Wedding & Event Venue Near Edgefield, SC.

EDGEFIELD COUNTY, S.C. (WJBF) – Edgefield County is peach country, but it’s one spot that proudly claims the title of the “Peach Capital of the World.”

But Johnston’s peach industry is more than just orchards…it’s a way of life.

“Even though Georgia is considered the peach state, South Carolina produces more pieces than Georgia. So of course I stuck with South Carolina,” says Ajamu Yamini.

The Peach Capital of the World is evident throughout Johnston. Peaches are the town’s specialty! From its many orchards, street signs and its international peach exchange.

Peach stands like “Sara’s Fresh Market” line the roads leading into the town, offering the freshest juiciest peaches.

“I don’t know how they do it, but they’re all very good. Sweet peaches and good flavor,” says Chuck Fletcher.

These stands offer more than just fuzzy fruit. You can tap into the passion and expertise of the farmers.

“…and help you figure out the best ways to make ice cream and cobblers,” says Karisa Ruth, Director of Retail Sales & Community Engagement with Titan Farms.

But Johnston’s peach industry goes beyond the fruit itself. This is the economic backbone of the town, supporting local businesses and attracting many.

“We really enjoy fruits and vegetables at our house and it’s always good when we can come out and support our local businesses,” says Daisy Teal.

“I’m actually here to buy my neighbors who just moved here from Boston, so I’m trying to tell them all the good things about the area and so I came to buy them some peaches,” says Fletcher.

Farms like Titan Farms are vital in providing fruit to the area. The number two peach grower in the United States selects only the best of the best.

“We have a large system in place with our pack line that photographs the peaches as they go down the line and test them for sugar content and quality,” says Ruth.

And at the heart of this peachy community is the annual Peach Blossom Festival. Locals and visitors celebrate all things peach-related.

“Oh, it’s a very big thing.”

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The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s current exhibition of Black potters from Edgefield, South Carolina, has been praised by many critics, with the New York Times’s Roberta Smith labeling the show “revelatory” upon its opening in September. But a group of experts took a different view when they decried the exhibition earlier this month in an editorial in the local paper, the Edgefield Advertiser, accusing the curators of ignoring historical evidence.

The editorial, written by historian Leonard Todd, focused largely on a detail in the curators’ telling of the life story of David Drake, one of the exhibition’s key artists. Better known by the name Dave for years, Drake began making pottery while he was enslaved in the mid-19th century, adorning his vessels with poetic messaging at a time when it was illegal for Black people to read and write.

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Drake’s pottery continues to remain influential, with contemporary artists such as Simone Leigh and Theaster Gates contributing related works to the Met show.

In the catalogue and the audio guide for “Hear Me Now: The Black Potters of Old Edgefield, South Carolina,” the curators of the show—Adrienne Spinozzi, Ethan Lasser, and James Young—discuss how Drake lost one of his legs. According to some who knew him, Drake fell asleep on a railroad track while inebriated and was dismembered by an oncoming train. But, Lasser and scholar Michael J. Bramwell write in the catalogue, “At a time when amputations were standard forms of punishment for offenses like reading, writing, and self-liberating, it seems plausible that Dave’s missing limb was not the result of a steam-train accident.”

Todd, who in 2008 wrote a biography of Drake titled Carolina Clay: The Life and Legend of the Slave Potter Dave, called that assertion a “disturbing error” in the Edgefield Advertiser article.

“Without one piece of evidence having to do with Dave or his owner or his townor [sic] even the railroad, the life story of one of the great Black artists of the 19^th Century will have been dramatically altered,” Todd wrote.

Among those who signed his letter in the Edgefield Advertiser were ??Harris Bailey, Jr., a historian of Old Edgefield; ?Drew Lanham, an Edgefield native who won a MacArthur “genius” grant last year; ?Justin Guy, a potter currently working in Edgefield; and ?Tonya Browder, an archivist based in Edgefield.

“It is true that such cruelties as amputation took place during the terrible years of slavery,” Todd said in an email to ARTnews. “We are simply saying that there is nothing to show that such amputation was inflicted on Dave. We have invited the curators to come forward with evidence that it was, but they have not done so. General theories, yes. Local evidence, no.”

In response to written questions about the controversy, a Met Museum spokesperson told ARTnews, “As described in the exhibition and materials, we believe that the account that Dave lost his leg in a train accident should be examined with a healthy dose of critical skepticism, and that, given the larger historical contexts, other possibilities should be considered. We fully appreciate that other scholars may have different views, as this kind of discourse is precisely the type of outcome we seek in our scholarly work.”

The “disturbing error” is a complicated one, given that many have regarded the narrative of Drake’s amputation with a degree of uncertainty.

Carey Dickson, a formerly enslaved man, was the one who stated the railroad story on the record in a 1930 interview with Laura M. Bragg, the director of the Charleston Museum. It has been repeated several times over, in Todd’s biography and elsewhere.

