Charleston architect Steve Coe has been watching this old tobacco barn slowly decay for years. The barn, located just north of Timmonsville, S.C., along S.C. Highway 403, is a symbol of an old economic model — agriculture fueled by tobacco — that is dying across the South.
Two years ago after snapping this picture of the barn, Coe wrote, ““Every time I drive past, this the building leans just a little bit more. It’s as if the earth is slowly taking it back. It represents a time long since passed, but also it reminds me how everything is ‘of the earth.’
“As much as I like the building, I also feel something nostalgic about the piece of farm equipment discarded in front of the barn — how it got there, the last time someone touched it. Just something interesting about this ‘decay’ that goes on day in, day out as I go about my life.”
We Can Do Better, South Carolina!