A few years back when I was just getting into rural exploration I picked areas that I was familiar with and wanting to know more about those areas. One of the areas I chose was heading east on HWY 121 from Anna, Texas to Bonham, Texas.
Abandoned Cars and Trucks Along HWY 121 Between Anna, Texas and Bonham, Texas
If you aren’t familiar with that stretch of Texas Highways, you will find that its slowly getting busier as the farm land is sold off and people move into the area. But don’t get me wrong, its still a great country drive through Northern East Texas. Most of the farms and ranches are large ones and many of the smaller original family homesteads are gone. To find those, you have to get off the highway and find some out of the way back country road to find those farm houses and farming equipment. During this trip I mostly stayed on the main highway and along the way I did find a few abandoned cars and trucks to look at. Some of them were in line at house to be restored or parted out. But the rest were forgotten about.
Abandoned Trucks Near Anna, Texas
From HWY 75 through Anna, Texas has been cleared of abandoned vehicles. As these areas grew in popularity and population the vehicle owners sold off the abandoned vehicles. But once you get out town and you almost get to Trenton, Texas it still pretty rural to this day (lots of large and small acreage tracts for sale) and if you get off the road you can find a few spots.
One of the small acreage tracts for sale had a burned out farm house, several travel trailers (70s –90s abandoned and trashed out), abandoned tractors, and abandoned vehicles. For the most part trailers/travel trailers and most of the vehicles were early 80s and 90s junk cars making this stop at first not worth the stop. But then I came across a couple old trucks just sitting in the field waiting for the owners to put them to work.
One of the first trucks I looked at was the old beauty pictured above. It’s an early 70s Chevrolet Custom/10 Deluxe. Judging from the style of license plates and the dry rot on the tires its been here a few years. I am not really sure why the owner abandoned her. She must have had some sort of under the hood issues that made it not worth it to fix.
When I see a good looking vehicle like this, I always ask myself, why did they just walk away? I walked around her multiple times and looked in the cab and she is in pretty good shape. I bet if there wasn’t anything wrong with her, I could change out the gas, clean up the plugs and put a new battery in her and it would start right up.
The next truck I came across was this old international truck. It looks to be a 1955 International Harvester S-Series light duty truck. Even though this one is sitting on blocks, the body looks good and it looks like the owner showed it a little love by adding a little rattle can pain to some of the body panels. This truck is just waiting for someone to save her. If I had the time, money and space I would grab this truck up and store it away until I had the time to make a custom rat work truck out of her. International Harvester trucks deserve more than this.
Update: When I drove by in January 2015, the two trucks were still sitting there and I hope to visit this site in the future and see if I can purchase them.
Update: As of 2018 all of the cars, tractors, and trailers have been removed and new house sits on the property.
Abandoned Cars and Trucks Near Trenton, Texas
Just before I got to Trenton, Texas I came across several properties that looked like they were restoring vintage cars and trucks. In the yard near one of the shop buildings I came across this parted out old truck.
Nearby I found an old heavy duty Ford Flatbed Truck and a 1955 sedan sitting out in front of the shop looking it like was about to be worked or parted out.
Update: When I drove by in January 2015, these vehicles were gone. But the surrounding properties had a ton of old cars trucks that I will have to stop ask the owners if I can shoot their vehicles.
Please Note: This article was originally written back in May 7th, 2015 on VanishingTexas.com. That site is no longer affiliated with us. All content from that site is slowly being migrated and updated to this site. All photos featured on this article were taken a few years before April 2016 unless noted.
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