The New York Times, when it posthumously profiled Drake in 2021, pointed out that Todd may have cast the artist’s enslavement until 1868 “in a favorable light.” This was likely an allusion to Todd’s family history: Todd’s great-great-grandfather, Lewis Miles, enslaved Drake, and it was under Miles’s ownership that Drake wrote the poems for which he is now famous. “I don’t want to be in a position to say my ancestor was a good slave owner,” Todd once told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “That’s almost an oxymoron. But I think there was a certain trust between these two men.”

In his Edgefield Advertiser letter, Todd claimed he sought other historians’ advice so as not “to protect my ancestors from the judgment of history—and perhaps to protect myself, as well”—and that the group approached the “Hear Me Now” curators together with concerns. They asked the curators to append a note that the amputation narrative was disputed, but the curators rebuffed them, according to Todd. (A Met spokesperson said they had received Todd’s request, but had never promised to add his proposed text.)

Todd said his Edgefield Advertiser letter was meant to “prevent this new and unfounded theory from becoming a permanent part of David Drake’s story.”

Young, a co-curator of “Hear Me Now,” said in an email to ARTnews, “In the end, this issue raises a crucial and pressing question: Who Owns Dave’s Story? The curatorial team has long been committed to exploring the history of Old Edgefield pottery in such a way that democratizes and expands debate, rather than closing off conversation or privileging any single point of view or interest group.”

After its run finishes at the Met in February, the show will travel to the Museum of Fine Arts Boston in March, and later to the University of Michigan Museum of Art in Ann Arbor and the High Museum of Art in Atlanta.

The Edgefield Pool Room is not exactly what it used to be. Ownership has changed. The pinball machine was removed a few years ago and only a single pool table remains. All of that is inconsequential compared to the fact that Pool Room hamburgers – on the menu since opening day in 1961 – still are exceptional. Staff wear t-shirts that boast of the “Best Burgers in the South.”

Why do people love them so? Patted out using ground chuck from the Ole Edgefield Butcher Shop, they come off the grill with a glistening crust and big, wholesome beef taste. Whether you agree they are the best in the South depends on what you’re looking for. If you hanker for the sort of juice-laden blimp served in pubs and steak houses, they won’t scratch that itch. However, among the region’s finest under-$10 burgers – generally the issue of drive-ins and lunch counters – they have few if any equals. All the condiments and garnishes in the world do not diminish their savory oomph. The beef itself is tasty enough that a double really is twice as good.

If you go all the way and get yours fully loaded, you’ll be happy that rolls of paper towels are provided instead of individual napkins. Do not expect a plate: hamburgers come enclosed in wax paper. Merely unwrapping one can leave your hands as well-dressed as the sandwich itself. When I was halfway through a towering triple bacon cheeseburger and its various components had begun to slip out every which way, a waitress offered utensils so I could gather the delicious debris off its wax paper dropcloth.

French fries and onion rings also come on wax paper, cupped in a little cardboard tray. Experienced customers gingerly lift the paper onto the counter, then use the tray for a spill of ketchup in which to dip the fries.

Hot dogs are bite-worthy, too, especially when dressed with house made chili, cole slaw, mustard and chopped onions. Other things on the short menu are chicken fingers, BLTs and grilled cheese sandwiches. Beer and wine are available. For dessert: candy bars.

While I was dispatching a meal at the counter, Tabatha Tillman entered and sat on a nearby stool. When a young waitress approached, Ms. Tillman said, “I will have a hamburger, well done, all the way plus pickles and ketchup, French fries and sweet tea with lemon.”

“They told me that’s exactly what you would order!” the neophyte waitress exclaimed with some amazement.

“That’s because I have eaten the very same meal here for the last 30 years,” Ms. Tillman explained.

Hearing this conversation, another longtime patron leaned over to let me know he has been enjoying Pool Room hamburgers since he was nine years old, when his father was the town jailer. He delighted in recounting the time his mother caught him playing pinball here after lunch and chased him across the town square, brandishing her broom.

Along with peach orchards, jumbo turkey statues and Strom Thurmond himself, this vintage pool room is an Edgefield icon.

Edgefield Pool Room: 125 Courthouse Square, Edgefield, SC. 803-637-9941. https://edgefieldpoolroom.com/

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Though North Augusta in recent years has seen tremendous growth at Exit 5, that growth has been more restrained north of Murphy Village. Edgefield County at the border of North Augusta still has a more rural character to it – but that could change soon.

Only about 20% of Edgefield county is zoned. The areas that have been zoned are clustered around the population centers of the city of Edgefield, Trenton and Johnston – but also along the entire southwestern half of the Aiken-Edgefield county line.

Much of that county line zoning is residential, but at Exit 5 along the Sweetwater corridor the main zoning designation is commercial.

