Read time: 5 min.

My favorite blogs end the year with a big retrospective, and I like to do the same. It’s hard to believe another twelve months have slipped by since I last fell down this rabbit hole, but here we are again: the numbers are in, the dust has settled, and it’s time to take a look at how 2025 stacked up.

2025 is the year my blog started to find its footing. After reaching about 160,000 views in 2024, the total more than doubled to 325,400 in 2025. Views increased by 103%, visitors were up by 117%, and here are the posts you read the most:

5: Raysville’s mysterious Star Boulevard: I wrote about a perplexing stretch of road in a rural Henry County community.
4: Abandoned Marsh: College Mall Road in Bloomington: I drew an abandoned Marsh supermarket and briefly wrote its history.
3: Charlottesville’s crumbling high school: I took a trip to an abandoned high school just north of US-40, the National Road.
2: Abandoned Marsh: US-31 in Greenwood: I drew another abandoned Marsh and briefly wrote its history.
1: An even bigger chunk of the Muncie Mall is coming down: I scooped the local media and reported on how more than 200,000 square feet of the Muncie Mall will be demolished soon.

Traffic to my five most-visited posts represented about 7% of my total views in 2025. Views of my five personal favorites represented far fewer -just over 3%- but I’m glad I wrote them anyway.

5: Richmond’s Smith-Esteb Memorial Hospital: an old tuberculosis hospital captured my attention. I have an open invitation to go tour it.
4: Where’s George? At the corner of Kilgore and Nebo in Yorktown: I recounted some fun history about the intersection where I practically grew up.
3: New Garden’s Tragic Triple Tombstone: a creepy monument south of Fountain City deserved some research.
2: A ford expedition: I stumbled across an honest-to-goodness pioneer-style ford in rural Madison County.
1: The old Subway I worked at in college is empty: I went through all the feels as I recounted my freshman year in college.

One of my favorite parts of publishing here is when someone leaves a comment. I could keep writing until the cows come home, but hearing back transforms my broadcast into a conversation. Comments rose by 64% compared to last year, and here are 2025’s most commented-upon articles.

5: Muncie’s Lustron Legacy: I visited five prefabricated Lustron houses in Muncie.
4: Elder-Beerman: a lost landmark in Richmond: a landmark department store in downtown Richmond was recently demolished.
3: Reflections on turning 35: getting old is strange. I’m the only one still doing the things my whole circle of friends once did together
2: Five springs at Richmond’s Glen Miller Park: I tracked down five flowing wells, known in Richmond as springs, in a historic city park. 
1: Forgotten Photos of Fort Wayne’s Elmhurst High School: I found some old photos I took before a historic high school was demolished and wrote some of its story.

A big piece of this blog’s growth in 2025 came from NewsBreak, a news aggregator app that began sharing some of my posts late in 2024. It’s responsible for 36% of the views here. At the same time, Facebook referrals are down to about 19% of my traffic, and search engine traffic is up to 15%. I share my posts shamelessly on social media, and 98% percent of the blog’s traffic hails from the good ol’ USA.

Finally, I have one last update- the tip jar. At the end of every post, I include a link to my Ko-fi page. It’s a simple option: if you feel like it, you can toss in $3- roughly the price of a cup of coffee. This year, readers contributed $517- the equivalent of 172 coffees. I’m truly blown away by that generosity! More than anything, it tells me that my work matters to people. Every dollar goes toward keeping the site online, and I’m deeply grateful for your support even if you never click.

This little blog had a banner year in 2025. I can’t believe how much its views and visitors have exploded since 2022, when about 6,000 people viewed it 10,000 times. Moving into 2026, I’ll consider my work a real success if I can keep building a genuine community that shows up in the comments. Knowing that my byzantine interests spark recognition and curiosity is what keeps me writing, and I’m excited to see what’s ahead in the new year. As always, thanks for coming along for the ride.