Carolina Ghost Towns

Lost Railroad Towns of South Carolina

This bonus episode is a lecture I gave for the Mauldin Branch of the Greenville County Library.  The lecture was on Monday, November 11, 2024, and featured several of the towns that have appeared on previous episodes.

Antioch Presbyterian and GPR

The community of Cashville is located in southwestern Spartanburg County.  It is home to Hurricane Tavern, which is on the National Register of Historic Places.  It's also home to Antioch Presbyterian Church.  Earlier this month Debbie Weekes invited me to join her and Len Strozier for a survey of the Antioch Cemetery using ground penetrating radar, or GPR.  Len then gave a presentation to the general public about the technology.
In this episode I've included Len's entire presentation, so it's a bit longer than usual.
Here are the links to information shared in this episode...
Blog post
Omega Mapping Systems
Antioch PCA
Upstate Cemetery Presentation Alliance
 

Pinckneyville

Pinckneyville was a town in Union County, South Carolina.  The town was established in the 1790s as the seat of Pinckneyville District.  It was envisioned as the "Charleston of the Upstate."  When Pinckney District was divided into smaller districts, the courthouse was moved to Union.  Pinckneyville started to die out.
National Register Listing
Pinckney District on Carolana
Wikipedia
Research Pinboard
AI Voices by Eleven Labs

Cataloochee

The Cataloochee Valley is a remote area in Western North Carolina, now part of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.  It was never really a town, but is included on most lists of Ghost Towns in North Carolina.
Cataloochee:  Center of the World - National Park Service Video
NPS Cataloochee Basin
Cataloochee Reunion
Serena, by Ron Rash
Research Pinboard
AI Voices by Eleven Labs

UPDATE: Hurricane Helene

Hurricane Helene has not been kind to us.  Here's a quick update on what to expect over the next few weeks.

Auraria

The town of Auraria was the site of the first gold rush in Georgia.  It was a boom town on a mountain ridge, but died out as the nearby town of Dahlonega grew more prominent.
Auraria : the story of a Georgia gold-mining town / E. Merton Coulter
Etowah River Mine Tunnel Trip

Taphophiles

This is an episode from an old podcast series that I started some years ago.  It's about old cemeteries and headstones, which often are the only remnants left of a ghost town.  Here's a link to the original blog post...
The Stone Carvers

Hamburg

Hamburg was a city in South Carolina on the Savannah River, across from Augusta.  It was the terminus of the Charleston to Hamburg Railroad, the first regular passenger service in the US.
Henry Schulz and His Town of Hamburg
The Untold Story of Hamburg, SC
Prince Rivers
AI Voices by Eleven Labs

The Ghosts of Ebenezer

Ebenezer was one of the first settlements in the Georgia Colony.  Displaced Salzburgers from Austria traveled to the new world and settled on a tributary of the Savannah River.  It was also the site of a terrible tragedy during Sherman's March to the Sea.
Links:
Old Ebenezer
Wikipedia Entry
Betrayal at Ebenezer
Johann Martin Boltzius
Georgia Salzburger Society
Paddling trips
Cypress Adventures
Lowcountry Unfiltered does Ebenezer Creek

Ghost Town in the Sky and other Fake Ghost Towns

This episode is a departure from our normal ghost town explorations.  In today's episode we look at fake ghost towns, specifically, western amusement parks that are now defunct.  The parks covered in today's episode include Tweetsie Railroad (still going strong), Ghost Town in the Sky, Rebel Railroad, Frontierland, and Echo Valley.
Blog posts about Echo Valley:
Memories of Echo Valley
Even More Echo Valley
Echo Valley Photographic Proof