You Can't Go Home Again by Kip Harris

''You can't go back home to your family, back home to your childhood ... back home to a young man's dreams of glory and of fame ... back home to places in the country, back home to the old forms and systems of things which once seemed everlasting, but which are changing all the time – back home to the escapes of Time and Memory.'' —Thomas Wolfe

I grew up in the 1950s in St. Anthony: a small, farming community in southeastern Idaho. The Snake River runs through the center of the town and the Teton Mountains are visible on a clear day. While having only 2,500 residents, it was the county seat and had a post office, a court house with jail and a small library, and an armory where sawdust was thrown down for Saturday night dances featuring country and western bands. Every possible inch of arable land surrounding the town was used for planting potatoes.

Construction of the nearby earthen Teton Dam began in 1972; it was completed in November 1975. On June 5, 1976, it collapsed. Local communities were immediately flooded with water. 80% of the houses in Rexburg were damaged. The village of Teton, the birthplace of my father, was destroyed. While the $200 million in relief aid created a building boom in Rexburg, St. Anthony continued its slow death.




The elementary schools and high school have been demolished and a new regional school built on the edge of town near a new small Walmart. The sawmill is gone as are the grocery store and Chevrolet dealer. The Hopperdietzel Cheese Factory closed in 1977. The bowling alley is still there but the movie theater went dark many years ago. My father’s bar is slowly being renovated and the rooms above it can now be rented by tourists instead of used by locals on a drunk. The Masonic Temple, which was also upstairs, has moved. There are buildings missing from the main street like the teeth on a hockey player.

In December 2023, I drove from Utah to St. Anthony to place the ashes of my sister in the Snake River. It had been a place where she had been happy and admired. I read one of her favorite poems from e. e. cummings and drove away into flat, barren landscape. It started to snow.





Kip Harris
Harris grew up in a small farming community in Idaho. He holds degrees in English literature from Dartmouth College, in humanities from the University of Chicago, and architecture from the University of Utah. He was a principal of FFKR Architects in Salt Lake City for nearly 30 years.

A serious photographer since the late 80s, Harris has exhibited in the United States, Canada, Australia, Japan, and Europe. He has been published in Shots Magazine, The Photo Review, Zero.Nine, Street Photography Magazine, Spider B & W Awards, LFI / Leica Master Shots, Neutral Density Awards, Your Daily Photo, Black & White Magazine (cover) and a number of on-line photographic sites. He has been a resident at the Rural Residence in Contemporary Art in the Val Camonica Valley of Italy and Gracia in Antigua, Guatemala. Place M Gallery in Tokyo presented a solo exhibition of 40 of his works from the “At Work” series in May / June 2025.
www.kharrisphoto.com
@kkhstreet