my religious sign series. It’s something that I should have started years ago. Just the response I’ve received from it so far this year and the amount of amazing conversations that I’ve gotten to have with people about it, it’s been astonishing.

Recently here in Chattanooga, there has been these “Jesus is Coming- Repent” signs popping up everywhere, and I mean everywhere. Many places I’ve seen 2 or 3 of them on the same poles. When I’ve seen them, I’d been out shopping with family or on the go and didn’t have my film camera at the ready. So this past Sunday I had a photoshoot that morning and I planned to go hunting some of these signs down afterwards.

Needless to say I was driving to my shoot and lo and behold I came across this beauty. I made a U-Turn and stopped my car in a driveway so I could hop out and take this photo. What I love about it is it could be taken a couple of ways. You could say “Obama is coming. Repent” as if saying that with the idea that Trump may try to run for a third term, Obama could be cleared to run for a third term. The other way, and the way I like to read this is “Hope is Coming-Repent.”

What is hope? It’s different for different people. For a lot of people in these uncertain times, hope is all we have. I just wanted to share this find with you guys. I hope you guys find it as thought provoking as I do.

Ricky

Ricky Davis 12/17/25 Ricky Davis 12/17/25

Grasshopper Community Church - Scenes from the South

Grasshopper Community Church - Birchwood, TN - Southern Gothic Photography by Ricky Davis of TRD Photography

This photograph is special to me for a couple of reasons. First of all, this church doesn’t exist anymore. Several years ago we had a bad flood and the creek that runs behind this church in the woods overflowed and it was so strong that this church was knocked off it’s foundation and was torn down.

The second reason this photo is special to me is I grew up just down the road from this church. I never attended it, but many a Sunday evenings did I spend out in the pastures throwing baseballs into the air to hit them to the sound of gospel singings taking place at this church. In the moment, things like that don’t mean a whole lot, but looking back on it as you get older you start to look at the culture around you and see it disappearing.

I took this photograph many years ago on 35mm Kodak TMax film. I needed to do a test job because I’d had some issues with developing chemicals and I wanted to test it out. I wasn’t doing much shooting outside of people so I went out and took some photographs around and I photographed this church. I was glad that I did because soon after was the flood. Sometimes you have to take advantage of the time you have.

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The Cross Garden - No Ice Water in Hell…

Revisiting Georgia’s Abandoned Asylum….

Hope is Coming…Scenes from the South

Grasshopper Community Church - Scenes from the South

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