THE ABANDONED SCHULENBURG MCDONALD'S

I first discovered the non-existence of this McDonald's in the summer of 2016, when a McDonald's that should have been in Schulenburg wasn't visible from the road. A McDonald's is almost impossible to miss, with their iconic logo and visible branding. In a subsequent trip about six months later, I noticed that the McDonald's had closed—the roof now just a tarpaper-covered wooden roof and all trace of the Golden Arches removed. Talking with an employee at La Grange's Dairy Queen and cross-referencing with Google reviews showed that it closed sometime around October 2015 and closed due to consistent health violations.

In the summer of 2018, I was in the area, traveling east on I-10, and I decided to take a look at the former McDonald's myself up close. Remarkably, the restaurant was largely intact, with the menu and the soda machine still practically untouched, almost as if they packed up for the day and would reopen shortly.

The store was clearly updated at some point, likely around the early-to-mid 2000s. It dates back to 1996, but by even 2008 the roof had been redone to metal. There was also a playground, and in pre-2013 shots has a canvas covering over it.