Together with my good friend Dorathy and armed solely with our trusty cameras, we went for a wander. Lexington, Columbia and Irmo are in a very much land-locked area, 120 miles inland with no sea or ocean to dip so much as a toe into. There is, however a beach. The local parks service decided to install a beach on the shore of Lake Murray. Now Lake Murray isn't really a lake in its own right. It is in fact a huge dam that was built in the 1930s to provide water and hydro-electric power to the emerging city of Columbia.
The dam comprises a huge wall about a mile long that snakes between what were originally two hills. The valley that became the dam used to be populated and apparently those that dive beneath the surface of the waters can find buildings and roads still in existence.
More recently there was a successful attempt to remove "The Lake Murray Bomber" which was a 2nd world war bomber that crashed into the water on a practice low-level bombing run over water. Surprisingly, the pilot was still alive and attended the delivery of his old plane to the land. The air-accidents people then investigated the engines as apparently it had been put down in the lake rather than risk a crash on land due to engine failure.
Juicy little details came out from that crash. Apparently in the cockpit they found a watch given to the pilot by his lady. She was apparently furious that he'd lost it in the crash because she had a year left to pay for it. It was returned to her since she was still alive. Surprisingly there are apparently another 4 bombers at the bottom of the lake.
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| Lake Murray beach |
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| Lake Murray beach |
We proceeded away from Lake Murray - the beach was pretty crowded and the car park was full as was the overflow car park. There were even cars parked on all the available surrounding space beside the roads. Continuing toward Lexington we found another haven off the lake which had a boat storage facility. There I saw this neat little concrete circular table and chairs set. That was intriguing as I have never seen this before.
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| Lake Murray marina |
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| View from Lake Murray marina |
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| Lake Murray marina |
Lake Murray Marina had multi-storey boat storage, which surprised me. I have never seen that before. It does make sense though - speedboats really are not that big. The storage facility seemed to have room to put 4 or 5 levels of boats albeit small speedboat-styled boats.
Heading into Lexington itself and we encountered the old mill. This was originally a water mill. The mill pond is still in existence as are many of the components. It was abandoned many years ago and has only recently begun to be redeveloped. It now houses many small businesses and a restaurant.
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| The old mill in Lexington |
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| The old mill in Lexington |
Close to the old mill is what I presume was the old sluice-gate control building. There's a huge sluice gate hidden in the vegetation on the other side of the buildings below that's guarded by a huge fence and lots of barbed wire. Clearly people are not supposed to go there. Although there is a pathway that has been forced through, I did not venture there - it was just too darned hot to be bothered. It was June after all!
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| Sluice-gate control building |
The sluice-gate control building was in two parts - a brick-built part that looks usable and in good condition and a wooden addition that has been built on stilts. That's actually a two storey affair that is showing the ravages of time. If people were still in the habit of heating their homes with wood fires then I would imagine that would provide several people with fuel for the winter. It does not appear to be under any kind of preservation order like many old wooden buildings in the US. Equally, it does not seem to have been vandalized. The stilts it stands on are steel and therefore it's not likely to collapse down into the car park below any time soon.
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| Sluice-gate control building |
Clearly this building is in dire need of some tender loving care. Having said that, I think the wooden part is more than likely going to collapse totally before very many winters are out. That would be a real shame as it has character.
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| Sluice-gate control building |
I notice that since I last photographed the above building, 3 months ago, that there seems to be a huge chunk of wood missing from the side. At this rate, it won't be too long before the whole building goes missing. Check out the January photo below.
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| Sluice-control building a few months earlier |
Below is a photo of a rather cute looking general store. That's just across the road from the old mill dam. If that dam were to breach, that store would be gone in an instant. I just don't understand people wanting to live and build below dams or on flood plains.
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| General store in Lexington |
Deeper inside Lexington, there's an old abandoned home. It clearly hasn't been used in a good many years so goodness knows how many nasty insects and animals now live within its confines. It is very interesting to note though that the old galvanized iron buckets etc are still on the porch. This is one of the things I regret most about Britain. Anything left will be stolen or vandalized within days. Here, in this part of the US in particular, this does not seem to be such an issue. Indeed, in the 7 or 8 years I have lived in the US, I have seen nothing much in the way of crime.
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Abandoned building, Lexington
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Leaving Lexington, we headed toward West Columbia whereupon we encountered beside the road an old abandoned filling station. This must have been a relic from the 1930s
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| Abandoned filling station US 1 |
It was apparently owned by somebody called Corley. The old fuel pumps had long since gone. I suspect that there were no pumps in the traditional sense of the word but rather a barrel that had a hand cranked pump attached and that there was a supply of barrels of fuel.
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| Abandoned filling station US 1 |
Sadly, this lovely old building was burned to the ground a few days after this photograph was taken. It was worth - to my mind - preserving as it was such a relic of the past. The Corelys who owned the land
were huge landowners in the area. There are roads named after them and in fact large tracts of woodland. I gather the family is still quite powerful in the area. It's just such a shame they didn't act to preserve history.
And thus concludes a wander along 20 miles of road from Lake Murray dam toward West Columbia.
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