Author: Andy Brack

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Spooky, Cooperville, Georgia

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Spooky, abandoned motel, Cooperville, Ga.

Doesn’t this abandoned motel look plain spooky — a place NOT to be on Halloween?

It’s in rural Screven County, Ga., about 12 miles south of the county seat, Sylvania, at the intersection of U.S. Highway 301 and Georgia Highway 17.  Next to the hotel is the abandoned Paradise Restaurant, that kind of reminds us of the Lobster House, also in Highway 301, about 45 minutes northeast.

Screven County got started after the Revolutionary War and soon became part of the Black Belt of Georgia where cotton became an important staple crop tended by enslaved African Americans.

The county’s population jumped from 3,019 in 1800 to 8,274 by 1860, according to Census figures.  While it had 14,593 people in 2010, the county lost an estimated 391 people — 2.7 percent — by 2012, according to the U.S. Census.  In 2010, Some 25.4 percent of county residents lived below the federal poverty level, 9 points higher than the state average.

Photo taken Sept. 23, 2013, by Michael Kaynard.  All rights reserved.

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Main Street, Rocky Ford, Ga.

Rocky Ford, Ga.
Rocky Ford, Ga.

Rocky Ford, Ga., a circa 1870s town with “untold treasures and endless opportunities” according to this site, is home to about 200 people in rural Screven County in eastern Georgia.

According to photographer Brian Brown, “After putting much of her personal wealth and energy into the restoration of her beloved hometown of Rocky Ford, Greta Newton is now offering its historic commercial core for sale. Without her passion for the history of this place, it would have suffered the same fate as so many of our forgotten small towns in Georgia.”

Rocky Ford is in Screven County, which had 2,675 people in 2000, according to the Census.  Screven County got its start after the Revolutionary War and soon became part of the Black Belt of Georgia where cotton became an important staple crop tended by enslaved African Americans.

The county’s population jumped from 3,019 in 1800 to 8,274 by 1860, according to Census figures.  While it had 14,593 people in 2010, the county lost an estimated 391 people — 2.7 percent — by 2012, according to the U.S. Census.  In 2010, Some 25.4 percent of county residents lived below the federal poverty level, 9 points higher than the state average.

Photo taken Sept. 23, 2013, by Michael Kaynard.  All rights reserved.

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Health care

On this page, you can find various health care maps related to the Southern Crescent — maps on heart disease, diabetes, obesity and chlamydia, all of which have comparatively high rates in the Crescent.

HEART DISEASE

The death rate from heart disease for people 35 and older is higher in the Crescent.  More info.

Death rate per 100,000 people, age 35+. all race. all gender. 2008-10, National Vital Statistics System, National Center for Health Statistics, Centers for Disease Controo.
Death rate per 100,000 people, age 35+. all race. all gender. 2008-10, National Vital Statistics System, National Center for Health Statistics, Centers for Disease Controo.


DIABETES

People living in the Southern Crescent have a higher overall percentage of diabetes.  More info.

DIABETES_chart
Age-adjusted estimates of th percentage of adults whith diagnosed diabetes, 2010. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: National Diabetes Surveillance System.

 


OBESITY

People in the Crescent are more obese than in other areas. (Map via Maxmasnick.com)

Age-adjusted estimates of the percentage of adults who are obese, 2008 data, Centers for Disease Control.
Age-adjusted estimates of the percentage of adults who are obese, 2008 data, Centers for Disease Control.


CHLAMYDIA

Crescent counties tend to have a higher rate of the sexually-transmitted disease Chlamydia.  More info. 

Chlamydia -- rates by County, U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for HIV./AIDS, Viral Hepatitis, STD and TB Prevention, Division of STD Prevention, 2010.
Chlamydia — rates by County, U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for HIV./AIDS, Viral Hepatitis, STD and TB Prevention, Division of STD Prevention, 2010.
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Unemployment, 2013

Unemployment, 2013
Source:  Unemployment rates by county, August 2012 to July 2013, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Unemployment rates by county, August 2012 to July 2013, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Unemployment rates by county, August 2012 to July 2013, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The dark blue and purple counties had higher rates of unemployment in 2013.

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Tenant house, near Workman, S.C.

Tenant house in cotton field, Williamsburg County, S.C.

Tenant house in cotton field, Williamsburg County, S.C.

Roll-roofing-sided tenant houses, like this one, used to be a common sight in Williamsburg County. But they’re rare these days, says retired editor and photographer Linda W. Brown of Kingstree, S.C.

“I liked the cotton field in the foreground with the tenant house behind it as a reminder that we aren’t all that far removed from the days of the sharecropper. You can’t really see it, but way in the background is an old tobacco barn.”

