The Center for a Better South
Here’s the old farmhouse near Dexter, Ga., that fronts the privy mentioned in the previous post. As you can see, the front of the house rests on a pile of concrete blocks, but the back of the house is on newer brick supports.
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.
Photo taken Feb. 15, 2014 by Andy Brack. All rights reserved.
VanishingSouthGeorgia.com photographer Brian Brown sent along this typical Georgia country scene about four miles southwest of Millen — an old Victorian farmhouse surrounded by silos, farm implements, dirt roads and mud puddles.
Remind you a little bit of some of the descriptions of eastern Georgia from Tobacco Road (1932) author Erskine Caldwell? Nearby on Brown’s photoblog, you can find other neat stuff around the Emmalane community: Brinson’s Bar-B-Que (“a well-loved institution in Jenkins County … three slices, of Sunbeam bread, a generous helping of potato salad and Brinson’s sweet tea complete this classic Southern meal”), Skull Creek Baptist Church and an old general store.
Jenkins County, whose county seat is Millen, 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.
Photo by Brian Brown, 2013. All rights reserved.
Lane, S.C., was once a busy railroad hub that boasted two hotels, several successful businesses and a number of large houses, writes retired editor and photographer Linda W. Brown.
“While some of the houses are still well-maintained, this one is fading fast,” she says.
These days, Lane, which is in Williamsburg County, has about 600 people.
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.
Photo taken Nov. 3, 2013, by Linda W. Brown. All rights reserved.
In many towns across the rural South, it’s not hard to find old homes near downtown that were once at the edge of town. They blended a little of country and city at the same time.
While decrepit now, this old house might soon be in for an upfit, based on some of the stuff in the yard that’s outside of the picture. The property sits about two blocks off the main street in Sylvania, Ga.
Sylvania, the county seat of Screven County, had 2,675 people in 2000, according to the Census. Screven County got its start after the Revolutionary War and soon became part of the Black Belt of Georgia where cotton became an important staple crop tended by enslaved African Americans.
The county’s population jumped from 3,019 in 1800 to 8,274 by 1860, according to Census figures. While it had 14,593 people in 2010, the county lost an estimated 391 people — 2.7 percent — by 2012, according to the U.S. Census. In 2010, Some 25.4 percent of county residents lived below the federal poverty level, 9 points higher than the state average.
Photo taken Sept. 22, 2013, by Andy Brack. All rights reserved.
Here’s another look at the grand, old, decaying farmhouse in Southampton County that we reflected upon in our last post. Read more here.
The complex is in Southampton County, which is known in history as the place where slave Nat Turner led a rebellion in 1831. More information is here. Today, 18,409 people live in Southampton County; three in five are white; most of the rest are black. Poverty is about 16 percent.
Photo taken July 23, 2012, by Better South President Andy Brack. All rights reserved.
This stately, decaying grand Virginia farmhouse is mesmerizing and sad at the same time. While you can see a well, drinking trough for animals and a couple of outbuildings, there’s also an old store and barn at this location, a few miles north of Courtland at the intersection of Wakefield and Millfield roads.
Looking at the complex at the corner of a big field, it’s easy to imagine how this farm was a focus of rural life 80 or so years ago when lots of Southerners got their start in the country. Better South President Andy Brack writes, “Of all of the photos I took in July in Virginia, I come back to the pictures of this farm. In my mind’s eye, I can almost see donkeys and horses getting a drink, kids playing barefoot in the front yard, folks dropping by the country store to sit, talk and enjoy a cold drink.
“I couldn’t find out anything else about this place despite trying to reach members of a Baptist church just down the road. I look at how this house and its buildings, once a gem of this rural area, is falling apart. Like much of the area of the Southern Crescent, it’s suffering from benign neglect.”
The complex is in Southampton County, which is known in history as the place where slave Nat Turner led a rebellion in 1831. More information is here. Today, 18,409 people live in Southampton County; three in five are white; most of the rest are black. Poverty is about 16 percent.
Photo taken July 23, 2012, by Better South President Andy Brack. All rights reserved.
So this is how it is in parts of the rural South — a family’s mobile home is where they live while the old farmhouse they grew up in is next door. These homesteads are just off Interstate 95 outside of Rowland, N.C., near the South Carolina border and its infamous South of the Border attraction.
Rowland had 1,146 people in 2000, including more than 30 percent in poverty. It’s also part of Robeson County, which is considered a majority-minority county (as are about 10 percent in the country) because its populations of native Americans, blacks and Hispancs total more than 50 percent.
In 2012, Robeson County had an estimated 135,496 people comprised of 39 percent American Indians, 32.8 percent whites, 24.7 percent blacks and 8.2 percent Hispanic, according to the Census. Some 30.6 percent of county residents lived at or below the federal poverty level.
Photo taken July 26, 2013, by Andy Brack, Center for a Better South. All rights reserved.
This imposing, empty old farm house dominates a hilly cow pasture outside Gasburg, Va., near the intersection of Spraggins and Oak Grove roads.
Several people who viewed the photo said it reminded them of Andrew Wyeth’s famous 1948 painting “Christina’s World” — just without Christina.
A post office deliveryman said he recently saw a black bear chasing cows on the property where last week butterflies swarmed around blooming milkweed and Queen Anne’s lace.
Gasburg is in rural Brunswick County, a farming area on the North Carolina border with more than 17,000 residents. Like most Southern Crescent counties, poverty exceeds 20 percent.
Copyrighted photo taken July 24, 2013, by Andy Brack, Center for a Better South. All rights reserved.
South Georgia photographer Brian Brown enjoys snapping pictures of old farmhouses on his great site, Vanishing South Georgia. This board-and-batten farmhouse on the Mount-Vernon-Alston road in the Georgia heartland is typical, he writes on his site:
“This is one of the largest concentrations I’ve found of this iconic early South Georgia style. … I’d advise anyone who likes historic rural architecture who happens to be in the area of Montgomery County to find these roads. The structures located on them represent a quickly vanishing aspect of South Georgia’s agricultural heritage.”
These days, Montgomery County and the area around Mount Vernon seem strapped, but interestingly, the population is about 50 percent bigger than it was in the late 1960s when Brack visited. In 2012, the estimated population was just under 9,000 — some 3,000 more people than in the 1970 Census. More.
Some 21.6 percent of people in the county live at or below the federal poverty level.
Copyrighted photo by Brian Brown, courtesy of the photographer. All rights reserved.
Here’s a photo of an empty home near the decaying barn published on May 3. Observes photographer Michael Kaynard:
“What struck me was the classic design of the roof line and porch columns. My wife and I love this type of porch and could see ourselves sitting outside in the afternoon watching the day turn into dusk.
“We were drawn to it because it at first appeared to be overgrown with vines. When we got a better look it appeared that the vines had been chopped and left on the porch. You can still see some of the curtains hanging in the upstairs window.
“I feel a sadness when I see these once beautiful buildings that have been abandoned to the elements. In this case, I did not see a newer farmhouse nearby. So, what happened to the people who once lived here?”