Timmonsville Water Tower...Is No More !

Photo by Betty Dowling. November 3, 2011- 6 PM    

Photo by Deborah Broach. November 11, 2011

Photo by Deborah Broach. December 22, 2011

CAROLINA LIVE 12/11/2011, TONYA BROWN Reports:

The old water tower on East Main Street in the Florence County town of Timmonsville is being torn down. It was built around 1920, but hasn't been in service for 10 years.

The Timmonsville town manager, Mark Fountain says state health regulators have safety concerns about the tower, so council members Jim Pigate, Clarence Joe, William James, Marvin Burno, Johnny Wright, Joe Graham and Mayor Derrick Jackson voted to tear it down.

Timmonsville Resident Joe Whitaker hates to see it go. "It's been here since 1920, the only historical monument left in town. It's a shame that it had to come down. Thought they could preserve it but apparently it wasn't able to be preserved."

Officials say the tower isn't stable because there's no water in it to hold it down.

The town manager, Mark Fountain says the crew is tearing it down for free in exchange for the metal.



1st Try



2nd Try

Farm Machinery delivered by rail to Timmonsville,SC (1915)

On May 28, 1915, Charles Aurelius Smith Company gets farm machinery delivered by train to Main Street, Timmonsville, SC, May 28, 1915.

The Old Oxford Textile Building

The old Oxford Textile building on Smith Street (Hwy 76) in Timmonsville now houses three new businesses.

The sight of the these pictures on The "Timmonsville, SC...My town" Facebook fan Page created a little discussion from our resident historian, Roscoe Fountian.

Roscoe Fountain remembers when the owners of Oxford met with Mayor Jazz Mathis and the town council about coming to Timmonsville.

They wanted a new building, not an old tobacco warehouse, and wanted the local people to provide the financing for the building.

Mr. Charlie Anderson put up most of the money to finance the construction. Mr. Charlie was a quiet gentle man, but a very important citizen of this town.

Emily Mathis Betts, Mayor Mathis' daughter had already moved away by the time Oxford came to town. But she remembered her Daddy talking about this new business, Oxford Drapery textiles. He was particularly proud that Oxford would provide jobs for the people in Timmonsville.

Emily was not aware that Mr.Anderson provided a lot of the money, but she was not surprised to learn that he did. Emily said, "Mr. Anderson was a really nice man and he sold great plow line as jump ropes for little girls!"

Dr. James Furman Culpeper M.D.

Dr. James Furman Culpeper M.D.

Birth: Jul. 11, 1834

Death: Jun. 24, 1917

Confederate Veteran, War Between the States.

Burial:

Byrd Cemetery,Timmonsville, Florence County, South Carolina, USA

Home of Dr. James Furman Culpeper M.D.

This was a picture of her in decay. The bank had posted it on the internet...it was in foreclosure and the kudzu plant/vines had almost taken her. But she was sold and is now being taken care of.....

The Timmonsville locals call her the Old Carter House. Located at 103 Byrd Street on the corner of N. Warren in Timmonsville, SC., she was built in the 1850's for Dr. James Furman Culpeper M.D. That's before the Civil War. "The back side burned in the 1940's so some of the interior charm was lost. However, I think it gave my grandparents the push to install bathrooms and an up to date kitchen."_ Stewart Carter

Dr. Culpeper's doctor office was in the back yard of this house on 103 Byrd Street.

It was attached to a two car garage with an apartment on top. Stewart Carter's father told Stewart it burned in the 40's.

It is the lot of the successful medical practitioner, who more occupied with discerning diseases and curing them,

than with discoursing about their essence, and arranging them into systems, who observes and reflects in order to act rather than to speak - it is the lot of such men to be invaluable when alive, and to be forgotten soon after they are dead; and this is not altogether or chiefly from any special ingratitude or injustice on the part of mankind; but from the very nature of the case. Much that made such a man what the community to their highest profit

found him to be, dies, must die, with him. ___

The Eclectic magazine: foreign literature, Volume 19

By John Holmes Agnew, Walter Hilliard Bidwell