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.

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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

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