Most people in Allendale County, South Carolina’s poorest county where more than 40 percent of people live at or below the federal poverty level, can’t afford to eat lobster. Nevertheless, this now-closed restaurant represents how times were much better years back before Interstate 95 sucked sun-seeking tourists traveling through the county.
Today, part of the Lobster House is at least used — as a small convenience store, which is a better fate than many closed rest stops, gas stations, restaurants, clubs and factories that dot U.S. Highway 301.
Allendale County, also one of South Carolina’s smallest counties by population, has a median household income is about $23,000 a year — half of South Carolina’s average and well below the nation’s $50,000 average.
- More about Allendale County from QuickFacts from the U.S. Census.
Photo by Andy Brack, Center for a Better South, May 2013. All rights reserved.