Small town history facing extinction: How Willington has survived, thrived
WILLINGTON — Old small towns faced with extinction often disappear without anyone thinking about them. One town in McCormick County is fighting for survival.
Willington is a small town of 64 inhabitants. Located in northwest McCormick County, Willington is a few miles south of Mt. Carmel on Highway 81 and just north of John de la Howe agriculture school and now the state’s third official Governor’s School.
The town was featured twice on a list of most endangered historic places.
Readers might recall columnist Chris Trainor’s discovery of the town’s bookshop, which he chronicled in an October column. The bookshop proudly displays his column, laminated and attached to the end of one of the book cases.
While known among bibliophiles as a great stop, the town has so much rich history located within its limits.
The Willington History Center, which contains historical artifacts from not only Willington, but elsewhere, is located in Sara Juengst’s grandfather’s old general store.
“This is my grandpa and he lived up the street,” Juengst said as she looked at an old picture. “I was born in his house in 1930.”
Juengst, 90, said her grandfather, William Oscar Covin, moved to Willington from Mt. Carmel to open a general store in 1898. She said she moved away when she was 3 years old but her family would return to have “Sunday dinner” with her grandfather.
“I loved Willington,” Juengst said.
While the town began to grow into more than a cotton town with the installation of the railroad lines in 1886, the name of the town can be traced to 1801 with the creation of Moses Waddel’s Willington Academy.
Waddel established his school in Vienna — now under the waters of Lake Thurmond — but moved it to Willington three years later, Bobby Edmonds wrote in his book “The Making of McCormick County.”
The academy would produce George McDuffie, former South Carolina governor and U.S. senator; Hugh Swinton Legare, former U.S. Attorney General; and John C. Calhoun, former vice president and U.S. senator from the state, Edmonds wrote.
The academy closed at the beginning of the Civil War. The original school bell and slate board can be found in the Willington History Center.
After the Civil War and just before the turn of the century, Willington began to flourish. By 1916, it contained 13 stores, a livery stable, doctor’s office and post office, an information sheet provided by the nonprofit said.
“They had the railroad coming here,” Hank Baggett, a volunteer at the Willington History Center, said. “They had the cotton growing.”
The town experienced a decline when the boll weevil swept through and during the Depression.
“Now there is no store, no gas station,” Baggett said.
In 1995 and 1997, the town was listed as one of the 11 most endangered historic sites in the state.
“Boy, somebody should do something about that,” Juengst said she thought at the time.
Little did she know she would be the somebody.
Willington on the Way, a nonprofit 501© 3 organization, exists to maintain and preserve the history of Willington. Organized in 2000, the nonprofit led by Juengst sought to restore the buildings in the town.
In 2001, with the help then-Sen. Tommy Moore, Willington received $250,000 to restore buildings in the town. Four years later, the town would receive $350,000 from the state budget as a heritage tourism venture, Juengst said.
Most of the money the town has received has been used for roofing the brick buildings. Two of the buildings on the south side of the town are in bad condition. Those are owned by the nonprofit, although Juengst said they have tried to purchase them in the past.
Juengst donated her grandfather’s general store to the nonprofit and now it houses all of Willington’s most precious artifacts. Some of those items include musical instruments, farming equipment, cooking tools, quilts and furniture.
“McCormick County doesn’t have any kind of museum,” Juengst said.
The history center also contains three libraries of books that the nonprofit is not putting up for sale in the bookshop. The center has a dedicated set of books on state history, African American cultural history and U.S. military history.
The center has three dioramas depicting Willington Academy, the Huguenot settlement at New Bordeaux and Fort Charlotte – also under Lake Thurmond.
It has also become a resource for those researching family history as the center holds many historical and genealogical documents.
The nonprofit also has the town’s longtime post office on site as well as an African American Cultural Center, which is inside an old log cabin school room.
Willington on the Way has received many grants and donations throughout the years, but to keep the lights on, the town needed to have a revenue stream.
“I had this crazy idea,” Juengst said. “Why don’t we have a bookshop?”
She said the idea of a book town came from a small town in Wales that has 47 bookstores and related businesses.
Juengst contacted Greenwood bookseller Donald Hawthorne and asked him about relocating his books to Willington. Hawthorne agreed to move 25,000 books from his online catalog and operated in the town for a few years. When he decided to close up shop and move, he donated thousands of theological books to the nonprofit.
She said she attempted to get more bookstore owners to relocate but was hampered by the recession. The nonprofit decided it would open its own bookshop, first located in the town’s old post office.
The bookshop quickly grew and now houses books in four of the town’s storefronts.
“It has paid for all of the electric bills for all of the buildings,” Juengst said.
Juengst said people come from all over to visit the bookshop.
“It has taken on a life of its own,” she said. “It is something we are intensely proud of.”
The bookshop contains mostly donated books that range from $1 to $3. The bookshop also has some higher priced new titles that focus on local history. Be sure to hit the ATM before stopping by though; the bookshop only accepts cash.
For more than two decades, Juengst has led the effort to maintain and preserve the town she has loved since she was a child. In January, she will pass the torch to Lana Snellgrove, who will handle the administration of the nonprofit.
“Lana is going to be a wonderful president,” Juengst said.
Snellgrove, who became friends with Juengst’s niece while teaching in Atlanta, retired in McCormick County and became a volunteer 10 years ago.
While she is shedding the tedious duties of administration, Juengst does not plan to stop her work.
She said she will concentrate her efforts on recruiting volunteers and spending time in the history center. The bookshop is supported by 17 volunteers, while the history center has 12 volunteers, including Baggett who volunteers because he enjoys history.
As for the future in Willington, many projects are on the horizon.
“We are going to cooperate a lot more with other organizations,” Juengst said.
She said Willington might get to host a Smithsonian exhibit in the future. The Arts Council will work with the nonprofit to help protect the painted murals at the town’s corner and help distribute books to children.
Juengst said the nonprofit will host what many know as a blessings box, in cooperation with the McCormick County Friends of the Library. These boxes allow people to share books with their community.
She said when things open back up in the COVID-19 aftermath the nonprofit will get back to hosting historical events and fundraisers as it has traditionally done.
