Tuesday, September 19, 2017

Bonnie's Barn Country Store

It seems like nothing in the South is ever purposefully torn down.  Buildings are left in peace to pass away in their own time, to fade into the background under encroaching vines, lean and sag into the sand, succumb to saplings that grow right up through the floors  and

shoulder them off their foundations. Next to go is the roof, piece by piece of rusting tin, first lifted and loosened, then flying right away in the hurricanes.  Finally the rains soak the wood and, helped along by the termites and sow bugs, the  millipedes and carpenter ants, they turn to dust and disappear into the earth.  

Bonnie's Barn on the highway to Charleston was a country store from the early to late 1900s, owned and run by Bonnie Thames.  Bonnie was one of three brothers who owned stores in the area.  On the hour drive between Charleston and the next town, Georgetown, it was a place for touring motorists to stop for gas and a cold Coke on the trip through the Francis Marion National Forest on the way to the hunting camps and Myrtle Beach fun. 
Bonnie Thames must have sold plenty of gas and Cokes because here is his once-fine home next door.

The old Southern mansion is and was the lone home for miles around. It is surrounded by protected wetlands, pine forests, and old rice fields near the Santee River.  






It's easy to imagine evenings and Sunday afternoons on this porch, sipping sweet tea and watching the cars on the highway that runs up the coast from Florida to Maine, US. 17.  I wonder if the rooms upstairs might have been used as lodging for travelers in those days gone by.

14 comments:

  1. I LOVE (have a passion for) rustic barns! Probably because I'm stuck in suburbia. ;)

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  2. Vivid description of a decaying building.

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  3. Such a shame that the building is in such disrepair and left to the elements. It could be a majestic building.

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  4. Such nice buildings should be repaired for the cultural heritage. But that will be to expensive I suppose.

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  5. Old houses and barns are fun to photograph. It would be nice to see life come back to these old homes

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  6. We often see buildings out in the woods and we always wonder if they're coming or going. Sometimes it's hard to tell.

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  7. I find it sad to see the buildings, which must hold so many memories within their walls, just disintegrate.

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  8. Look at that mansion! He did pretty good for himself! Interesting piece of history!

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  9. Oh my that mansion has many stories to tell! I can only imagine what it would have been like to sit on that porch:)

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  10. I love how you write about these things. Gosh, I probably past by that old place many times back in the late 40's. Daddy used to do a lot of fishing in the Santee River.

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  11. Oh - how many wonderful stories can these places tell?! Wouldn't you like to explore? Just caught up on your previous posts - so glad you escaped the worst of the hurricanes; so many terrible tales from the Caribbean, Florida - and now Mexico too.

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