Conway, SC, Part II: Horry County courthouses

The seat of Horry County, S.C., is Conway, which technically happens to have not one but two courthouses, although after spending an afternoon photographing “both” (?) facilities, I think one could argue there are three or even four courthouse structures off Elm Street between 1st and 3rd avenues. 

It’s a little difficult to explain, but I’m sure local folk will tell you there are just two courthouses, and that they distinguish between the two by referring to either the “new” or “old” courthouse.

The least complicated courthouse is the old one, bounded by Beaty and Elm streets and 3rd and 2nd avenues. From what the locals (and signage on the grounds) tell me, this facility is used almost exclusively as a traffic court and a place to adjudicate domestic violence cases. A sign on the Elm Street side of the building also says the Horry County sheriff has an office there. 

What confuses me is that when you go online to look up the address for the sheriff's department, you get 1301 2nd Ave., which puts one inside the “new” courthouse. I wish that had been the least of my confusions while photographing the courthouses Tuesday. 

There is not one, or even two buildings constituting what appears to be the “new” county courthouse. I counted three. And the perplexing part is that the newest of these buildings doesn’t even show up on a Google aerial map of the city (yet). But what does show up on that map are two separate smaller buildings. See why I was confused?

What I was able to observe on the grounds of the “new” courthouse  — with the naked eye (and I write this sarcastically because it’s confounding to ascertain for a newbie like me who doesn’t know the history) —  is that there is 1) one structure that serves as the backside of the “new” courthouse (first photo below); 2) an older structure that serves as the front side (2nd Avenue) (see lead-off photo); and a spanking new bright orange brick structure, perpendicular to the first two structures, whose long side fronts Elm Street and shorter side fronts 2nd and 1st avenues. I’ll present a photo of this in the second photo below. 

Not to be overlooked is that old courthouse, which is across 2nd Avenue from the new courthouse grounds. I’ll show this structure in pictures immediately below. 

Although the courthouses are across 2nd Avenue from each other, the old courthouse is slightly more to the north than the newer courthouse. It is, however, almost directly across 2nd Avenue from the new bright orange brick structure, which I understand will be used largely for probate matters. There was some kind of construction-related work going on at this building while I was trying to shoot photos, so I really wasn’t able to get optimum shots. 

To complicate matters, I understand that yet a third multi-use county facility, Central Coast Complex, which includes courtrooms, opened this spring in Carolina Forest, a community adjacent to Myrtle Beach. 

Back to the “new” courthouse. In addition to the old-style architecture you see in the lead-off photo, there is a north-facing entrance — hidden for the most part until you’re almost right up on it — whose architecture is very contemporary, as shown in the photos below. 

This entrance serves as a connector of the back and front sections (shown in the first two photos of this post.

And this was another place I encountered the city’s water tower — both in the window reflection (see second photo below) and, after turning around from facing the door, off in the distance as shown in the third photo below. 

If you were wondering, the county, established in 1801, is named for South Carolina Revolutionary War Brigadier General Peter Horry.

As always, to view a larger and sharper version of a photo, simply click on the image. To view galleries of all my photos of the Horry County courthouses and grounds, click on the link in this sentence.

Near the new courthouse contemporary entrance shown two photos above is the county's Law Enforcement Memorial shown above and below. And off to either side of the memorial are benches, one of which is shown in the second photo below. And on the grounds of the old courthouse is the bench immediately below the first one. 

  

Also on the grounds of the old courthouse is the tree shown above, with the curved Vietnam Veterans Memorial left of the tree in the background by the street. That memorial is shown in closer detail in the two photos below.  

Coming tomorrow:

Part III — Conway, SC: Trees and Downtown

Previously in the series:

Part I: The Riverwalk

Garner downtown: a modest-sized business district still taking shape

I've noticed that the few suburbs I've visited outside Raleigh enough times to become familiar with have worked hard to promote their downtown commercial districts as "historic."

