Mark's Photo Travels

Swamp Rabbit remnants in Cleveland For some time now, I've been sporadically researching and documenting the path of the Swamp Rabbit Railroad from Greenville to Cleveland to River Falls, all in Greenville County, South Carolina. The result of this research is Abandoned Railroad: Greenville and Northern Railway (Swamp Rabbit) , a map drawn with Google Maps Engine Lite. Recently, I came upon two plats recorded at Greenville County Register of Deeds that resulted in a revision of the path around River Falls. The path from Greenville to Travelers Rest was abandoned in 2005 to become the Swamp Rabbit Trail and is easily traced. The path from Travelers Rest to Cleveland was abandoned in the 1960s and is traceable from historic maps and from a satellite map view such as Google's or Bing's. This part I investigated in Tracing the Swamp Rabbit . The path north from Cleveland to River Falls was abandoned much earlier (later than 1920 but before 1940) and is much harder to tr...

The cities of Easley and Pickens in Pickens County, South Carolina are now officially owners of the Pickens Railroad or  "Pickens Doodle" , the deteriorating 8.5 mile railroad between Pickens and Easley. Chartered in 1890, finished in 1898, and i n disuse for some time, the railway that once served several textile mills and passengers at the Pickens Depot is now being removed to make way for a multi-use trail to be built at some indefinite time in the future. I spent a few hours one day last week travelling along the line taking photos while the rails were being removed. Here at Wilbur Street in Easley, the rails have only been partially removed. Many of the remaining cross-ties were in poor condition. While a short distance away at Fern Street, the rails have been removed except for the one embedded in the road (would tear up the pavement I presume). Many of the cross ties here were also in poor condition. I took some more photos at Lewis Street, then moved o...

When you think of an abandoned railroad in Greenville County, the first and probably only one that might come to mind is the Greenville & Northern railroad, better known as the Swamp Rabbit. Another abandoned railroad used to run into downtown Greenville for many years, the Charleston & Western Carolina. The predecessor to the Charleston & Western Carolina (or the C&WC), the Greenville & Laurens, built a railroad into Greenville in 1884. A 1888 Sanborn Fire Insurance Map of Greenville shows where the freight depot was located in 1888, between Broad and Court Streets: Terminus in 1888 By 1913, a new freight depot and a passenger depot had been built near Falls Street and McBee Street, where the Suntrust Building is now: Passenger service was ended by the mid 1950s, and in 1973, the successor to the Charleston & Western Carolina, Seabord Coast Line Railroad Company (now CSX), sold off its downtown Greenville properties, including the de...

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....