Mark's Photo Travels

In Part 1 of my US 221 trek , I covered the trip from Moore to Enoree in Spartanburg County. This part covers the trek from Lanford to Harris Springs in Laurens County. In this part, I'll use Historical and Architectural Survey Of Western Laurens County, South Carolina  and  Historical and Architectural Survey Of Eastern Laurens County  to help with some of my history in this section of US 221. Lanford is a small community located a few miles south of Enoree, SC. All of the active businesses here are now closed, making Lanford a ghost town. Lanford, like many places by the railroad, grew around the depot. Lanford's depot was built in 1886, but was closed by 1933, the date of this unpublished Sanborn fire insurance map of Lanford : The depot, as shown on the map, would have stood on the left side of the top photo, near the railroad track. Most of what's shown on the map above is gone, with only a few exceptions. The building on the left is identified as Fleming...

A few years ago, I made plans to explore U.S. 221 to visit the ghost town of Hillsville, just north of Enoree at the southern edge of Spartanburg County. I had to cancel those plans when my old car developed expensive problems. A few weeks ago, I rediscovered those plans and decided the time was right to try again. In the meantime I had added more sites to my list, making this a more interesting whole day trek instead of a nice couple hour diversion. My first stop was this old school building in Moore, SC: I couldn't find any online information on what year the school was built, but using online maps I did narrow down the date to sometime between 1940 and 1945. I found the school shown on a 1945 USGS quad map of the area, but not on any earlier maps, including a 1940 SC DOT map of Spartanburg County. The South Carolina School Insurance Photograph database contains  this photo of the school: This old school building was also once a recording studio run by three membe...