Ha. you're in my area now. I remember when I was a kid all the communities had softball teams and they used to play against each other at the softball field in Lodge. Ruffin, Smoaks, and Lodge all had teams but even the smaller communities like Little Swamp and Rum Gully had teams. Times really have changed.
Are you familiar with the town of Miley? It's not far from there and is almost non-existent now with the exception of the remnants of Lightsey Bros railroad that was there.
Smalls's great grandfather was from Lodge. Lived at the house right there at the end of Woodrow Drive, just off Bells Highway.
My hometown and many others were devastated when the textile industry went away, most never recovered. They are still there, but a shell of what they used to be. Sad.
I appreciate this. The next time I go by Scotia for old time's sake, I will try to visit what remains of Miley.
Not I'm aware of, closed along with Paw Paw in Bamberg. Sweetwater is the place to play in that area. Keep it a secret, not very crowded during week, no tee time needed 😁
Great Falls was a great little town back before JP Stevens shut down the 3 cotton mills that fed the economy. I had 3 grandparents that retired from there. My maternal grandparents never had a drivers license and walked to work everyday for several decades. As a kid, I rode my bicycle through the "mill village", and because there was very little air conditioning, I could smell wonderful aromas of "what's for dinner". These were the greatest memories of my life, and it's painful to drive through nowadays.
Somewhat surprised that it was chosen at the time since a paladin was one of the peers of Charlemagne, a Catholic French King. Not normal for a Southern Baptist.
When I was a small kid, we lived in Winnsboro. My Mom, a school teacher working at Great Falls High School, rode to work every day with another lady. I remember seeing football games in that stadium down in the valley across from the school. There's not much to "Flopeye" anymore, and it's a shame. Great Falls was once a great mill town.
A local group pooled their resources and bought it out. Completely transformed the course. In good shape and has always been a good layout. Not expensive
Played it years ago when it first opened. Will have to check it out.
A good friend from college moved to South Dakota. His wife is American Indian and he went to the Lutheran School of Theology in Chicago to become a minister after a career in finance in Chicago. We out there to visit him and his wife and you are correct....the towns are small and are very far apart. Beautiful country but I would go nuts there. He loves it though and has learned to speak his wife's native language.
We drive the same route on the way to Columbia. We got stopped for going over the speed limit a couple of years ago after we passed through Gifford. The officer started laughing and said he wasn’t going to give us a ticket because our car had a Gamecock on the Georgia license plate. He said he couldn’t wait to tell his friends who were Georgia fans about it.
There are 2 "towns" inside the Badlands. One is Interior and the other is Scenic. They literally look like Ghost Towns, especially Scenic. Interior has a populationof I think 41. It has 2 bars and the lady running the "grocery store" is also the Postmaster. LOL Wish I knew how to post pictures.
Know the Atkins family well. Grew up in Blackville. My father worked with Chip's brother Danny for many years.
Funny story for you and @Jbouton2
I worked in Winnsboro for a year in the 70s. It was a nice town but I hated the drive on hwy 321 from Columbia. If you got behind big trucks you were sunk.
There was a time when Winnsboro was as nice a small town as there was in the state of S.C. People talk about the loss of the Mack plant, but the real beginning of the plummet was the loss of the U.S. Rubber plant there years before.
Oh... wait a sec.......there’s nothing good about Gamecock sports to talk about......NEVER MIND....Carry on.....
It's hard for me to believe that there were as many as 500 people living there at one point. There are only 2 houses in Miley now
