Inside South Carolina's Forgotten River Towns

Added: 2026-06-08

[00:00:05]In the PD, time stands still. The PD region of South Carolina surrounds the PD River, which runs from Appalachia into the Atlantic. While the rest of South Carolina is America's fastest growing state, the PD is a very different story. Just look at the smoke.

[00:00:24]This is as real as it gets.

[00:00:26]>> What's going on right here?

[00:00:28]>> Cooking. cooking. Yes, sir.

[00:00:30]>> We own pride and whatever. I don't want to die here by going here.

[00:00:34]>> This town is half black, so you got to be careful not to even say the the n word.

[00:00:39]>> See, I grew up picking cotton. You share crop.

[00:00:42]>> You were a sharecropper?

[00:00:44]>> Yeah.

[00:00:44]>> We set out to explore the PD and ended up on a 100mile journey that took us from forgotten tobacco country.

[00:00:50]>> I went from see like all this stuff right here being open and uh everything been shut down >> through the backwoods. You drive a long time, you see no one. You see more animal and you see people >> and into a swampy paradise.

[00:01:02]>> Yeah, it's just that's what this is.

[00:01:04]It's just the most peaceful place I've ever been.

[00:01:06]>> If you want to know what it's like in the forgotten deep south, come with us down the PD River.

[00:01:12]>> Life has made it harder for us Americans of our color of skin to live.

[00:01:20]I'm not kidding you.

[00:01:26]Where this journey would end is actually hard to believe, especially considering where we began. Pamplicico.

[00:01:33]Pamplico is pure deep south. Situated along the river with old plantation mansions on its edge and neglect on its inside.

[00:01:41]>> Are you from here?

[00:01:42]>> A long time ago. I growled up here all my life.

[00:01:44]>> What's it like here?

[00:01:45]>> I remember old country town. Nobody do nothing. Stay by. Stay at the restaurant. A pretty quiet place. The river right there. Three or four bucks.

[00:01:53]But you can walk to the river. I can get a twin and give me something to eat a dinner.

[00:01:57]>> He good guy and everybody be giving him something, you know.

[00:02:00]>> So is is he down here every day?

[00:02:02]>> Every day. Every >> day. Been living here a long time, you know. But it's it's okay. It's good. I mean, you know, been making it.

[00:02:11]>> What do people do around it?

[00:02:13]>> They just working. Got their business, whatever business, you know, is available. But we we good. You know, everything good. P good place now. But you know, we do whatever.

[00:02:23]>> They really get what you see right now.

[00:02:25]Whatever. You know, it ain't really nothing around here.

[00:02:30]Small town. We ain't really got no stoves open. We got about two gas stations.

[00:02:34]>> What do people do around here?

[00:02:38]>> Work. But a really no jobs here to work.

[00:02:42]So you got to go like out, you got to, you know what I'm saying? You got to go to Florence and >> Lake City and all type of other places to find a job. But we ain't really got no jobs now.

[00:02:51]>> Has it changed much?

[00:02:52]>> The downfall I went from see like all this right here being all this stuff right here being open and all that all that stuff down there being open. Uh everything been shut down. Even the IG just been open. They shut IG down. Boys uh like a little club right there was like a little liquor store. It was a big warehouse right here. Big Tobacco. They had the train used to go through here.

[00:03:15]All that stuff been stopped like years ago.

[00:03:29]>> You were born here.

[00:03:30]>> I was. Yeah. Just outside of a place called Florence General Hospital. And my mother had a home right there on Second Avenue. My mother was African-American.

[00:03:40]She had a relationship with a guy who was from this area and that relationship produced me and uh because you're here meaning here in Campico, South Carolina back then uh it was quite taboo for that type of thing. So several folk my father never accepted me but my mother uh did the best she could between Main Street downtown um there's not much and in the past I guess year or so since uh co their only grocery store has been uh closed for a while I tell you what but that southern if you will charm having been up north for a period of time uh it's it's pretty good to still feel you drive down the road and somebody wave at you and you're like what in the world and further north you don't get that I'm going to say it makes the bun experience.

