This week we look at three ghost towns. These towns featured academies that played a large part of the town. When the academies closed down, the towns went into decline. This episode looks at the towns of Minervaville in Richland County, South Carolina, which had the Minerva Academy, Slabtown in Anderson County, which had the Thalian Academy, then the Slabtown Academy, and Sievern in Aiken County, which had the Edisto Academy.

Some of the resources I used in podcast are listed below:

• Blog Posts
  • Lower Richland and the High Hills of the Santee
  • Slabtown, Equality, and the Thalian Web
  • Chasing the Swamp Rabbit, Part 3 - Sievern and the Edisto Academy

Ellenton, Dunbarton, Meyers Mills, and Leigh were small towns in Aiken and Barnwell Counties that were uprooted to make way for the Savannah River Plant to make atomic and hydrogen bombs.

I used lots of references and audio clips in this episode. Here are the clips that I used in putting together this story.

• Blog post - Hamburg and the Atomic Towns
• "I Don't Live there Anymore" - Lawrence Holofcener
• Dr. Walter Edgar, South Carolina from A to Z - E is for Ellenton
• Acts and Joint Resolutions of the General Assembly, 1880
• Samuel Ritchie - That Others May Live: The Cold War Sacrifice of Ellenton, South Carolina
• WJBF - Hometown History, The Forgotten Town of Ellenton
• Displaced - The Unexpected Fallout from the Cold War
• Ellenton Heritage Trail Opens for Tours
• Song - Jesus Hits Like an Atom Bomb
• Song - The Death of Ellenton

Manchester is a ghost town in Sumter County, on the east side of the Poinsett Electronic Warfare Range. It was settled in the 1700s, but disappeared in the mid-1800s.

Resources:

• Archeological Studies
• Wilmington and Manchester Railroad from Wikipedia
• Blog Post