The Center for a Better South
This old, dilapidated farmhouse sits in a fallow field on U.S. Highway 176 near Cameron, S.C. The agricultural community of just over 400 people has a poverty rate of 12 percent, about two-thirds of the state average.
Copyrighted photo by Andy Brack. All rights reserved.
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.
Copyrighted photo by Linda W. Brown. All rights reserved.
The house, writes photographer VanishingSouthGeorgia.com photographer Brian Brown, is a classic from the 19th century. The car is a classic from the 1950s. Both are in Ben Hill County in the central part of the state.
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.
VanishingSouthGeorgia.com photographer says this kind of farmhouse in rural Washington County, Ga., is known sometimes a “Georgia Cracker.” It “was once widespread throughout the region. It’s becoming quite rare today,” he wrote here in 2013, where you can see more photos.
The county, which is in central Georgia, is named for George Washington prior to him becoming president. It is the only county in the country to be named for him as a general. Some 20,676 people live in the county, which has Sandersville as the seat of government. Thirty percent of children live below the federal poverty line.
Copyrighted photo by Brian Brown, 2013. All rights reserved.
VanishingSouthGeorgia.com photographer Brian Brown sent along this photo of a decaying farmhouse from Worth County, Ga. Click here to see a lot of other neat photos of the South Georgia county.
Worth County is located between Albany and Tifton in the central part of South Georgia. The county is home to Peter Pan Peanut Butter. Every jar made is produced in the county seat, Sylvester.
The county had about 21,300 people in 2013, according to the Census with whites representing 68.7 percent and blacks being 29.6 percent. Some 22 percent of people live below poverty levels, according to Census figures.
Photo by Brian Brown from VanishingSouthGeorgia.com is copyrighted. All rights reserved
This old house in the Cedar Swamp community of Williamsburg County, S.C., has served many purposes over the years, writes photographer and retired editor Linda W. Brown of Kingstree, S.C.
The building started out as a farmhouse but in later years it was a venue for community parties and dances. Now it is slowly being dismantled.
Copyrighted photo taken June 29, 2014, by Linda W. Brown. All rights reserved.
Here’s a dilapidated, crumbling tenant farmhouse in the Isabella of rural Worth County, which is located between Albany and Tifton in the central part of South Georgia. The county is home to Peter Pan Peanut Butter. Every jar made is produced in the county seat, Sylvester.
The county had about 21,300 people in 2013, according to the Census with whites representing 68.7 percent and blacks being 29.6 percent. Some 22 percent of people live below poverty levels, according to Census figures.
Photo by Brian Brown from VanishingSouthGeorgia.com is copyrighted. All rights reserved
There are a lot of abandoned farmhouses and great old buildings throughout Tift County, Ga., in the middle of wiregrass country, as documented here at VanishingSouthGeorgia.com by photographer Brian Brown.
Tift County, population 40,286 in 2013, is an old agricultural market center that thrived a century and more ago thanks to lumber, cotton and other agricultural products. Today, it is home to Abraham Baldwin College. It continues to be a transportation as it is bisected by Interstate 75. U.S. Highways 82 and 319 also intersect in the county.
About two thirds of Tift residents are white; about a third are black. About 10 percent of people also identify themselves as Hispanic or Latino, according to the U.S. Census. The county’s poverty rate is 22.9 percent (2008-2012), but just over 30 percent in the county seat, Tifton (population 16,405).
Photo by Brian Brown. All rights reserved.
Rusted-roofed, vacant farmhouses are not an uncommon sight in rural Williamsburg County, writes retired editor and photographer Linda W. Brown. This one is in the Suttons Community in southern Williamsburg County.
Williamsburg County, which is about 75 miles north of Charleston, S.C., has a population of just under 34,000 people. 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.
Copyrighted photo is by Linda W. Brown; taken November 2013. All rights reserved.
This old farmhouse in the Sardinia community in rural Clarendon County seems to be getting a little long-needed loving. Retired editor and photographer Linda W. Brown of Kingstree, S.C., noted how the scaffolding across the house’s front porch indicates it is getting a new lease on life.
Clarendon County has 34,357 people, according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2012 population estimate. About half of the county’s residence are white; the other half are black. Some other statistics:
Copyrighted photo is by Linda W. Brown; taken March 30, 2014. All rights reserved.