Lucian@going2paris.net

May 10, 20227 min read

May 10, 2022

Lambsburg, Virginia

May 10, 2022

Tigerville, Little Chicago, Fingerville, Little Africa, Harris. Quite a day!

Tigerville is an unincorporated community and census-designated place in Greenville County, South Carolina, United States. As of the 2010 United States Census the population was 1,312.[2]It lies 12 miles (19 km) north of Taylors, 10 miles (16 km) northeast of Travelers Rest, and 14 miles (23 km) northwest of Greer. North Greenville University, a private institution of higher education affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention, is located in Tigerville. The community is part of the Greenville–Mauldin–Easley Metropolitan Statistical Area.

Fingerville is a Census-designated place located in Spartanburg County in the U.S.State of South Carolina. According to the 2010 United States Census, the population was 134. A post office called Fingerville was established in 1845.[4] The community was named for Joseph Finger, the owner of a cotton mill.

*******

Little Chicago: A widely known nowhere town

Staff WriterHerald-Journal

LITTLE CHICAGO - Seven-year-resident Billy Stewart pondered the question: How does he like living in Little Chicago? "Let's put it this way," Stewart, 45, said. "I like the creek running through my back yard . . . I like to see the birds fly and the squirrels climb around in the trees. "I would love to have city water at my house.

They've been promising to bring cable TV down my street," he added, weighing the pros and cons. That descriptive mix of beauty, serenity and nothing combine to describe one of Spartanburg County's most widely known nowhere places. An abandoned barber shop, the Madhouse Cafe, two small grocery stores and a splendid view of the Blue Ridge Mountains mark the place. Over the years, Little Chicago, located a few miles west of Inman. has become more famous for where it's not than for where it is. That's due mostly to J. Bloomer Williams, 85, of Little Chicago. He's responsible for the area's famous landmark, the Little Chicago sign. The tall post holds pointers that give distances to about 40 locales around the world; everywhere from Sugar Tit (see below) to Hong Kong. Williams runs the J.B. Williams and Son store at the corner of Goodjoin and Mount Lebanon roads. He said he got the idea for the sign in the 1930s, when he returned from Grand Island, Neb., where he'd picked up a shipment of 27 horses. Somewhere along the 1,800-mile trip, Williams saw a small sign on the side of the road that had about five pointers nailed to it. "I said, `I'm gonna put me up a sign like that.' That was in 1937. Well, I kept putting it off - I reckon it was in '39 when I put it up . . . Then the highway department widened the road and tore it down." The sign has been replaced twice, most recently about a year ago. Recently, a man came by Williams' store with some interesting news. There is another Little Chicago. It's in Canada's Northwest Territory, reportedly 2,075 miles away as the "crow flies." An atlas confirms the claim. Williams said the man wants him to add that Little Chicago to the sign so he can photograph it and send it to people he knows there. High atop the sign, just under "Little Chicago," is a line that reads "This is what happened - 1856 - Nothing." "That's when they claim there wasn't nothing much a happnin'," Williams explained. Stories on how Little Chicago got its name vary. Williams' story explains it this way: A man back in the '30s was in "Clipping" Curt Solesbee's old barber shop "feelin' good and talkin' loud." Someone told him to quiet down because he didn't know where he was. "He said, `The hell I don't,' he said, `I'm in Little Chicago,' and that named it," Williams said. Hubert Souther, 92, of 365 Goodjoin Road, gives a different account. He ran Souther's Grocery in the location now occupied by Madhouse Cafe, just across the street from Williams' store. Souther said the name originated with a near-brawl in his store that erupted after two men's joking turned to fighting words. One man pulled out a gun and threatened another fellow. But Souther said he ordered the man out of the store before anything could happen. The man, a guard for prison chain gangs in Duncan at the time, caught some ribbing from colleagues the next day at work. Playing off the national news of Al Capone's bloody exploits in the real Chicago, his friends assured him he had nothing on old "Scarface." "You shot up Little Chicago," they teased, even though Souther assures no shots were fired. Souther's youngest son, George, now runs George Souther's Grocery on the opposite side of the road from his father's old location. The younger Souther's store contains the "Liars' Bench." The bench, once an old church pew, faces a row of four chairs. The corner is filled daily with old retired gents who talk about the war, farming, and life in general. "Generally, I'll have two crews, the same crowd in the morning and evening," George Souther, 50, said. "Then, at night, you've got a different group - the younger people." He said bad weather brings out the biggest crowds. The elder Souther, who has lived in or near Little Chicago since 1911, said the area's one-time reputation for violence and crime never really was deserved. "It never was rough," he said. "It just got a name for being rough, but it really wasn't. We used to go on vacation and never lock the door - a whole week. But you better not do that now." Eighty years in one place - even a tiny place like Little Chicago - doesn't seem to have fazed Hubert Souther. "My home's here, and I've been in business here a long time, so I didn't have any reason to move. I was offered $1,000 an acre for my land 30 years ago here, but I didn't want to sell it. "When you get to living in a place and get attached to it, you just don't want to leave it. I'm gonna die out here, I hope."

