These two mules live in Florence County on S.C. Highway 341 between Lake City and Johnsonville. Photographer Linda W. Brown of Kingstree recalls how mules, once a normal part of the Southern countryside, now are seen only rarely.
In 2010, Better South President Andy Brack wrote a commentary on the disappearance of mules across the region. He wrote in Charleston Currents:
Back in 1930, there were about 5.4 million mules in the United States, according to Census data. Today? 283,806 mules and donkeys, according to 2007 Census numbers, which combined both types of animals into one category. South Carolina had 188,895 mules in 1930, compared to 1,620 mules and donkeys today.
So what happened? Mechanization and World War II.
“When the army started to get tanks, mules pretty much went by the wayside” because they weren’t needed to pull artillery and do other work that could be done by machines, said Leah Patton, registrar of the American Donkey and Mule Society in Lewisville, Texas.
Farmers started plowing with tractors. Farm families started traveling by car or truck. Because mules, a cross between a horse and donkey, are sterile and can’t breed, the species’ numbers dropped dramatically.
Patton’s society has more than 70,000 donkeys and mules registered in an attempt to keep alive the interest in the animals. Most people, she noted, don’t register mules because they are only around for their lifetimes.
But mules are still revered in some corners where people use them for more recreational purposes — showing them and riding them. And you can still find them hard at work in developing countries where people live off the land and don’t have enough money for tractors.
Photo is copyrighted by Linda W. Brown; taken in December 2014. All rights reserved.