Tag: Jasper County

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Dropping prices, Hardeeville, S.C.

The price of gasoline is dropping, as highlighted here in Hardeeville, S.C.
The price of gasoline is dropping, as highlighted here in Hardeeville, S.C.

It’s hard to believe that prices for gasoline are below $2.00 in some parts of the Southern Crescent.  Several stations at the Hardeeville, S.C., exit of Interstate 95 had low prices on Sunday, although in nearby Ridgeland, gas cost $0.50 more per gallon.  Both are in Jasper County.

Jasper County, population 25,833, is just over the river from Savannah, Ga.  Its location near the metro area likely is why poverty in Jasper County (21.4 percent) is half that of Allendale County to the north.  Ridgeland has a poverty rate of more than 24 percent, while Hardeeville’s rate exceeds 32 percent.

Photo by Andy Brack, taken on Dec. 28, 2014.  All rights reserved.

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Gopher tortoise, Ridgeland, S.C.

Gopher Tortoise Square, Ridgeland, S.C.

Gopher Tortoise Square, Ridgeland, S.C.

This bronze of a gopher tortoise is the focal point of a community square in Ridgeland near the southern tip of South Carolina.

According to a marker at the park, which is adjacent to the railroad tracks around which the town grew after 1860, Ridgeland originally was known as “Gopher Hill” because of the abundance of tortoises (Gopherus Polyphemus) that inhabited the sand hills of the area.  The reptiles, which live up to 60 years, spend much of their life in deep burrows.  Now an endangered species, they’re not too abundant these days.

Ridgeland has been the seat of Jasper County since it was created in 1912.  Before then the railroad tracks of the Charleston & Savannah Railroad served as the boundary between Beaufort and Hampton counties and Ridgeland was split between them.

Ridgeland grew by 60 percent from 2000 to 2010, when the population was just over 4,000 people, according to Census figures.  Jasper County, population 25,833, is just over the river from Savannah, Ga.  Its location near the metro area likely is why poverty in Jasper County (21.4 percent) is half that of Allendale County to the north.  Ridgeland has a poverty rate of more than 24 percent.

Photo by Andy Brack, taken on March 2, 2014.  All rights reserved.

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Happy Taxi, Ridgeland, S.C.

Happy Taxi Cab Co., just outside of Ridgeland, S.C.

Happy Taxi Cab Co., just outside of Ridgeland, S.C.

Despite the high fence and signs warning people to “keep back” and “no trespassing” and “video surveillance,” we got a kick out of the Happy Taxi Cab Co. just outside Ridgeland, S.C., on S.C. Highway 336.  You can see old trucks from days gone by and get a feel of thrift mixed with entrepreneurship.

Ridgeland, the county seat of Jasper County, grew by 60 percent from 2000 to 2010, when the population was just over 4,000 people, according to Census figures.  Jasper County, population 25,833, is just over the river from Savannah, Ga.  Its location near the metro area likely is why poverty in Jasper County (21.4 percent) is half that of Allendale County to the north.  Ridgeland has a poverty rate of more than 24 percent.

Photo by Andy Brack, taken on March 2, 2014.  All rights reserved.

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Old filling station, Coosawatchie, S.C.

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Old gas station, Coosawatchie, S.C.

 

This old filling station, located near this dilapidated store in Coosawatchie, S.C., recalls days gone by in which cars headed between the North and Florida tumbled through the Palmetto State.  The one-bay garage along what is now S.C. Highway 462 may have been part of U.S. Highway 17 in years before Interstate 95.

Coosawatchie is in Jasper County, population 25,833, which is just over the river from Savannah, Ga.  Its location near the metro area likely is why poverty in Jasper County (21.4 percent) is half that of Allendale County to the north.  However, parts of the county around Ridgeland and Coosawatchie, which are further away from the Savannah area, feature a lot of the same strife as in Allendale County.

Photo by Andy Brack, taken on Feb. 28, 2014.  All rights reserved.

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Peeling paint, Coosawatchie, S.C.

Dilapidated storefront, Coosawatchie, S.C.
Dilapidated storefront, Coosawatchie, S.C.

Paint peeling from this shuttered storefront along S.C. Highway 462 in Coosawatchie, S.C., reflects deep poverty that is found in rural areas along Interstate 95 in the Palmetto State.  This photograph was taken just a few hundred  yards away from the beautiful, meandering Coosawatchie River.

Jasper County, population 25,833, is just over the river from Savannah, Ga.  Its location near the metro area likely is why poverty in Jasper County (21.4 percent) is half that of Allendale County to the north.  However, parts of the county around Ridgeland and Coosawatchie, which are further away from the Savannah area, feature a lot of the same strife as in Allendale County.

Photo by Andy Brack, taken on Feb. 28, 2014.  All rights reserved.

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Coosawatchie River, S.C.

The Coosawatchee River meanders under an I-95 bridge.
The Coosawatchie River meanders under an I-95 bridge.

The Coosawatchie River in Jasper County flows under a bridge that’s part of Interstate 95.  The interstate defines much of South Carolina’s Corridor of Shame, an area of high poverty and low educational attainment that stretches along the highway.

Jasper County, population 25,833, is just over the river from Savannah, Ga.  Its location near the metro area likely is why poverty in Jasper County (21.4 percent) is half that of Allendale County to the north.  However, parts of the county around Ridgeland and the nearby river, which are further away from the Savannah area, feature a lot of the same strife as in Allendale County.

Photo by Andy Brack, taken on Feb. 28, 2014.  All rights reserved.

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Baptist church, Robertville, S.C.

Robertville Baptist Church, Robertville, S.C.
Robertville Baptist Church, Robertville, S.C.

Robertville, a small unincorporated community at the southern tip of South Carolina, has a beautiful Baptist church that’s on the National Historic Register.  But it’s also the birthplace of someone who is familiar to anyone who has been involved with a community or government meeting — Henry Martyn Robert, author of “Robert’s Rules of Order.”

Robert (1837-1923) was born on a South Carolina plantation which his father, a Baptist preacher, sold and freed 26 slaves in 1850 after concluding it wasn’t good for his children to be reared in a “slave-served society,” Robert’s grandson, Henry M. Robert III of Annapolis, Maryland, told Better South’s Andy Brack.

Jasper County, population 25,833, is just over the river from Savannah, Ga.  Its location near the metro area likely is why poverty in Jasper County (21.4 percent) is half that of Allendale County to the north.

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