Convenience store, Estill, S.C.

Convenience store, Estill, S.C.
Convenience store, Estill, S.C.

People across the South often have to shop in convenience stores, such as this one in Estill, S.C., because their rural town doesn’t have a grocery store.  Estill, a town of about 2,000 located in rural Hampton County, is lucky to have an IGA store in addition to the Mid-Mart. Towns like Greeleyville, S.C., no longer have a grocery store.

Hampton County, located in the southern part of South Carolina, was 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.