Finding out the location	easy
Access	very easy
Safety	very unsafe
Risk of being seen	very high
General condition of the place	bad
Traces of vandalism	none or very few
Good place for taking pictures?	good
Did you see other people?	few

Visit date    February 5 2020 at 1 hr
Visit duration    1 hour

The small town of Mayesville, founded in the 1800s with a population of 715, saw great change after mill and textile towns boomed in the south. Travel and business ramped up in the early 1900s, creating necessity for new stores and accommodations. In 1911, the beautiful Kineen hotel opened it doors to travelers, along with a small plaza of stores. During the Great Depression in the 1920s, the Kineen was sold after suffering the effects of the devastating economic change. It served different purposes throughout the 1900s. The Kineen suffered another blow to business after the railroad was built in 1968. MayesVille was left out of railroad stops and soon became a poor ghost town. Travelers and commerce diverted away to towns more easily accessible. In 1998, the building was sold to a private buyer hoping to do a restoration. Sadly, it never transpired. Later on, the town of Mayesville bought the building and even received a $500,000 grants revitalize the deteriorating town, but never fixed it. Windows and doors wide open and uncared for, the wood rotted, the furniture vanished, and anyone who wanted inside was able to walk right in. The hotel was solid wood and brick with large glass windows, two stories, with approximately 10-20 rooms. Wood floors and a grand wooden staircase highlight what appears to have once been the lobby of the hotel. There is a glass window, presumably for customers to make transactions and a room behind the stairs which could have been anything from the owners room, storage, or an office. The thick wood is now questionable to step on there is a hole in the roof where water leaks onto the softened stairs. The entire plaza sits in decay, other stores rotting away and wide open as well. No visitors or locals frequent Mayesville nowadays, except to occasionally peek at the ghostly old buildings. The population was a mere 731 in a 2010 census, a decline from 1,001 in 2000, with 35 percent of its meek community living in poverty. On Christmas Eve, the Kineen went into flames and burned until it was reduced to a pile of bricks. The fire was so large, firefighters came from multiple counties to fight the fire. The building was vacant at the time and no cause has been identified. The small community mourns the loss of over a century worth of history.

  Text and photos are by Vyvansetrance. Click here to see Vyvansetrance's profile and other reports.

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