Mark's Photo Travels

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...

I had been looking forward to this day for two months now, and today was that day. The day of the Cokesbury College Tour , that is. The Cokesbury College Tour is part of Greenwood's annual Festival of Flowers , and this past Saturday the college was open to the public. For this outing, I'm joined by Tom Taylor , and his good friend Alan Russell. Cokesbury College Cokesbury is situated a few miles north of Greenwood, South Carolina. Cokesbury was established in 1824 as a planned Methodist village after the people of the Tabernacle community decided to move to a higher elevation. The village was named Mount Ariel at first, but became Cokesbury in 1834 to honor Methodist bishops  Thomas Coke and Francis Asbury . In 1854, the Bascombe Lodge No. 80 of Freemasons opened the Masonic Female College of South Carolina, an experiment in women's education. Financial difficulties forced the school to close in 1874. In 1876, the South Carolina Methodist Conference bought ...