[00:04:25]>> You just pull the car. I not here cuz these guys are working, but if you just pull the car over in a quiet in a quiet street, you just hear the bugs, the birds. The town feels like it's like immersed in nature. It is. You're right in the middle like of nowhere of nowhere so to speak. You can feel nature, man. I mean, you can really I don't give a damn if it's pardon my expression, but the mosquitoes or the gnats, you can feel it. There's a flip side. Flip side is you have damn they have nothing here. How do folks survive? Once upon a time the bean industry you'll be in the bean fields or you be in tobacco fields all day.

[00:05:02]That might have bred some sense of camaraderie but that was work. Now no one wants to do it.

[00:05:07]>> The PD is full of towns like Pamplico which have lost the industries that once powered them namely cotton, tobacco or lumber. The next one we visited, Gleyville, was vacant.

[00:05:19]Of all the downtowns we've seen, this row right here may take the cake for most abandoned.

[00:05:32]>> We We from a little town. Ain't nothing going on. We don't And we had too much employment here cuz we ain't got no plan or nothing. Nobody hardly work here.

[00:05:41]Right, Jay?

[00:05:41]>> No.

[00:05:42]>> Are you So you were born and raised here?

[00:05:44]>> Yes.

[00:05:44]>> What was What was it like when you were a kid? Was it similar? See, I grew up picking cotton. I know a whole lot of cotton, but we we had like tobacco. We share crop.

[00:05:55]>> You were a sharecropper?

[00:05:56]>> Yeah. My dad was sharecropper.

[00:05:58]>> Well, I got a lot of questions. What What's it like picking cotton?

[00:06:01]>> Uh, it's like you got to bend your back a lot and pick the cotton. You got a sack on your shoulder.

[00:06:10]That's how we used to do it. Now they got a cotton picker. That joke will go down the field and and pick more cotton than we do it in in four days. Right Jay?

[00:06:18]>> I go there. You go.

[00:06:19]>> You mis got a cotton picker. I don't know where he come from. He ain't never picked none.

[00:06:24]>> So So do people still do it or is it all?

[00:06:26]>> No, we don't do it no more. No.

[00:06:28]>> And then we uh like we plant tobaca. We used to do it by we got a little thing stick in the ground. Put the the back in there. Now they got where you sit on, you used to ride and sit down the field and put the plant there too. But we come a long way. We done come a long way, man.

[00:06:46]>> What about some racism, prejudice?

[00:06:49]>> Uh we we had our share of that. Black people over here, white over here, water fountain over here. We couldn't, you know, we sitting on certain sides.

[00:06:58]Coming. Don't go over there. They had a certain play for the blacks and they had a certain play for the whites. I I witnessed that myself. But we get along, you know, cuz we had to get along. No matter what you think of us, we we still human, right?

[00:07:13]>> Yes, sir.

[00:07:13]>> So, you know, we work we work for you.

[00:07:16]The person we work for, he was such a good guy. And he was a, you know, real human being, you know, and my daddy could have get anything he want when he wanted and stuff like that.

[00:07:25]>> Well, the thing we've noticed driving through towns in South Carolina is a lot of the towns, they've got these huge mansions, you know, when you're driving in. I guess it was probably the mansions owned by like the plantation owners.

[00:07:34]>> Plantation. That's it. We got >> We got Plantation and um you know you know we work for them. We work for them but we was loyal to them and they was loyal to us. Mr. Herbert Hughes he was a police agreeer right here and and he was a great man to me cuz you know why?

[00:07:50]Anything we wanted and we don't go to like him for it. All thing we had to go there and say put it on his critic something like that. That how we that how we survive. So that that's interesting because I feel like I feel like a lot of people certainly from like the north when they think about a town like this >> they would think that it was very kind of like you know whites versus blacks and people didn't get along but you're saying people >> they did get along.

[00:08:12]>> Yeah. Actually it's pretty cool place.

[00:08:14]We we know in Mississippi you often knew that right? Yeah.

[00:08:18]Mississippi is all lit. But we all you heard all stuff happen in Mississippi.

[00:08:22]>> There was nothing like that cuz we know we had to do survive. We got along. We deal with it. and sleep good at night and rest get up in the morning. We know we had to do and going about our life.

[00:08:33]We don't call it slavery but it's like we working we working like most people ain't never seen work before the cotton field be about three or four miles long.

[00:08:44]>> I don't know.

[00:08:45]>> So you never pick I hear a guy he talking he ain't know the interviewer.

