The Dillard Depot in it’s original location.
The Dillard Depot could be considered a relatively “settled” object. That is, we know it’s reality today as an exhibit, we know it’s history (at least what the exhibit tells us), and we can reasonably guess how the Depot will continue to function in the future.
However ordinary and quotidian this building may be, the Dillard Depot is an object absolutely ripe with investigative potential. We can begin asking all sorts of questions to guide the detangling of the object: Why was the Depot worthy of expensive restoration and preservation? Why is the Depot currently used to represent the O&C Railroad and the Timber Industry in the museum setting? What can the object itself tell us about it’s own story, and the story of a small community in Douglas County? And perhaps most importantly, what lessons can we unlock from the Depot to inform the lives of current and future generations of residents of Douglas County?
The idea behind the organization and content of these praxis pages is for there to be no clear order in which to read them. One could start from any one of the three pages (yesterday, today, tomorrow) and follow links to information about the Depot, eventually learning the complete story of the object not only in space and time, but also in regards to ethics, politics, ontology and epistemology (even though these applications are not explicitly spelled out in the text); while simultaneously developing one’s own opinion about the Depot’s preservation, the Depot as an object and historical artifact, an exhibit, and more.