One such example, Garner, is southeast of Raleigh and has a modest downtown strip on Main Street,

which parallels Garner Road not more than 50 yards to the north. In fact, the two roads are divided by an Amtrak railroad that has no stop in Garner (the nearest stop is in Raleigh). I'd done some photography previously in Garner, not far from the historic downtown. I ran posts of those shoots (the library, town hall, police station and Forest Hill shopping center) a few months ago.

With a chunk of free time to devote to photography, I spent a couple hours in downtown Garner on Sept. 21 to do my usual walk-around documentary type shoot of a community. All the shops in the main business strip -- about three blocks long -- are along the south side of Main Street, and all of their facades face the Amtrak Railroad about 50 yards to the north.

The downtown struck me as a work in progress. There are several examples of modernization and newly opened shops. And there is a nice-sized building under construction at the west end; I didn't make a point to photograph the building under construction directly, but it's possible it can be seen in the background of a photo or two in the full gallery of shots (a link to which appears later). But there are few shops boarded up and/or with windows missing. Oddly, the faded paint on the brick facade gives these shops an artsy, nostalgic feel. I hope when they hit upon a way to utilize those spaces they can preserve the cool veneer somehow. 

Sept. 21 was another day in what seemed like a prolonged streak of days we'd had around here without any real break in uncomfortable humidity. A couple times I thought about cutting short my outing, but I persevered and finished the visit with a cold craft brew at the Full Bloom Coffee and Craft (beer) shop.

Picking the photo to lead off the post was not too difficult for me, but I'm not sure the town leaders would approve. I should say that I have no idea what efforts the town is making to change the status of the boarded up windows and doors seen in this photo, which is along the Main Street shopping district. But I'm pretty artists would hail what they see in those distressed Coca-Cola and Hazel's artwork on the bricks immediately above the doors to those shops. It was one of the first things I noticed as I inventoried what I'd be trying to capture when scanned the scene upon arriving.

Other storefronts, such as the aforementioned Full Bloom (see photo below) are more structurally presentable, so I would have to say the Main Street shopping center is still a work in progress.

I spent a considerable amount of time trying to find interesting ways to integrate the town water tower into my pictures. I'm not sure the two I include in this post are the best efforts of that challenge, so be sure to check the full gallery to find others. I also explored ways to creatively represent the Amtrak railroad, the town's train depot and the sundry elements I came across as I strolled the length of the rails in front of the downtown area.

As always, to view a larger, sharper image, click on the image. To see a full gallery of my shoot in downtown Garner, click on the link in this sentence.

Photo geek stuff: I handled the entire shoot with my Canon 6D and Tamron 28-300mm f/3.5-6.3
Di VC PZD lens. I took three exposures of every composition to meld later in high-dynamic range (HDR) Photomatix software during post-processing. I set the camera on aperture priority and adjusted my ISO levels in dark conditions to allow for optimum shutter speeds so as not to blur images.

One section of the commercial district (above) that is among those reflecting recent updates. I used another store, Garner Coins (first below), to show one integration of the water tower. Another (second below) is a shot of the full tower at an intersection opening.  

Perspective (above) and closeup (below) shots of GrafiX House, a company design and logo business. A bright-colored company car parked outside the shop (second below) caught my eye. 

Above and below: Seating outside Full Bloom. 

I used light poles as left-side elements in photos of the sidewalk in front of the shops (above) and along the railroad (below). 

Above and next four below: Some more rail and rail car photos in this section of town.

Two more water tower compositions, one involved another light pole and the weathered Coca-Cola storefront paint (above), the other positioning the tower on the left of a slice of storefronts. 

Above: An unsuspecting (or simply uncaring) individual inside a barber shop in the commercial district.

Above: Garner Coins again, this time as seen from the railroad tracks where I could use some of the trees in the landscaping to frame the store sign. 

Above: A mural on the side of a shop a block away from the main stretch of stores. 

