Featured – Page 7 – Building a better South

April 1, 2015

Rare store, Bulloch County, Ga.

“It’s hard to imagine a time when little stores like this one could be found scattered throughout the countryside,” writes VanishingSouthGeorgia.com photographer Brian Brown of this Bulloch County, Ga., structure. “As people became more mobile, though, the need for them vanished. To find one in this condition is rare.”

Bulloch County, located in eastern Georgia county along Interstate 16, is deeply in poverty with 31 percent of residents living below the federal poverty line. The county, which has a median household income of $33,902, is home to 72,694 people (2012), two thirds of whom are white.

March 30, 2015April 1, 2015

1940s bus, Ben Hill County, Ga.

VanishingSouthGeorgia.com photographer Brian Brown spotted this old Studebaker school bus off a dirt road in rural Ben Hill County, Ga. He notes the front end and engine of the bus were built by Studebaker, while the body may have been manufactured by Bluebird in nearby Fort Valley. “The grill style dates the bus to around 1947, but it was likely used well into the 1950s by Ben Hill County.”

Just over 9,000 people live in Fitzgerald, the county seat of rural Ben Hill County. Some 31.6 percent of people in the county live in poverty, according to Census figures. More.

March 27, 2015March 25, 2015

Empty motel, Clarendon County, S.C.

This is one of a number of derelict motels along U.S. Highway 301 in Clarendon County, writes photographer Linda W. Brown of nearby Kingstree, S.C.

“Some of them have been converted into long-term residence facilities for migrant workers—and I think in some cases, people who have had their homes foreclosed on. Others are rotting away.” This one, she noted, appeared to be for sale.

— Copyrighted photo by Linda W. Brown taken March 21, 2015

March 24, 2015March 25, 2015

Old diner, New Holland Crossroads, S.C.

Jackson Hole, New Holland Crossroads, S.C.

This apparently abandoned building is at New Holland Crossroads in Aiken County, S.C., writes photographer Linda W. Brown of Kingstree, S.C.

“There is an old ‘A’ food service rating on the door, so I would guess that it was some sort of eating establishment, or bar that served food, at one time or another,” she observed.

Aiken County, longtime home of the federal Savannah River Site, is not a Southern Crescent county but it is adjacent to impoverished Barnwell and Orangeburg counties. Rural areas in Aiken County look much like those in the impoverished areas.

March 18, 2015March 19, 2015

Rusty mailbox, Williamsburg County, S.C.

On S.C. Highway 261 in western Williamsburg County,S.C., this rusty mailbox, though leaning, still serves its purpose, says photographer Linda W. Brown of Kingstree.

March 12, 2015

Ferrell Store, Salters, S.C.

Country stores like this one in the Salters community of Williamsburg County, S.C., are a dying breed.

Kingstree photographer Linda W. Brown writes that J.A. Ferrell opened a store in his Salters home in 1880.

“Some years later, he built this building on the edge of his property and moved the store operations there. He continued to run the store until his death in 1918. Three other merchants have operated a general store on the premises. The last, Frank Moseley, closed the store in 1990.”

March 9, 2015March 10, 2015

House and field, Williamsburg County, S.C.

Old farm house, Williamsburg County, S.C.

Located in northern Williamsburg County, this old house, with its chimneys beginning to collapse, sits across a field of broom straw from the road, writes Kingstree, S.C., photographer Linda W. Brown.

Across the house, once the bastion of family farms, rural houses like this are as fallow as the fields they surround as people left the country and moved to the city.

March 4, 2015March 5, 2015

Old tobacco barn, Florence County, S.C.

This old tobacco barn in Florence County, just off the Vox Highway, is beginning to lean and is losing its tin as age, sun, wind and rain take their toll, writes Kingstree, S.C., photographer Linda W. Brown.

February 28, 2015February 25, 2015

Dirt road, Tattnall County, Ga.

VanishingSouthGeorgia.com photographer offers a simple, satisfying photo of the rural South here with this orange clay-sand road through a field in Tattnall County, Ga.

“In my opinion, there’s no better way of experiencing rural South Georgia’s beautiful countryside than a ramble on a dirt road,” he writes here. We agree and have added this to our list of favorite photos published on this site.

Tattnall County in eastern Georgia just south of Interstate 16, is home to about 25,000 people, some 24 percent of whom live below the federal poverty line including 33 percent of children. It’s county seat is Reidsville, known as home for one of the state’s toughest prisons.

February 26, 2015February 25, 2015

Cedar Lawn store, Bulloch County, Ga.

Old store near the Emanuel-Bulloch county line in eastern Georgia.

You used to see stores like this all over the South, but they’re slowly being taken away by time and neglect. This store has a Twin City address, which would make you think it’s in Emanuel County, but it’s not, according to VanishingSouthGeorgia.com photographer Brian Brown.

“It’s just over the Bulloch County line on U.S. 80, near Portal,” he writes here. “The community around the store is known to locals as Cedar Lawn. Residential stores like this are few and far between today. It’s always been a common practice in cities for shopkeepers to live “above the store” but was seen less frequently in rural areas.”

The store is a dozen miles northeast of Bulloch County’s seat, Statesboro, home to Georgia Southern University. Yet the eastern Georgia county along Interstate 16 is deeply in poverty with 31 percent of residents living below the federal poverty line. Bulloch County, which has a median household income of $33,902, is home to 72,694 people (2012), two thirds of whom are white.