Tag: Clinton Museum

Visiting Cross Hill and Mountville – Part 3

Posted on By Tom 1 Comment on Visiting Cross Hill and Mountville – Part 3
History and Genealogy, Photography, Rambling
Mountville-015
Mountville Buildings

So far our crew from the Laurens County and Clinton Museums had visited several locations in Cross Hill (Part 1, Part 2). Now we were on to our last stop, a true ghost town.

While Cross Hill is not yet a ghost town, Mountville has reached that stage. I hesitated to add it to my list because there is still an active post office, a couple of active churches, and I have cousins and friends with Mountville mailing addresses. It is still a viable community. However, any semblance of a town is long gone.

We pulled up to what is left of the center of commerce – three lone buildings just off of Highway 72.

Mountville-002
Mountville-014

All that remains is the grange building, a warehouse, and an old store front. We took some time to explore as best we could.

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Visiting Cross Hill and Mountville – Part 2

Posted on By Tom 6 Comments on Visiting Cross Hill and Mountville – Part 2
History and Genealogy, Photography, Rambling
Cross Hill School
Cross Hill School

Our group from the Laurens County and Clinton Museums had already spent considerable time exploring the little town of Cross Hill. The day was early, and we still had more to see.

Cross Hill School

Just off of Main Street, northeast of the town center, is the old Cross Hill School. The two-story school building is located behind the fire department and a small park, where it sits abandoned with broken windows and locked, boarded doors. We pulled in to take a look around.

Cross Hill School-012

The back part of the building had collapsed completely and there was yellow caution tape marking off the area. In addition to broken windows, the whole building was covered in vines.

Cross Hill School-003
Cross Hill School-004

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Visiting Cross Hill and Mountville – Part 1

Posted on By Tom No Comments on Visiting Cross Hill and Mountville – Part 1
History and Genealogy, Photography, Rambling
Leaman Brothers Store
Leaman Brothers Store

Saturday morning I joined several folks from the Laurens County Museum and the Clinton Museum for a trek across lower Laurens County. Our route would take us through the communities of Cross Hill and Mountville. Both museums have recently received grants to develop tours of the area, and our intent was to find and document locations that might be included.

On this day the trek party would consist of Mary Ellen Lives and Julius Bolt from the Laurens County Museum and Elaine Thorpe from the Clinton Museum. Sean Green from Pickens would serve as the official photographer. I was tagging along to add my expertise in GIS/mapping and media development. I would be taking photos, too, but mainly I was just thrilled to be included, and looking forward to gaining access to some locations I’d not been able to visit.

Clinton Museum

We gathered at the Clinton Museum, located in an old house on North Broad Street just north of the town square. Sean was already waiting for us. Sean is another one of those folks I’ve known online for a long time, but had never met in person. His Flickr stream came to my attention when he was finding some interesting abandoned places, some of which led to ghost towns that I’ve documented. He also has an extensive collection of contra dancing photos. Laura and I used to dance all the time, and now Sean is documenting those dances.

Soon we were joined by Mary Ellen, Julius, and Elaine. I had already met these folks, and we had met a few weeks back for an initial discussion about how they wanted to create maps for the tours. The initial tours would be walking tours because the grant was for health-related activities. Today we were looking at areas we might want to include if we were to develop driving tours as well.

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