[00:08:51]>> I ain't going to lie. Look, we went we went down them roads, picked cotton and 100 pound at the end of the day, you you you done did great. Well, you pick 100 pound cotton, you a champion, boy.

[00:09:03]>> One thing I noticed though now when you go around some of these towns, you see construction workers, they're almost all Mexican.

[00:09:09]>> There you go. They're all Mexican.

[00:09:13]What's you Mexican?

[00:09:15]>> No. No. I get that a lot.

[00:09:17]>> Italian. Italian.

[00:09:18]>> Okay. Similar people say that. But what's up with that? I mean people like >> because they will not play pay the black people and the Mexican will work for less as well too.

[00:09:28]>> The Mexican going to do what we want to do.

[00:09:30]>> Mhm.

[00:09:30]>> Cuz we got lazy and No, I'm saying not me. But they go up there work hard. They build a house in about two weeks >> because they have to.

[00:09:39]>> Hey, I ain't got nothing against a Mexican >> cuz I like I love the way they work.

[00:09:43]They dedicated to the cause cuz they where they come from they called hell probably cuz I I heard how they live in Mexico. So when you come to some place better than you come from, you gonna give it all you got cuz you never want to go back. Hello.

[00:09:56]>> Yes, sir. Where you at?

[00:09:58]>> I'm still at the store.

[00:10:00]>> Oh, at the liquor store.

[00:10:01]>> Yeah. And then we pimp, too. It's a joke.

[00:10:08]>> Goryville's Gorillaville.

[00:10:09]>> Yeah. It's too bad it's just dead now.

[00:10:12]It was more alive back in the day, huh, Pickle?

[00:10:15]>> Yeah.

[00:10:15]>> Yeah, it was.

[00:10:16]>> That's the fire man from Gyville. Yeah.

[00:10:18]Yes.

[00:10:19]>> Hey, he doing YouTube.

[00:10:20]>> Oh, you got me, kid.

[00:10:21]>> Yeah, you sound You sound like you're from Massachusetts.

[00:10:22]>> Oh, I'm from Massachusetts.

[00:10:24]>> What the hell?

[00:10:26]>> What led you to move back down here?

[00:10:29]>> Uh, social security.

[00:10:31]>> I can afford it down here. I can't afford the cape.

[00:10:33]>> All New England teams are winners.

[00:10:35]>> Patriots. Unfortunately. Unfortunately.

[00:10:38]>> Thank you. We're a team of champions.

[00:10:40]>> Maybe I'll win next year, huh?

[00:10:41]>> Maybe I'll win next year. We're >> pretty close though, huh?

[00:10:45]>> Okay. Can't count us out, huh, K? From here, we have 50 more miles to the coast where we'd find our final and most unusual destination.

[00:10:54]On the way, we made three more stops.

[00:10:57]First, at one of South Carolina's most famous barbecue joints, Scots.

[00:11:04]You know, we go all over the country searching for places like this.

[00:11:08]Just look at the smoke. This is as real as it gets, >> dude. The smell. What's going on right here?

[00:11:16]cooking. Yes, sir.

[00:11:19]>> Cooking right now.

[00:11:20]>> And you guys do this. This is from the wood that y'all chop right back here.

[00:11:23]>> Mhm.

[00:11:24]>> The smell it's like >> that's a better pile back there. Use that power.

[00:11:30]>> Just the man here.

[00:11:32]>> Are you the cook?

[00:11:33]>> Well, he Well, I'm one of the cook.

[00:11:35]>> What's the secret?

[00:11:37]>> Mangle.

[00:11:39]Mango isn't good. Yeah. I mean, we screwed up and then we make up.

[00:11:44]>> How long you been cooking? smoking.

[00:11:46]>> Uh probably 12 years now.

[00:11:48]>> And now he been here longer than me and yeah, he was 78 years old.

[00:11:52]>> How How long's this been here?

[00:11:54]>> Scots 72.

[00:11:57]>> 72.

[00:11:58]>> And we still proud of that. And the old man leave us here. He left the door open for us. We'll keep it open.

[00:12:02]>> They say this the best barbecue in South Carolina.

[00:12:04]>> Uh hey, look at We can't We can't brag when we get feeding hungry.

[00:12:10]>> We get feeding hungry.

[00:12:12]>> What's it What's it like around here?

[00:12:13]This area.