How Sugar Tit got its name

Michael Burnsmdburns@greenvillenews.com

Sugar Tit Moonshine owners Bob and Kathy Jordan, who are residents of the area of Spartanburg County known as Sugar Tit, say the community’s name seemed to be made for moonshine, but in reality the moonshine was made for the name.

The community, located around the junction of State 101 and State 296 southeast of Greer, owes its name to a babysitting tool of field hands, the quip of local wives and a sign that hung on an old store, according to Kathy, an officer for the Reidville Historical Society.

“This area was settled by the Scots-Irish,” Kathy said. “They were all really hard workers and all farmers. They needed women in the fields. They would take their babies in the fields with their blankets. They’d put sugar cane in the blanket, dip it in water, and that would help them keep those babies in the field while mom would work. They called it a sugar tit. It’s like the first pacifier.”

Years later the old Harrison’s store at the highway junction drew local men to hang out most evenings.

“The older gentlemen here tell us stories about how their mothers sent them up there because their father was up there all day long and they couldn’t figure out why,” Kathy said. “They used to say, ‘Go up to old Harrison’s. He must have a sugar tit up there. Send him home.’”

The store used to hang a sign proudly proclaiming, “Welcome to Sugar Tit, South Carolina.”

The store and sign are gone now, and the community name holds no official title, but it lingers just the same and is carried on in the Jordans’ moonshine, made two miles up the road in Reidville.

From Wikipedia:

Pelham (also known as Sugar Tit) is an unincorporated community in Spartanburg County in the upstate of the U.S. state of South Carolina. The Sugar Tit area has about five mile radius around Joe's Lake. It is located around the junction of State 101 and State 296 southeast of Greer, between Reidville and Five Forks. It is mostly farmland and plantations. After BMW came more subdivisions and industrial parks appeared in the area.

The Sugar Tit name is from a time when the men spent so long socializing at the local general store, their wives complained they took to the store like a baby to a sugar tit.

Little Africa” was one of a number of independent African American communities formed across the South after the Civil War. Founded c. 1880 by former slaves Simpson Foster and Emanuel Waddell, it was originally just a few acres set aside for their relatives. It grew to several hundred residents as other families settled nearby seeking economic opportunity and refuge from white supremacy. Many early residents were farmers, and agriculture remained central to life in Little Africa for decades. By 1910, community leaders had built the two-room Africa School to teach local children. One of S.C.’s first Rosenwald Fund schools later opened there. Near the school, community members built Fairview C.M.E. c. 1912, .5 miles east of here. Congregants first organized themselves a decade earlier.

Little Africa now is flourishing with different families and some linking to the founders, Simpson and Emanuel. Little Africa location provides beautiful scenic views of the Blue Ridge Mountains and the Pacolet River and Bear Creek runs right alongside of this beautiful rural area.

Little Africa Park was established by the donation of 8 acres of land by Charlie Proctor, Sr. and Thomas C. Blackley to Spartanburg County Parks and Recreation for the purpose of developing Little Africa Community Park. The park has a playground, a grilling area, and a baseball field.