Bluffton, South Carolina
April 24, 2022
Another town with an interesting name.
From Wikipedia:
Lobeco (pronounced luh-BEE-co) is an unincorporated community and census-designated place (CDP) located in Beaufort County, South Carolina, United States. Per the 2020 census, the population was 292.
Situated about 10 miles north of Beaufort, it is a predominantly agricultural area that has retained its rural character. A small community area consisting of a library, post office, and produce market serve as an anchor for the surrounding community. It is served by U.S. Highway 21. Nearby communities include Dale, Seabrook, and Sheldon. Its zipcode is: 29931.
The community name comes from an acronym of Long, Bellamy, and Company.
Lobeco has a public library, a branch of the Beaufort County Library.
From another source:
Lobeco, located in Beaufort County, takes its name from Long, Bellamy and Company, a vegetable packing plant that operated here in the early twentieth century. Vegetable packing was an important component of truck farming, or growing crops to be to be packaged locally and shipped by train to remote places on refrigerated cars. The Seaboard Air Line added a stop in Lobeco expressly for shipping its packaged produce along its Charleston-to-Savannah line.
Truck farming involved a different business model than market farming, which relied on nearby consumers to purchase produce locally. Though many farms – such as the McLeod Farmstead in Seabrook – packaged produce on site, others utilized businesses such as the packing house in Lobeco.
As Lobeco’s truck farming industry grew, the need arose for a school. Around 1925, this school was built to serve local white students. Later, a gymnasium was added to the school grounds. A new school was built on the other side of the gymnasium in 1953, and students from the Lobeco School began attending classes in the new facility instead. Black students attended Dale-Lobeco School, built the same year. Today the Lobeco School is closed, and students from Lobeco attend school elsewhere in Beaufort County.
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