Just down the street from the tallest building in Dublin, Ga. — the closed old First National Bank — sits this empty pool hall on Madison Street. It is sandwiched between two other buildings that look like they’ve been closed for a long time.
Dublin suffered during the recent recession as the unemployment rate for Laurens County, where Dublin (population 16,201) is the county seat, rose to 13.8 percent in July 2011. Two years later it was about two points lower, but was down to 9.4 percent in December 2013, according to federal government data found at this site.
Some 23.6 percent of residents of Laurens County (population 48,434) live in poverty, according to Census data
Photo taken Feb. 16, 2014 by Andy Brack. All rights reserved.