Veterans Day outing

Waldrop Stone Cottage - 1
On Veterans Day, or November 11th, I returned once again to northern Greenville County to visit more old buildings from the past. Here are my highlights.

Ballenger Mill

Ballenger Mill is located on Old Ballenger Mill Road a few miles north of the Highland community.
Ballenger Mill - 1

According to a MillPictures.com section dedicated to the mill, the mill was built in the 1820s by Lewis H. Dickey. After the Civil War, the mill was known as L. Green's Mill. The name changed to Ballenger Mill in 1960 when it was purchased and restored by J. L. Ballenger. The current owner, Willow Creek Conservatory, uses the site to host weddings and other events.
Ballenger Mill - 2 Gazebo and chapel Ballenger Mill grounds
A pretty photo from December 2010 by Flickr photographer Donnie Bagwell shows a mill race that's been removed since.
Ballenger Mill Christmas 2010
The covered bridge is a 20th century creation.
Covered bridge Covered bridge - 2
The grounds also has a tiny chapel converted from a one room schoolhouse. The place is beautiful and is obviously well suited to hosting weddings.

Waldrop Stone Cottage

I heard about this cottage from a post to a Facebook group about abandoned things in South Carolina.
Waldrop Stone Cottage - 4
The cottage is located on Stone Cottage Lane near Gowensville. I don't know anything about the history of the cottage, but I speculate a fire is the main cause of its condition.

Jordan Cooperative Exchange

Jordan Cooperative Exchange
The Jordan Cooperative Exchange doesn't seem to be operating anymore, but a story in a 1947 agricultural education magazine (in PDF format) on page 91 detailed its function and contents:
A curing room, a chill room, a quick freeze, and an individual locker room with 348 boxes. The meat cured during the year averages 28,000 pounds.

This photo of the plant embedded in the story caught my attention.

because I noticed that this white building was not present in 1947:
Old Jordan service station

Mount Lebanon Church Road

Mount Lebanon Church Road turned up some interesting old finds. First, this former school, now reused as a fitness center.
old Mt Lebanon School
This barber shop a short distance away.
Howard's Beauty and Barber Shop
Update: Checked the property records for this location, and found that Oran Howard died in 2013 and Catherine Howard died in 2012.

As I was headed toward my last target of the day, I saw a Phillips 66 sign that drew my interest.
Philips 66 sign
I haven't seen a gas station with that logo in decades. What's that sign doing here? I can't but wonder what the story is.

Mill at Spencer Creek

My last stop of the day was a mill I found by flying around in Google Earth at the intersection of Spencer Creek Road and Strickland Road located just over the border in Spartanburg County.
Thompson's Mill - 2
My online searches turned up no information about the mill.
Thompson's Mill - 1
The mill is in great shape, and appears to have been recently restored.
Thompson's Mill - 4 Thompson's Mill - 5
An online search did find a photo of the mill before restoration by photographer Eddie Burch at his photoshelter site.

Update: A 1910 map of Spartanburg County reveals this is Thompson's Mill.

Wrapup

As is my usual procedure, I've uploaded my photos to an album at Flickr and an album at Google Photos.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

First and last visit to Lyman Mill

Image
After reading a goupstate.com story on the destruction of the old Lyman Mill in Lyman, SC that closed in 2005, I quickly decided I wanted photos of the mill before they get too far along tearing down the mill. View Larger Map I thought being a Sunday the crews wouldn't be working, but I was quickly proved wrong. A few people were in their machines busy with their work. The area is surrounded by a construction fence, but a large part of the parking lot is still available to park and walk around. Part of the work is already done, and the company performing the destruction expects to done by the end of May. Most of the mill is still intact at this time. If you want to visit though, you better visit soon. I also found an abandoned railroad right of way I just had to explore. I traced it back to where it headed into someone's property, and not far beyond it presumably would have merged with the mainline. Then I traced the line toward the mill.
Read more

First visit to Andersonville Island

Image
One of my major motivations for buying a kayak was to visit interesting places only reachable by water. Andersonville Island in Lake Hartwell is definitely one of those interesting places for me. Since my friend and fellow explorer Tom Taylor has been here before , and since he was clearly interested in heading back, I asked Tom to come along. After checking his availability, he agreed and offered to bring along a friend of his I hadn't met yet, Bennie Waddell. I took some vacation time off this week giving me plenty of days to choose from. I selected Wednesday, the 7th, for this trip to avoid the early week rain, and the later part of the week when the weather turns sharply colder. My other vacation days are being used to work on various projects inside the house. Before I get to the adventure, first a short-ish history of the area. Andersonville Island is named after the ghost town of Andersonville, once located on the northern and eastern side of the confluence of the T
Read more

December 2019 Hikes

Image
I've been on a number of waterfall hikes since Thanksgiving, mostly with Meetup groups. Since I don't take many photos when hiking with the Meetup groups, these hikes weren't really worth a post on their own. I did post a few photos to my Instagram account, but if you don't happen to Instagram then these hikes will be news to you. I'll summarize the visits below. Wildcat Wayside On December 11th, I led a small group to Wildcat Wayside , a roadside wayside park located by US 276/SC 11 near Cleveland, South Carolina. First we hiked a trail to visit Lower, Middle, and Upper Wildcat Falls on Wildcat Creek. Then we went down to a trail by Slickum Creek to visit Last Falls on Slickum and Sweet Thing on Slickum. As a bonus, I then led them past a parking area where US 276/SC 11 split to a bushwack up to Spider Tunnel Falls , the top of which is visible from US 276 during the winter. My photos from this trip are in the album Wildcat Wayside and More - Dec 20
Read more