house – Building a better South

December 23, 2014December 17, 2014

Tar-paper house, Gough, Ga.

VanishingSouthGeorgia.com photographer Brian Brown snapped a photo of this tar-paper house in rural Gough, Ga., last month.

Gough (pronounced “GOFF”), located about 10 miles west of Waynesboro in eastern central Georgia, is in Burke County, which had about 23,125 people in 2012. The population is evenly split in the numbers of white and black residents (49 percent each). Its population peak was in 1920 when it had almost 31,000 people; its low point was in 1970 when it had 18,255 people.

The county, located between Augusta and Statesboro, has a median household income of $32,188. Some 28.6 percent of people live in poverty, according to a five-year Census estimate.

October 9, 2014November 16, 2014

Vernacular house, Cummings, S.C.

We’re not really sure about the story behind this great, old vernacular house along the railroad tracks in tiny Cummings, S.C., a few miles southeast of Hampton. And while the house is boarded up and front door is open, it seems to still be getting some use as a storage area. No doubt, there a lots of stories that could be told about its better days.

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. The town of Hampton includes a brownfield of a former medical waste incinerator. More.

QuickFacts from the U.S. Census

September 25, 2014November 16, 2014

Grand old house, Orangeburg County, S.C.

We’re still trying to find out the history behind this grand house about five miles northwest of Holly Hill, S.C. where U.S. Highways 15 and 176 split. We’re told a family that just had a daughter (see if you can find the pink stork sign) is renovating it slowly. [We shared this popular photo first in 2013 and thought you’d like to see it again.]

UPDATE, 9/27/14: Our friend Lynn Teague of Columbia says her kin and friends call this the old Galphin House. Later she sent word that archives in Orangeburg identify the house as being built by the Rev. Richard Powers Galphin and Lillian Wells Galphin, who died in 1913 and 1935 respectively. She added that the land around Wells Crossroads likely belonged to the Taylor family more than 200 years ago. Thanks Lynn!

Holly Hill, which had about 1,300 people in 2000, is near the Santee Cooper lakes in Orangeburg County as well as Interstates 26 and 95. Thirteen miles south is the National Audubon society’s Francis Beidler Forest in Four Holes Swamp. It features the largest remaining stand of virgin bald cypress and tupelo gum swamp in the world. Also a few miles from Holly Hill are two large cement quarries.

Holly Hill is just one of the many towns in Orangeburg County, South Carolina’s largest. Some 91,476 people were thought to live in the county in 2012, according to the U.S. Census. Almost two in three residents are black. Some 24.5 percent of residents live below poverty.

QuickFacts about Orangeburg County from the U.S. Census

July 18, 2014July 10, 2014

Across the street, Eutaw Springs, S.C.

Across the street from battle site, Eutaw Springs, S.C.

This old house is across the street from the site of the Battle of Eutaw Springs in rural Orangeburg County, S.C.

The battle site is just outside of Eutawville, a town of about 350 in the eastern part of Orangeburg County near Lake Marion.

Orangeburg County is home to more than 91,000 people, two thirds of whom are black. The county has a poverty rate of 24.5 percent.

QuickFacts about Orangeburg County from the U.S. Census.
More about Orangeburg via Wikipedia.

April 16, 2014

Grand house, Dexter, Ga.

We’re still wondering about the story behind this grand house a few miles west of Dexter, Ga., on Georgia Highway 338. It’s got, as they say in the housing industry, great bones and appeared to be under renovation. It’s a little hard to see the beauty of the home, which might remind you of Faulkner’s Rowan Oaks, because of the afternoon shadows from all of the shade trees surrounding it.

Dexter has about 500 people and is a few miles southwest of Dublin, the county seat for Laurens County. Some 23.6 percent of residents of Laurens County (population 48,434) live in poverty.

January 8, 2014November 16, 2014

Abandoned house, Millen, Ga.

Joseph and Lucinda Applewhite House, Millen, Ga.

VanishingSouthGeorgia.com photographer Brian Brown writes that this old Neoclassical Revival home is currently for sale in Millen in eastern Georgia. The house, said to have been built in 1892-93 and named the “Joseph and Lucinda Applewhite House,” reportedly did not have the columns when originally built in the Queen Anne style. The columns were said to have been added in the 1980s during a renovation.

One person who saw the photo of the home in Millen, which had a population of 3,492 in 2000, wrote, “There’s nothing lonelier than an abandoned house. Oh, the memories that were made there.”

Millen is the county seat of Jenkins County, which was home to 9,213 people, according to the U.S. Census in 2012, an increase of 10 percent from two years earlier. Almost 30 percent of residents live in poverty.

November 20, 2013November 21, 2013

Yellow house, Statesboro, Ga.

While it is unclear whether Statesboro, Georgia’s poverty rate is artificially high because all of the students who attend Georgia Southern University, there are parts of the community where it’s clear that there are a lot of needs. This house is in the western part of the city.

U.S. Census data show more than 50 percent of Statesboro’s 29,779 people live at or below the federal poverty level. The community is 54 percent white and 40 percent black. Its median household income is $19,554, according to the Census.

Statesboro is the county seat of Bulloch County, which has 72,694 people (2012), two thirds of which are white. Just over 30 percent of residents live in poverty. The median household income for the county is $33,902.

Quickfacts on Statesboro and Bulloch County, Ga.
Wikipedia’s entry on Statesboro and Bulloch County

October 9, 2013

Falling house, Williamsburg County, S.C.

This old house in the Mouzon community of Williamsburg County, S.C., is a study of contrasts. On one hand, it’s falling down. But look more closely — somebody appears to have put in new footings to prop it up.

Retired editor Linda W. Brown of nearby Kingstree, S.C., notes that unless something is done soon, it will fall down. “There are more than a few of these in Williamsburg County,” she observed. “I’m wondering if it was moved to this property as there are no steps in sight.”

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.

September 21, 2013September 21, 2013

Abandoned house, near Enfield, N.C.

The yellow trim around windows of this abandoned, bleached farm cottage near Enfield, N.C., caught the attention of photographer Michael Kaynard as he was heading south on U.S. Highway 301 in late March, 2013.

“From what we could see through the windows, it had once been a fairly decent dwelling, although small by today’s standards. Nearby was a trailer that appeared to be the replacement home,” he observed. “When I see small houses sitting next to plowed fields, I wonder how people could raise an entire family in what is not much larger than our den. Now we have to live in homes that are 2,500 sq. ft. or larger or we feel we are in cramped quarters.”

More photos by Kaynard are at: Kaynard Photography.

September 13, 2013September 13, 2013

Grand house standing empty, Tatum, S.C.

This once grand house in the Pee Dee town of South Carolina appears to stand empty, at the mercy of the elements. Photographer Michael Kaynard reports it has a lot of ornat features and probably was a nice house in its day.

“When I see houses like this, I am drawn to them because of their age and architectural features. someone was probably very proud of this structure. Now, no one seems to care what happens to it.”