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There are, or were, six towns named Boonville in the U.S., and Timothy Briner plans to visit every one of them.
The Brooklyn photographer said he plans to use the six towns -- including Boonville, Texas -- to tell a story of life in small-town America.
But Briner encountered a glitch when he came to Bryan-College Station last month: Boonville, Texas, no longer exists.
Of course, Briner said, he knew that before he came, but he had no idea how he would include the nonexistent town in his portrait of rural America.
"[Boonville, Texas] is the most interesting to me because it's just a big question mark," he said. "I'm leaving in four days, and I'm still kind of unsure what I'm doing here."
Briner, 26, has visited five towns named Boonville: in Indiana, Missouri, North Carolina, New York and Texas. Boonville, Calif., will be his final stop.
For the past three weeks, he's been in Bryan-College Station researching the roots of Brazos County's first town and county seat.
Over the past eight months, Briner estimates that he's taken 2,000 pictures of the Boonvilles.
He plans to compile the photos with descriptions of the six sites in a book that will be finished next year.
The black-and-white photos show farmers, hunters, American flags, worn-down buildings, open fields and, in Bryan, Tom Light Chevrolet, which is where Boonville used to be.
The tree that marked the center of town is directly behind the car dealership. That's a perfect metaphor, Briner said, for the changes that have taken place in Boonville and that are happening in small towns across the country.
Boonville officially became a town in the 1840s, although the first settlers began arriving in the 1820s, according to Birth and Death of Boonville, written by Brazos County resident Margaret Lips Van Bavel. Boonville began to lose its glory when the route of the incoming Houston & Texas Central Railroad was plotted several miles away.
In 1866, the book says, Boonville's fate was officially sealed when Bryan was named the county seat of Brazos County.
The only sign of the former town is Boonville Cemetery off Boonville Road east of Texas 6 in Bryan.
Briner said he didn't know what to expect when he arrived in Bryan-College Station. He knew Boonville, Texas, would be different from the other five towns. It is, after all, the only one that no longer exists. But, he said, Boonville, Texas, is one of the main reasons he started on this journey.
"It sort of completed the idea of this ever-changing America," he said. Several of the towns are expanding, and a few show no growth, he said, explaining that the Boonvilles demonstrate a complete cycle.
Briner said he got the idea for the project while vacationing in Boonville, N.Y.
Briner grew up in a small town in Indiana. That's one of the reasons he's fascinated by small-town life. Eager to leave the town he grew up in, Briner moved first to Massachusetts, where he earned a degree in photography, and then to New York.
Photographing small towns, Briner said, has allowed him to rediscover his own hometown.
The largest of the towns is Boonville, Mo., with a population of 8,500. The smallest town, other than Texas', will be Boonville, Calif., with just 800 residents.
Although he's not out to uncover the history of the towns he has visited, Briner said, he can't help but think about how things looked in Boonville, Texas, 100 years ago.
Briner said he's disappointed to see a town with significant history disappear without so much as an archaeological dig. The only sign of the former Boonville is a historical marker in the cemetery.
His book will be a small witness, Briner said, to the changes that have occurred in Boonville, Texas.
Briner raised enough money to pay for his equipment and most of his journey, but three weeks ago, he said, he started living on credit cards.
He's been recording his journey on the Internet at www.boonvilleusa.com.
It's been a hard trip, he said, involving long hours and a new start in each town he visits. It's difficult leaving behind people he has gotten to know. And he's homesick.
"This'll be the largest thing I'll ever do. It's exhausting," he said, adding that his journey has been worth the effort. "I'm very much in love with them -- with all the people, all the towns."
• Janet Phelps' e-mail address is janet.phelps@theeagle.com.
