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...

Glendale is a mill village a few miles east of Spartanburg, South Carolina by Lawsons Fork Creek in Spartanburg County. The center of village life once centered around Glendale Mill, a mill with a long history dating back to the 1830s . However, in 1961 the mill closed permanently, and in 2004 a fire turned the mill into ruins. Before visiting Glendale a few days ago, I had a few stops to make first along the way. This income tax business at 1450 Union Street  on the southeast side of Spartanburg... was once the Lyman Depot, moved here from the town of Lyman in 1981. As an archived story from the Spartanburg Herald-Journal explains, Peggy West and her husband bought the depot from Seaboard Coastline Railroad in 1981. They had the depot moved to this spot, and turned it into a craft shop. M&M Tax Service now owns and operates the building. The Lyman sign, mentioned in the story, and seen here in this photo by John Jones from the Lyman page of scdepots.com , no lon...