[00:12:14]>> Yeah. Not quiet. Yeah, it's slow.

[00:12:17]>> And then every neighborhood, you know, it be somebody be acting up every now and then, you know, anywhere you go. We we living here. I guess we used to here and we own pride and whatever. I don't want to die here, but I was born here.

[00:12:31]>> Okay, so we went big with the order here. We got half pound of ribs with some spicy vinegar sauce, barbecue. I didn't even know the barbecue came with a rib. Look at that. Barbecue comes with a rib. We got baked beans, coleslaw mac and cheese, or sorry, kleslaw potato salad. No mac and cheese here. This is as good as it gets. I mean, I have no words beyond this woodfired smoky meat I'm about to stick in my mouth. Let's see how it goes.

[00:12:59]You have never eaten something that has been cooked with as much care as this right here. This is unbelievable.

[00:13:06]>> Now, I just want to take 15 seconds to thank you for watching this video. My two friends and I started this channel because news companies did not care about the Americans living between the coasts, towns like the ones we grew up in. We wanted to fill that gap and bring back real journalism. So, we started Roken News with a mission of capturing the world without bias or fear. We now put out three videos like these a week.

[00:13:26]If you enjoy them and want to bring back old school journalism, please subscribe.

[00:13:34]We got back on the road and headed toward Mlelenville. And our next stop was an accident. As we headed east, we stopped outside an abandoned house next to the old train tracks and happened to meet Cowboy the Canman.

[00:13:45]>> How may I help you?

[00:13:46]>> Where are we right now?

[00:13:48]>> Uh, you're right now in St. Stevens. St. Stevens is a small town. You'll find out that uh sometimes it can be kind of a little hair raising at times.

[00:13:58]>> Your name Cowboy?

[00:13:59]>> Well, my real name is Robert, but I go by Cowboy the Canman because I'm a little popular in this town of getting cans. I'm a retired veteran. I fought for three and a half years in the army.

[00:14:13]There was once industry during the wartime of World War II. Now it's just stand still. If you're not colored or you're you're you're Mexican, you get a job. Today, we whites have a hard time to get a job.

[00:14:31]>> You think it's harder if you're white than black?

[00:14:34]>> Yes, they made it harder. Life has made it harder for us Americans of our color of skin to live. I'm not kidding you. It is very rough. I wouldn't be doing this if I was in a poor spot.

[00:14:50]>> Yeah, it feels kind of strange to be like this town feels a little bit stuck.

[00:14:54]>> It does. I tend to agree with you. I don't know how he feels about it. It does make you wonder where we're standing right now.

[00:15:00]>> Well, then at the same time, you think you got, you know, you got robots and AI and all this stuff here. You feel you feel got a satellite that's floating around in space and every time we are discussing something that satellite picks up just exactly what me and you are saying, but I'm not trying to be I'm not trying to be badly interracial about it, but we got to worry about ourselves.

[00:15:24]You got the blacks living down there.

[00:15:27]You got some living over in there.

[00:15:30]This town is half black. So, you got to be careful not to even say the the n-word. Talk about bad.

[00:15:39]This town takes the cake right here because this town is just like living in the Wild West. The only thing is you can't always wear a gun, but they do carry guns around and they will shoot you if they feel like shooting you. But they say, "Thou shalt not infringe on the laws of the pack a gun." That's one of the constitutional rights you got is you can carry a gun. I'm very honored to be on camera.

[00:16:08]>> Hey, thank you, cowboy.

[00:16:10]>> If you enjoyed this conversation, make sure to smash that subscribe button.

[00:16:14]>> Subscribe.

[00:16:15]>> We Americans are lucky for what we got.

[00:16:18]And we got to stick with the Lord all the way. We can't let the devil win.

[00:16:24]>> We then learned that this town had not recovered from Hurricane Hugo decades ago.

[00:16:28]>> So, what's up? We noticed a lot of abandoned buildings.

[00:16:31]>> That used to be a old funeral home right there since my mom since even when my mom was here cuz she used to tell me about it all the time. But if you see a lot of abandoned buildings, a lot of that stuff came after you.

[00:16:47]>> Uh the hurricane hit.

[00:16:48]>> Yeah. When the hurricane hit it, they just said, "No, we ain't even going to build we ain't even going to build it back no more." And and that's that's it.

