Mark's Photo Travels

Today, I visited Gosnell cabin , a 200 year old cabin located at the Mauldin Cultural Center on 101 East Butler Road in Mauldin, South Carolina. From about 1805 until 2009, this cabin was located near Poinsett Bridge on property now owned by the Boy Scouts of America for Camp Old Indian . In 2009, the cabin was relocated to its current location next to Murray Drive and renovated. The original owner of the cabin was Gresham Callahan, who bought 65 acres of land from John Hodges in 1805. Ownership would pass to John H. Goodwin, and then to John Gosnell in 1875. In 1927, the Boy Scouts of America bought the property and cabin for a camp, but Luther Gosnell remained in the cabin as a caretaker until his death in 1941. In 2009, the cabin was in need of repair, but the camp didn't have the means to perform a restoration. The cabin was moved to the Mauldin Cultural Center, restored, and available for viewing and touring. Yeah! I liked the rustic touches they added, like these wo

On a warm Sunday, I ventured into busy downtown Greenville, SC to visit Poinsett's Spring basin. This stone basin, like Poinsett Bridge , is named for Joel R. Poinsett . John R. Poinsett had a stone basin made and placed beside the State Road in northern Greenville County for the benefit of thirsty travelers. This basin was supplied with water from a spring a few hundred yards away from the road. The basin would remain in place until 1956 when the heirs of C. C. Hindman, the property owners at the time , donated the basin to the Poinsett Hotel before being forced to sell the land to the city of Greenville for the North Saluda Reservoir. The basin, after a recent small change of location , now sites beside Main Street between McBee Ave. and Court Street very near the Westin Poinsett Hotel. View Poinsett's Spring in a larger map A nice benefit of the new location is the basin works once again. Bravo! Still (mostly) visible are the initials J,R,P for John Rober

A few days ago I revisited historic  Poinsett Bridge  to see first hand some of the recent improvements  made since my previous visit back in 2011, and revisit the bridge and surrounding area. But first, a quick history lesson. Poinsett Bridge was built in 1820 as part of the State Road from Charleston to Columbia to Greenville to the North Carolina border at Saluda Gap. The bridge is named in honor of Joel R. Poinsett , a prominent citizen and a member of the Board of Public Works at the time. The bridge fell completely out of use in the mid-1950s when the road was straightened to remove some of the sharp curves. The bridge and the surrounding area is now known as the Poinsett Bridge Heritage Preserve. The first improvement I noticed from my 2011 visit is the parking area. The parking area now has gravel and has been extended to follow the old road bed back to the main road. Another noticeable improvement since my last visit are the additions of a crosswalk, sidewalk, fence,