Above: A closeup of the logo for the Garner Ice House skating rink, which is on New Rand Road -- several blocks and around the corner from the main shops on Main Street. 

Above is a home across the street from the Ice House, and below a worker takes care of some work on the porch roof of a house next door to the one shown above. 

Above and below: Two shots I took at the little league fields complex along Pearl Street several blocks west of the Main Street shops. A couple of men were there doing maintenance work on the fields. 

Above: As I walked back to my car after leaving the Rotary Field little league complex, I saw this crow fly over me to perch itself on a branch and a nearby tree. Almost immediately, it began to caw repeatedly. I guess a guy toting a camera is considered a possible terrorist in Crowland ... 

A day and night in Metamora, Ind.

I spent a long day and another night recently in Metamora, an 1838 canal town in southeastern Indiana that prides itself on being such a well-kept secret. The hamlet has much charm and has taken advantage of its association with the Whitewater River and Canal by developing a tourist-magnet merchants district of boutiques and novelty stores, many of which are made of logs, enhancing its throwback veneer. Local folks like to say you step back a bit in time when you visit Metamora.

There's also a grist mill, a wooden aqueduct over the canal (which it claims is the only wooden aqueduct in all of the United States) and two locks and dams. During the yuletide season, beginning right around Thanksgiving, the townsfolk dress up the merchants district with seasonal lights and decorations. They bring out the horse-drawn carriages to shuttle tourists and convert their weekend "Cowboys on the Loose" simulated shootout drama to a group of cowboy-hat-wearing carolers. Think Nashville, Ind. (if you've ever been there) ... only older and not as expansive.

The image at the top is a view of the storied Duck Creek Aqueduct (with the barn where the horses used to pull the canal boat are kept in the background) as taken from near the merchants district. I converted the image to B/W and applied an infrared enhancement filter.

With that as a setup, here are some images I brought back with me from my visit there.

Above: Some visitors and/or townspeople joined Santa and a few of the carol-minstrel cowboys for some singing on one of the street corners.

Above: The caroling cowboys in full voice.

Above: This image began as a very under-exposed (unintentional) shot of the locks and dam east of town. To bring some life to it, I heavily boosted the lumination in Photoshop to give it some definition, and it left me with a very grainy image, which I especially liked after converting it to B/W.


Above: The sun's reflection in the canal that, with the help of a polarizing filter, rendered an image that reminded me of a van Gogh painting.


Above: A wide-angle lens capture of the grist mill in the background. The mill helps give definition to smoke billowing from a fire in a metal barrel in the community sit-down warm-up area.


Above: An image to show the charm of the downtown boutiques and knick-knack stores.Above: The aqueduct from the opposite side.

Above: The aqueduct from below. On this day, when temperatures were flirting with the freezing mark, icicles that had formed overnight were still dangling in the morning when I got there.

Above: A daytime shot of a house along the canal between the downtown area and the aqueduct. A nighttime capture of this same structure appears below.Above: A row of candy canes flanking the path in the park adjacent to the grist mill and water wheel ... on the other side of the path is the gazebo (pictured below at night).


Above: Outside another of the downtown stores, a scene that struck me as a bit Rockwellian.Above: Peering inside one of the shops at night.

Above: The gazebo in the community park adjacent to the grist mill and Whitewater Canal Water Wheel.

Above: The railroad track along the canal just before total dark.Above: Two outdoor vendors working quickly to serve (left) and prepare sausage and sandwich orders.

Above: One of the shops in the Duck Creek Plaza area of the merchants district, decked out for the season.

Above: A night view of the town from across the canal.Above: Night shot of the canal-side house that appears above. The water was partly frozen, denying me a perfect reflection.Above: Night shot of a building in the downtown district, fronted with several luminarias.


Metamora Gallery

To see and learn more about Metamora, follow any of these links ...

The town's Web site

Metamora community info

Indiana State Museum profile of the canal as one of Indiana's 12 historic sites