With all the chaos post-Helene I haven’t had much of a chance to get out and explore. I’ve been working on scripts for season 2 of Carolina Ghost Towns, which will include an episode on the ghost town of Shelton in Fairfield County. It had been awhile since I had visited, so I thought it would be good to drop by before the episode comes out. There were a couple of other spots I wanted to see in the area, so fellow explorer Alan Russell and I headed on down I-26.
David Shelton was born in Virginia in 1750 and moved to South Carolina in 1790, settling in Fairfield County along the banks of the Broad River. Shelton had been a captain the Revolutionary War before moving south. Either Captain Shelton, or his son, Thomas, established a ferry across the Broad River and a store on the east side of the river. On the South Carolina Archives website I found a petition from Thomas Shelton and others asking for authorization for the ferry. The petition was undated, so I don’t know if was the original petition or not.
Robert Mills’ maps of Fairfield and and Union Counties show the location of the ferry and the store.
The Broad River was an important thoroughfare. Boats traveled up and down the river transporting cotton and other goods. These ads from the Daily Phoenix were typical for the time.
With the coming of the railroad in the 1850s Shelton blossomed into a real town. The Greenville and Union Railroad ran through Alston and Shelton, then crossed the Broad River on a trestle bridge.
The Civil War took its toll on the area, but the town rebounded. In 1875 Bradstreet & Co. reported four general stores, in addition to the depot and a bank. One store owned by W. W. Crosby posted regular ads in The Union Times.
The town thrived for awhile. In 1920 Bradstreet reported seven general merchandise stores. But then the Great Depression came along. The bank and many of the stores closed. By 1945 there were only two stores remaining.
Even though stores were closing, another There are lots of springs in the area thought to have healing properties. In the early 1900s a traveling salesman named Nanthaniel Frank Shivar took ill on a trip to Shelton. While convalescing he discovered the healing springs on the property of Ida Newbill. Shivar became enamored of both the spring water and the widow Newbill. He married one and bottled the other.
There were actually four springs on the Newbill property, just south of Shelton. Shivar concentrated on the commercial aspects of the water, rather than developing a resort hotel like those around many of the other upstate springs. He built several brick cisterns to hold the water and a bottling plant at Clayton Depot. The water was shipped all over the state and ads ran in local papers for both the pure spring water and for ginger ale made from it.
N. F. Shivar died in 1922, but the company continued until the 1950s, selling the spring water and later ginger ale and other flavored drinks made from the water. Ads ran in contemporary papers for Shivar products, like this one from 1944 in The State newspaper.
By the time Shivar shut down operations in the 1950s, all of the stores had closed in Shelton. The Richland County Library has several archival photos of the town taken in the 1960s.
The last time I’d visited Shelton was five years ago with Scott Withrow while we were teaching a course at Furman on the Lost Communities of South Carolina. At that time we found there were no buildings extant, but there were some ruins. On this trip I wanted to take another look at the ruins, as well as scout some possible locations for future paddling trips.
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