Greeleyville – Building a better South

January 2, 2014January 2, 2014

Library, Greeleyville, S.C.

The McCollum-Murray House in Greeleyville, S.C., has been restored and is now used as a branch of the Williamsburg County Library, writes retired editor Linda W. Brown of Kingstree. The building, once the home of Dr. C.E. Murray, is on the National Register.

“This is an innovative use of resources for a small town,” writes Brown.

The house was built at the turn of the 20th century for a successful African-American couple. To learn more about the building, its renovation and transformation into a public library, click here for an interesting Power Point presentation.

Greeleyville, pictured here, is a town of 438 people that once thrived in southwestern Williamsburg County. Just under 34,000 people now live in the 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 9, 2013

Empty grocery, Greeleyville, S.C.

Retired editor and photographer Linda W. Brown remembers when Greeleyville, S.C., had a busy IGA grocery store. When it closed, a Super G Foods opened in the same location. Now, that store closed and the parking lot appears to be just a place where big rigs get parked at night and on the weekend.

And so Greeleyville has become a food desert — a place lacking in consumer choices for food, much like the store we profiled earlier this year in Allendale, S.C. Without a full-service store, Greeleyville residents have less healthy and fewer close options (think convenience store) and have to drive at least 12 miles to Kingstree to shop at a full-service grocery store.

Greeleyville, population 438, is in southwestern Williamsburg County. Just under 34,000 people live in the 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.

September 1, 2013August 26, 2013

Main Street, Greeleyville, S.C.

Once upon a time, Main Street in Greeleyville, S.C., was a thriving place, but shops have closed along Main Street, leaving a lot of it abandoned. Businesses that open now often locate on U.S. Highway 521, the three-lane main road through town.

“Several stores on Main Street that are beginning to deteriorate as can be seen in the missing bricks at the top of the store on the right of the photo,” former newspaper editor Linda W. Brown writes. “I think many downtowns are not only losing businesses to the big box stores but to the nearest U.S. highway.”

It’s much the same in small rural towns like Greeleyville, population 438, in southwestern Williamsburg County. Just under 34,000 people live in the 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.