A few stops along Pumpkintown Road

Pool - 1
"Pool"
During my trip to and from Pinnacle Falls with Eric on April 17th, we made a few quick stops along the way.

"Pool"

On the way there, we stopped on Pumpkintown Road to take a few photos of an abandoned service station.

Examining his photo
A 1961 USGS quad map shows a building on this exact spot. The map also shows a road beside it on the left side leading to buildings that may no longer exist according to a current satellite view.

The only possible clue to the name of the building is the word "pool" at the top over the service bays.

Pumpkintown General Store and Cafe

Pumpkintown General Store and Cafe - 3
A store has been a fixture on the southwest corner of the intersection of S.C. 8 and S.C. 288 for many years. Succeeding generations of Burgess family members have owned the store since 1938.

The Pickens County Library has posted to its Flickr account a few photos of what must have been an earlier building than what's currently standing.
Pumpkintown General Store
Pumpkintown Grocery Burgess and Son
Pumpkintown General Store
On the opposite corner is a produce stand.
Pumpkintown Corner Shop
In going through the Google Street View snapshots of this corner, the first I can find with this building is a April 2012 snapshot showing the building much as it is now.

In researching the history of Pumpkintown, the site pumpkintown.org came up at the top, but it was offline at the time of writing. Fortunately the Internet Wayback Machine has an archive of its contents. Good job Internet Wayback Machine!

S. B. Eden's Old Country Store

A short distance away down S.C. 8 is Sid B. Edens Old Country store, in business from 1896 to 1952 according to the sign:
S.B. Edens Old Country Store - 1
While the store is no longer in business, the place is still cared for. I took a peek inside the front window and noticed glass cleaner and paper towels. The windows are mostly unadorned and the left window sill contains a basket and a gourd.
Basket egg - 2
When I got home and studied a 2014 photo on Flickr of the same building by Tom Taylor, I found some minor differences around the window area.
Edens Old Country Store
Here the windows are decorated, and plates adorn both windows. Also the small table with a basket on top is not in this photo.

Stephen Taylor, who happens to be Tom's brother, took this 2013 closeup photo the right window, also on Flickr:
2013_11 Edens Store

The Pickens County Library's Flickr photo collection contains this photo of what I assume is an earlier building at the same site.
S.B. Edens' Store

Oolenoy School

Our last stop of the day before heading back was old Oolenoy School, now Oolenoy Community House, located off of Dacusville Highway (S.C. 135) near Oolenoy Baptist Church.
Oolenoy Community House - 2
The Pickens County Library's Flickr collection scores again with an old photo of the school.
Oolenoy School
If you're wondering why the school has two doors, one was for the boys and the other for the girls.

While Pumpkintown.org has a section about the history of the school, I found Tom Taylor's excellent, thorough writeup about the school's history much more satisfying.

We spotted all kinds of interesting old buildings and other features worth photographing along Pumpkintown Road, but the time just wasn't available. Next time.

My thanks to Eric for coming along! I look forward to another adventure with him again sometime.

All of these locations we visited to day are pin pointed on my Upper South Carolina Historical POIs that can be downloaded to GPX and other formats.

See full screen

Photos from the whole adventure are available in an album on Flickr and an album on Google Photos.

Comments

  1. Mike NiceApril 23, 2015 at 6:55 AM

    Interesting about the separate entryway for boys and girls in the schoolhouse. I didn't remember that this was a common feature for the old schools. The Wolf Creek school photo shows separate entryways as well. Some churches had separate entryways for men and women. I wonder if the building also had served as a church meetinghouse at the time it was built?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. MarkApril 25, 2015 at 9:40 PM

      It was somewhat common for old schools, including rural ones around here, to have separate entrances for boys and girls. In my photo collection of old schools, Mt. Lebanon, Gowensville, and Tigerville all have separate entrances. Wolf Creek is on my to-visit list, but no telling when it'll bubble to the top.
      Don't know if the school served as a meetinghouse. I kinda doubt it in this case since the church across the street was around for so much longer than the school. But I could be wrong.

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Thanksgiving Hike near Burrells Ford

Image
The Thanksgiving holiday is a chance for most families to get together and eat a Thanksgiving meal. I didn't have that opportunity this year so I decided to go somewhere and visit some waterfalls I've not yet visited before. I've seen many photos of King Creek Falls posted online over the years and I thought that would make a fine place to visit for Thanksgiving. After analyzing a map of the area, I chose to begin my hike at the parking area for the Burrells Ford Campground , a quarter mile away from the campground off Burrells Ford Road (FS 708). When I arrived mid-morning several cars and trucks were already there. I had expected the place to be deserted, but it would seem a few other people had the same idea as mine! The trail begins at the end of the parking area down the Foothills Trail. A sign a short distance down the trail gives the distance to King Creek Falls as a half mile. King Creek Falls Trail begins off of FS 708B and joins with Foothills Trail jus...
Read more

January 2020 Hikes

Image
My goodness, another month has come and is almost gone! Time for a report on my hikes during January 2020. I went on five hikes this month. I had more planned, but rain forced some hikes to be canceled or rescheduled. Dupont State Forest - High Falls and Triple Falls The first Saturday of January I went with a great group up to Dupont State Forest. During the visit we visited High Falls and Triple Falls. High Falls was really throwing off some spray this day. High Falls was throwing off so much spray, I had trouble keeping my lens dry! The sun was at a perfect angle to backlight the waterfall. A few clouds would have been nice. Fortunately, I'd find better conditions at Triple Falls. The water here was also up, but the clouds moved in helping to even out the light. I'm not much on black and white photography, but I also liked how the black and white version turned out! We made it as far as High Falls Bridge... ...before turning around to hike back to 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