The thick cable running across the center of the photo easily caries as many pairs of telephone wires as those huge poles and crossarms do. It's surprising to see them still in use, this late in the evolution of the phone system.

A lot of us count Walker Evans as an influence.

James W. Sloss was one of the first iron founders in the Birmingham area. Along the way, the Sloss company (eventually absorbed into U.S. Pipe) discovered that some of the byproducts of steel manufacturing were marketable in their own right, among them benzene, which they refined and marketed as a motor fuel ("Sloss Special Benzol, the perfect motor fuel").

I don't know how other Shorpyites may feel, but I for one would be nervous about running my car on a fuel that is even more toxic, and just as flammable, as gasoline is.

A little derivative, but we all have our influences.

I just joined up. Posting this just to see if I succeeded. Not always a given.