[00:16:56]So, so it's only really that just a couple of gas stations up that road.

[00:17:01]You'll see that's abandoning a laundry mat, some stuff like that. But, um, like I said, it's just a little little small town, man. That's about it.

[00:17:12]>> Back in the car, we drove toward Mlenville, our last stop. As we traveled, we passed through swamps and dense forest. We decided to drive down one of the dirt roads to see what or who we would find.

[00:17:33]Right now you're in Berkeley County, but right here called Honey Hill.

[00:17:37]>> Honey Hill.

[00:17:38]>> Yeah. And most of private country people, whatever. Now we got no money. I moved down here about 30 years ago. I don't get along with people too good, but back here just quiet. Everybody keep to yourself. Car go by. Hey, that's it.

[00:17:54]What do people do here?

[00:17:56]>> I'm retired. I'm 66. I don't do nothing.

[00:17:59]I do whatever I want to do.

[00:18:01]I mean, I work hard all my life. 47 years.

[00:18:04]>> What' you do?

[00:18:05]>> I need to be a mechanic. Work hard.

[00:18:08]Getting a little bit of money. But it's all right. I living doing good. Eating.

[00:18:13]>> A lot of people nowadays don't want to work.

[00:18:15]>> Yeah, I agree with you. But what you eat? What you have? You don't work, you don't eat.

[00:18:20]>> You know the Bible tell you that. In the 30 years you've been living here, has the area changed?

[00:18:25]>> Oh, it changed. It went up. When I first come here, when I bought the house, I paid $30,000 for the house. They 30 for this one, 30 for that one, and 30 for that one over there. That one over there, that one sold last share for 220.

[00:18:40]When I come here, acre of land was $3,500 acre. Now it's 30,000.

[00:18:45]>> So that's all your land right here.

[00:18:46]>> Yeah. 7 and 12 acres. Real estate way to go.

[00:18:50]Don't let nobody fool you. Real estate ready to go.

[00:18:53]>> That's a beautiful spot you got.

[00:18:55]>> Quiet.

[00:18:56]>> Quiet. Very quiet. Like you said, you're the first car went down the road this morning. I seen.

[00:19:01]>> Are you serious?

[00:19:02]>> I've seen them.

[00:19:03]>> We're the first ones.

[00:19:04]>> Yeah. No store or nothing around here.

[00:19:05]You have to go like 10 balls to go to the store.

[00:19:08]You know, if you out of bread, you out of bread. You out of milk, you out of milk. Unless you want to ride, you know, but ride cost. We go to town maybe one time a week, buy two loaf of bread, two cases of drinks, you know, last all week.

[00:19:23]>> That's the life down here.

[00:19:25]>> Yeah.

[00:19:25]>> We notice you drive a long time, you see no one.

[00:19:28]>> No one.

[00:19:28]>> No one.

[00:19:29]>> No one.

[00:19:30]>> You see more animal, you see people.

[00:19:32]>> Gators.

[00:19:33]>> Yeah. Alligator. Bunch of alligators.

[00:19:37]>> Yep.

[00:19:38]>> From here, we drove our final 10 miles to Mlelenville on the edge of the forest. We expected to find another poor remote swamp town. Instead, we found Utopia. Think of >> everything about this place. I mean, truly, it feels it feels like it's not real.

[00:19:53]>> Can you read the the thing on the chapel? What it's called?

[00:19:57]>> No.

[00:19:57]>> The Chapel of Ease.

[00:20:00]>> I like that.

[00:20:01]>> Yeah. It's just that's what this is.

[00:20:03]It's just the most peaceful place I've ever been.

[00:20:06]>> We'll go deeper into Mlenville in our next video, which proved to be one of the nicest and most unique towns we've ever visited. But for now, I'll say this. On the surface, it had almost nothing in common with the other places we visited. They were poor, black, and shrinking. Mlenville was wealthy, white, and growing. Yet, one important thing they had in common. None had been touched by the rapid growth that is consuming the rest of South Carolina.

[00:20:32]For better and for worse, there were no highways, Walmarts, Canes, or Chick-fil-As. In the PD, the old school deep south is alive and well.

[00:20:42]>> I live here. I've lived here about 15 years.

[00:20:44]>> What's it like?

[00:20:45]>> It's uh it's nice.

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