“It’s teed up and ready to go,” said Will Williams, president and CEO of Western SC, formerly known as the Economic Development Partnership.

Sweetwater and its arterials Murrah Road and Five Notch have seen some “saturation” in recent years and people coming north on the Edgefield Road will be turning left toward Sweetwater a bit more frequently in future, said Williams. “There has been talk that in the future, North Augusta is going to be the biggest municipality in Edgefield County,” he added.

Edgefield County in the recent Census actually lost about 1,300 residents between 2010 and 2020, a fact that Williams said has left some in his field scratching their heads.

The county has seen steady home growth, issuing 217 permits in 2020 and 194 in 2021. Through the first half of this year, the county issued 150 residential building permits.

Traffic counts along Highway 25 have also been rising. Data collected by South Carolina Department of Transportation show that the average daily trips made along the Highway 25 corridor between the county line and Mount Zion Road have increased by about 15% since 2011.

Williams said that just a bit farther north, Bettis Academy Road is the “line of demarcation” for much of the development now happening.

“Retail growth is coming, but it’s going to be a little bit slower than what we’ve seen at Exit 5,” he added.

Commercial growth is apt to follow rooftops, spending capacity and other business. Right now, subdivisions in Edgefield County are being carved out, are going up or, as in the case of Tavern Hill, ready for the homeowner.

The Tavern Hill neighborhood lies just beyond Murphy Village, in unincorporated Edgefield County.

Just before the Stevens Road turnoff to Tavern Hill is a sign advertising “Cows and calves for sale.” Some of the homes in the area have lengthy, unpaved driveways that wind through trees presumably to a house, though one not visible from the roadway.

Though there’s been growth nearby, the county still has a more rural feel to it.

Tavern Hill is the second venture by Stanley Martin in Edgefield County, the home builder having also worked with a local developer to put up the Mount Vintage neighborhood just a few miles north and off that same Sweetwater Road.

“We’re still branching out, we’re still fairly new to the area,” said Stanley Martin’s Kiante Chapman, a marketing specialist with Stanley Martin’s Columbia office.

Chapman said the company was hopeful its offerings “will align with the need there” and help to meet a growing demand for housing that, she noted, is being driven by military families relocating to the CSRA and Fort Gordon.

Stanley Martin’s director of sales, Regina Wadsworth, said it can be “hard to find a rural setting community that still provides proximity to all the convenient stores, restaurants and schools.” Fox Creek High School is a few blocks away. So are Merriwether middle and elementary schools.

If retail growth follows the rooftops, as Williams likes to say, then Tavern Hill is providing at present 79 such rooftops (and with capacity for 200 when fully developed) to house the people who will be the consumers of that future retail.

For now, developers are advertising: the properties for sale are zoned for business.

EDGEFIELD COUNTY, S.C. – County leaders broke ground at site on Rabbit Trail Road back in late November, and construction will begin soon for Edgefield County’s new Law Enforcement Center.

“This project is certainly well worth it. We’re combining these functions all under one roof now,” said Sheriff Jody Rowland. “So, you’ll have all of Edgefield Sheriff’s Office, all of our evidence, all of our personnel, all of our training under one roof. Something we don’t have.”

The current law enforcement center was built in the late 1970’s, and is outdated.

“The planners in the 70’s just did not foresee the growth that Edgefield County has had,” Rowland said. “We have been on fire for the past 15 years, and the southern end of our county has grown just huge.”

Not enough storage, outgrown detention center, dilapidation, safety and security are some of the issues with the old building.

“Showers take all day, food process takes all day, changing of linens and jumpsuits takes all day, it’s quite a process when everything is manual,” he said. “In the new facility, we’ll have a tower that can see every cell block. Every door is electronic. It can be one person sitting at a control desk can control every door in that law enforcement center.”

Windows, heating and airing, and plumbing have also been ongoing issues.

Updates for all of this will be in the new center, and there will also be a Magistrate’s courtroom and an Animal Control Facility.

“We currently don’t have a courtroom. We’ve never had a Magistrate’s office courtroom, ever. That’s a big step for us,” Rowland said.

The new center will cost approximately 42 million dollars.

18 million will come from the State from the Plutonium Settlement money at the Savannah River Site, and the rest will come from the Capital Project Sales Tax the county’s voters approved two years ago.

“We sold revenue bonds to get up-front money to pay for the constriction of the law enforcement facility along with the 18 million,” said David Caddell, the Edgefield County Administrator. “But, then we have to pay those bond holders, those who bought the bonds, back. They will be paid back through the capital sales tax.”

Caddell said many people are looking forward to the new law enforcement center.

“It is widely supported,” he said. “And we’ve had a great deal of support for it. The need is obvious, this facility is very old, it’s small, we’ve outgrown it, so we’ve had great community support.”

The center is expected to be ready in 18 to 24 months, and will be designed to accommodate the growing community for many years to come.

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