STORY SUMMARY: Once known for natural resources such as coal, salt, clay and timber, Southeastern Ohio has been stripped of its resources by extractive industries. When nothing was left the corporations vacated the region, adversely affecting the economy and leaving the remaining communities with little but their cultural identity: a product of poverty, which has forged their lifestyle in Appalachia. Communities that once struggled to get by can no longer make ends meet after the economic downturn in the United States. In 2006 Athens county had a poverty rate of 27.4 percent and had a median household income $14,000 lower than the national average. These images represent the hard working Americans that are often forgotten and the landscape they call their home.

THIS IMAGE: A fallen road sign early one morning, one mile from Chauncey, Ohio.