Klotz Throwing Company
Updated September 2011 | By Matthew Christopher
Getting into the Klotz Throwing Company in Lonaconing, Maryland was a pretty drawn out affair. I contacted the owner, Herb Crawford, to request permission, and we had a lengthy conversation about it. He went on at length about the many photographers who had promised to help him out and how they never did, the deals he thought he would get for the place, the problems he had in maintaining it. It was a pleasant conversation but he said he was too busy to let me in. I asked if I could call back in a month to see if he had the time and he said that was fine.
When I called back in a month we had nearly the exact same conversation. Everyone had screwed him over, he was nearly ready to scrap it because he was so fed up with it, no time to let me in, yes I could call back. The next month it was the same. And the month after. For literally over a year and a half I called and called and called and though I felt sure I must be making some headway, I never got an ok to come photograph the site. It was incredibly frustrating. I liked Herb quite a bit, but to constantly feel like I was that close to getting in, then getting turned down again, was maddening. I got a friend who had visited there to finish and send him a set of photographs he had taken there a year earlier, but nothing changed. I was ready to write the place off. I kept telling Mr. Crawford that I could not promise him help or that I could somehow save the site but that I would do what I could, that I have a good network of contacts that might have resources but that I couldn't guarantee anything. He'd have to trust me that I would make an effort on his behalf but that I had no control over the outcome. He'd acknowledge the fact, and seem so close - and then, sorry, no time right now. we can talk another time.
Finally after nearly two years I was at my wits' end. The friend who had told me about the place insisted that it was worth the effort, though, so as a last ditch effort I showed up at Herb's house with my laptop. I told him I'd leave if he wanted me to and that I wasn't trying to invade his space, but I wanted to show him my work and that I really cared about getting into the place. He looked at me like I was half crazy, but agreed to let me in the following week.
When I came back, I was blown away by the site. It seemed small and mundane from the outside but the machinery inside was in great condition and there were tons of little artifacts from the past - workers' shoes and umbrellas, pay records, a magazine with the first family (Lyndon Johnson and his wife and kids) on the cover. As I was photographing Herb was very frustrated because the site had been posted online and people were starting to break in. One explorer chalked his name on the machines, and possibly the same person had taken old insurance posters off the wall and piled them up to steal them, but had either forgotten them or hadn't had the chance to come back for them. A police officer came in and took a report, and Herb talked about how people were breaking the windows to get in and that he didn't know what to do. I felt bad for him. He was an older gentleman and caring for the place was difficult enough.
When I left that day I told him I would try to set up a photographer's tour - no more than ten people or so, and each would pay for a few hours access to the site. I said he could do whatever he wanted with the money but I advised getting cameras and/or motion sensors because anything that made a loud noise if set off would provide a good deterrent. As I drove home, I started making phone calls, to see what I could do.
I called a number of people to set up the tour of the mill. Some were other photographers who visited abandoned buildings, one was my friend who worked at the National Museum of Industrial History, one was a college president with an interest in preservation. Everybody paid $50 for 4 hours of shooting/exploration. It was a lot of fun and all told we raised roughly $500. The owner, Herb Crawford, was a little skeptical about having so many people in but he warmed up as the day went on, seeming to enjoy sharing the site with the visitors. It struck me as a win/win situation. Herb got a decent amount of money, which he could put towards security, maintenance, whatever he wanted, and people got to visit the site for a relatively modest fee without having to sneak in. It was perfect.
About three months later I tried to set up another tour with a friend of mine. I made the mistake of approaching mostly people at the school I was attending in Rochester. Very few people even responded, and many of those that did bailed at the last minute. Rochester is a long distance from Maryland, and it was too overwhelming to try to fix things at the last minute with the pressures of the program I was in. I called it off.
There was one group of photographers from southern Pennsylvania who didn't get notified. I assumed my friend would tell them because he was the one who knew them, and he assumed I would because I was the one who had set up the tour. They called while they were on the road to visit the mill and were understandably perturbed about the situation, although not unreasonably so. I called Herb to see if they could still meet him and he was fine with that - some money was better than none, I suppose. They went out anyway and had a great time.
One of the members of the group, a photographer named Tom, really hit it off with Herb. He decided to carry the tour idea further than I ever could given my schedule and the tremendous distance from Rochester to Maryland. A few months later he had arranged four separate tour groups at $75 per person. People came from across the world and thousands of dollars were raised to help repair the roof. It was a great victory for the site, and Tom's hard work made it possible, showing that photographers can make a positive impact on an otherwise abandoned location. To this day the tours continue. Many groups from across the world have come to photograph the Klotz Throwing Company, and I am constantly seeing new sets posted. It feels good to know that people can take tours and see the Lonaconing Silk Mill legitimately and that it is helping keep the place intact.
And yeah, I'm not going to lie, it feels good that I was there for the first one.
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