Mark's Photo Travels

While plotting my return home last Saturday from the Bon Haven house , I noticed the Hub City Railroad Museum was only a short distance away along my path home. The museum has been on my to-visit list for some time, and having nothing of any importance to do at home, I decided to stop by. The Hub City Railroad Museum opened May 2010  in part of the Magnolia Street Station on Magnolia Street in the old baggage room. Most of the rest of the building houses a waiting area for an Amtrack train station. Magnolia Street Station, known Spartanburg Union Station "back in the day", was built in 1904 as a train station for  Southern Railway , Clinchfield Railroad , and Charleston & Western Carolina Railway . This post card  in Spartanburg County Library's digital collection, dated in the 1910s, shows the train station before most of it was torn down in 1971: Another post card from the same time period shows a different angle: This photo at the SC Digital Li...

Bon Haven is a historic three story home located at 725 North Church Street in Spartanburg, South Carolina built in 1884 by John B. Cleveland, was a Spartanburg businessman remembered for founding Converse College, and founding the city's water and public school system, his philanthropy, among other things. Bon Haven's architecture led to the house being added to the National Register in 1976. John Cleveland died in 1928 , and the house has remained owned by the Cleveland family since then. The last Cleveland to occupy the house died in 1995, the house has been vacant since then. An  effort to preserve and save the house in 2015 failed, leading to this week's issuance of a demolition permit . I visited the house today to pay my "last respects" shall we say. I parked nearby and found the area fenced off. "No Trespassing" signs were everywhere. I've seen recent photos (even some from today) from people who chose to disregard the signs and too...

Back in May of last year, I followed an old trolley right-of-way from Spartanburg, South Carolina to Glendale, a small mill town near Lawson's Ford Creek in eastern Spartanburg County. I didn't have much time to explore the mill town during that trip, so I that adventure had to wait for another time. Before coming back, I wanted to do some research to locate all the major the points of interest in Glendale typical to the insular mill towns of this area such as the company store, the office, schools, churches, businesses, and recreation areas. My "go to" resource for this information was glendalesc.com , a website of information collected by a former Glendale Mill worker, Mary McKinney Teaster. I also recently paid a visit to the  Cyrill-Westside library  near Spartanburg to read through Glendale: A Pictorial History  which filled in a few more details. Also helpful was a post to the Glendale Shoals Facebook group  showing an interesting LIDAR satellite im...