Industry in the middle of the country.

Someone drank a lot of wine. Apparently.

In the middle of nowhere, just outside of Columbus, Texas, you’ll find a huge general store full of the not-so-general. And a lot of “recycled” (aka “garbage”) art. Started in 2006, the Industrial Country Market, and its many structures, are all self-sustaining and fully “off-grid”. Wandering around the large grounds, I would’ve guessed the many well-made outbuildings, extensive art gardens and displays had been started twenty years ago rather than only six.

The not-so-general general store…

Among other things, there were bins full of old circuit boards. (not pictured here)

The sculpture garden…

Outside view of the sculpture garden.

Stick ’em up, Pardner. (One of many such sculptures in the garden.) I want one of these for the yard in front of my RV!

The art museum…

The Industrial Country Market Art Museum had the look and feel of a high-end wine bar. What do you bet this is where the wine bottle trees started?

A koi pond…

The Koi Pond.

The koi, and minnows?

There were self-composting toilets (sorry, no photo of those). But I can tell you they worked well. It didn’t feel like a porta-potty. The one I was in had interesting fixtures and walls covered with the old circuit boards.

Solar panels supply the energy stored in the banks of batteries on which the compound runs…