Just under 34,000 people live in Williamsburg County, which is about the number who lived there in 1900, according to Census figures.  Population peaked in 1950 at 43,807, but has dropped slowly since then.

About two-thirds of county residents are black, with almost  all of those remaining being white.  Only 2 percent of those in the county are of Hispanic descent.  Some 32.8 percent of residents live in poverty, according to the Census.  Of the county’s 1,921 firms, 36.5 percent are black-owned — a percentage that is three times South Carolina’s average.

Photo taken Sept. 27, 2013, by Linda W. Brown.  All rights reserved.

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Farmhouse in town, Sylvania, Ga.

Farmhouse in Sylvania, Ga.
Farmhouse in Sylvania, Ga.

In many towns across the rural South, it’s not hard to find old homes near downtown that were once at the edge of town.  They blended a little of country and city at the same time.

While decrepit now, this old house might soon be in for an upfit, based on some of the stuff in the yard that’s outside of the picture.  The property sits about two blocks off the main street in Sylvania, Ga.

Sylvania, the county seat of Screven County, had 2,675 people in 2000, according to the Census.  Screven County got its start after the Revolutionary War and soon became part of the Black Belt of Georgia where cotton became an important staple crop tended by enslaved African Americans.

The county’s population jumped from 3,019 in 1800 to 8,274 by 1860, according to Census figures.  While it had 14,593 people in 2010, the county lost an estimated 391 people — 2.7 percent — by 2012, according to the U.S. Census.  In 2010, Some 25.4 percent of county residents lived below the federal poverty level, 9 points higher than the state average.

Photo taken Sept. 22, 2013, by Andy Brack.  All rights reserved.

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Storage, Sylvania, Ga.

Agricultural storage, Sylvania, Ga.
Agricultural storage, Sylvania, Ga.

Here’s something found in many rural Southern agricultural towns — warehouses and grain elevators.  This operation is run by Daniel W. Reed Co., in Sylvania, Ga.

Sylvania, the county seat of Screven County, had 2,675 people in 2000, according to the Census.  Screven County got its start after the Revolutionary War and soon became part of the Black Belt of Georgia where cotton became an important staple crop tended by enslaved African Americans.

The county’s population jumped from 3,019 in 1800 to 8,274 by 1860, according to Census figures.  While it had 14,593 people in 2010, the county lost an estimated 391 people — 2.7 percent — by 2012, according to the U.S. Census.  In 2010, Some 25.4 percent of county residents lived below the federal poverty level, 9 points higher than the state average.

Photo taken Sept. 22, 2013, by Andy Brack.  All rights reserved.

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Church is out, Sylvania, Ga.

Church is out, Sylvania, Ga.
Church is out, Sylvania, Ga.

Members of the First United Methodist Church in Sylvania in eastern Georgia are shown leaving church on a fall Sunday.  Despite the fact that Southern states tend to be more conservative than states in other parts of the country, Southerners tend to be more generous with larger percentages of their discretionary income going to charity.

According to the Chronicle of Philanthropy, four Southern states — Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee and South Carolina — are in the top five most charitable states.  Georgia ranks eighth, according to a 2012 study.

Sylvania, the county seat of Screven County, had 2,675 people in 2000, according to the Census.  Screven County got its start after the Revolutionary War and soon became part of the Black Belt of Georgia where cotton became an important staple crop tended by enslaved African Americans.

The county’s population jumped from 3,019 in 1800 to 8,274 by 1860, according to Census figures.  While it had 14,593 people in 2010, the county lost an estimated 391 people — 2.7 percent — by 2012, according to the U.S. Census.  In 2010, Some 25.4 percent of county residents lived below the federal poverty level, 9 points higher than the state average.

Photo taken Sept. 22, 2013, by Andy Brack.  All rights reserved.

 

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Closed Saturday, Yemassee, S.C.

Closed Saturday, Yemassee, S.C.
Closed Saturday, Yemassee, S.C.

This battered business is what train passengers wee when looking east while at the station in Yemassee, S.C., crossroads of four counties. Next door to this business is a white store with “Praise the Lord” and “Jesus is Lord” painted on large windows.  The sign on top of the building says “Church of the Lord Jesus Christ Deliverance.”  Down the street is a similar store converted into “The Holy Temple Church of the Lord Jesus Christ, Inc. of the Apostolic Faith.”

While Yemassee touches on Beaufort, Colleton and Jasper counties, the station and buildings in the photo appear to be in Hampton County, home to 21,090 people in 2010, about 4,000 fewer than a century earlier.  More. Some 22.6 percent of Hampton County residents live below the poverty line.  Hampton’s annual Watermelon Festival is the state’s longest, continually-running festival.

Photo by Andy Brack, Sept. 22,  2013.  All rights reserved.