Rusting cabin, Allendale County, S.C.

Rusting, vernacular cabin just east of Sycamore, S.C., on Confederate Highway.
Rusting, vernacular cabin just east of Sycamore, S.C., on Confederate Highway.

This old, rusting vernacular house east of Sycamore, S.C., is in the middle of the six-county impoverished area that the Center for a Better South has worked with area and state leaders to apply for a federal Promise Zone designation.  Read about our work here.

While the farmhouse seems to be unoccupied, but may be used as a hunting cabin, it’s easy to see good workmanship in the framing.  Structures like this dot the countryside throughout the Southern Crescent, a reminder of tenant farming of days gone by.

Sycamore, a village to the west of about 180 people, is about 60 percent white with a 35 percent black community of residents.  Unlike the whole of Allendale County with its almost 40 percent poverty rate, poverty is comparatively low at 10 percent in Sycamore.

Photo by Andy Brack, Center for a Better South, Oct. 1, 2014.  All rights reserved.

Tin cabin, Orangeburg County, S.C.

Old cabin, Orangeburg County, S.C.
Old cabin, Orangeburg County, S.C.

This old one-room cabin with a tin roof is just inside Orangeburg County on U.S. Highway 178 near the Dorchester County line.  Although it’s seen its better days, you can imagine tenant farmers from 80 or more years ago sitting on the front porch.

Orangeburg County is home too more than 91,000 people, two thirds of whom are black.  The county has a poverty rate of 24.5 percent.  The City of Orangeburg, known for its gardens and historically black colleges, officially is home to 13,850 people and has a 31.3 poverty rate in 2012, but the greater area has more than 65,000 people.

Copyrighted photo was taken April 23, 2014 by Andy Brack.  All rights reserved.

Green trim, Ehrhardt, S.C.

Green trim around old cabin, Ehrhardt, S.C.
Green trim around old cabin, Ehrhardt, S.C.

The bright green trim around this deteriorating cottage just inside Ehrhardt on U.S. Highway 601 is about all that’s left that doesn’t look worn.

The town of about 600 people is in rural Bamberg County where 27 percent of its 15,763 people live below the federal poverty level, according to 2012 Census estimates.  The majority of residents are black (61.4 percent) with whites comprising 36.8 percent.

Photo taken January 2014 by Avery Brack.  All rights reserved.