SerpApi.Org
If you’ve spent any time in South Carolina you don’t have to think too hard about the most offbeat of all roadside attractions.
Roadside America, which bills itself as the ultimate guide to offbeat places across the country, says in South Carolina you’ve got to see South of the Border in Dillon, just south of the North Carolina line.
The 30-acre attraction has a gas station, truck stop, family restaurant, ice cream shop, fireworks stand, a Peddler Steak House, bar, reptile display and even a huge open-mouthed plastic shark.
The reptile display is the largest indoor reptile facility in the U.S. with 15 species of crocodilians and 50 species of snakes, the attraction claims.
The place has been open since 1949 when beer distributor Alan Schafer set up a beer stand that morphed into what Roadside America calls “the classic I-95 tourist trap and vacation theme world.”
Next place you don’t want to miss is, of course, Miniature Golf Capital of the World, in Myrtle Beach.
“If you’ve ever wanted to putt golf balls inside an erupting volcano, this is where you want to go,” Roadside America says.
Myrtle Beach has more than 50 courses, some of which are built on older miniature golf businesses.
“In Myrtle Beach, the miniature golf courses that refuse to evolve go out of business,” Stephen Lancaster, general manager of mini-golf pacesetters such as Molten Mountain and Mutiny Bay, told Roadside America. The golf season lasts from Groundhog Day through Thanksgiving.
No. 3 is Alligator Adventure in Atlantic Beach, which claims to have 750 alligators.
“The star attraction of Alligator Adventure is “Utan, King of the Crocs,” Roadside America said. “Reportedly over 20 feet long, he was nearly invisible in his murky play-pool during our visit. We did, however, get a good close-up view of “Bob,” a freak alligator born without a tail. According to a sign next to Bob’s pen, his disability “would have led to his death” in the wild, but at Alligator Adventure he will be protected as a lovable mascot.”
Pearl Fryar’s Topiary Garden in Bishopville, is No. 4.
“Yard artist Pearl’s hedge clippers are always busy, and seem to have a mind of their own in his broad suburban shapescape,” Roadside American said. He has a cypress tree he’s fashioned into a fish and some 500 shrubs and trees he moved to his once-a-cornfield three acres since he moved there in 1981.
“Junipers are pruned into surrealist waves and corkscrews, holly bushes become velvety totems and sci-fi octopi. Pearl’s “Love, Peace & Goodwill” in 8-foot-high letters is sincere, but his topiary’s weird geometry reminded us of Lovecraft; if the garden weren’t so green and natural it would be eerie,” Roadside America said.
No. 5 Button King Museum is also in Bishopville and is the work of Dalton Stevens - known as “The Button King.” The museum displays the cars and furnishings and clothes to which he’s glued and sewed about a million buttons. Dalton passed away on Nov. 21, 2016. The museum later reopened.
No. 6 Cotton Museum: Lizard Man!, also in Bishopville, has cotton industry exhibits including the World’s Largest Boll Weevil and souvenirs promoting the Lizard Man of Scrap Ore Swamp.
It’s a Southern Thing, a group of storytellers based in Alabama who endeavor to show the good in the South, said the Lizard man is one of the scariest legends.
“The creature, with red eyes, green skin and long black claws, was said to attack cars, ripping off mirrors, shredding roofs and ripping off fenders.”
He was first seen by 17-year-old Christopher Davis going home from work at 2 a.m. on June 29, 1988.
Davis said he got out of his car to fix a flat tire in the dead of night near the swamp and heard someone running. Thump, thump, red eyes glowing, he said. It looked like a mashup of Bigfoot and a scaly swamp man.
The thing lunged at his car. Then jumped on the roof, clinging to it as Davis sped away, swerving to shake the creature off. Davis said he saw three big fingers, long black nails and green rough skin.
When he got home, he saw his side-view mirror damaged and scrapes on the top.
And he’s not the only one.
No. 6 God’s Acre Healing Springs in Blackville, which lists the land’s owner as God, Almighty in local property records.
“The Healing Springs earned their reputation during the Revolutionary War,” Roadside America says. “Four mortally wounded British soldiers were reportedly restored to fighting health merely by drinking and bathing in the Springs.”
No. 7 Eddie, World’s Biggest Kid - EdVenture in Columbia, where kids can crawl through the guts of a giant boy. At 40-feet, he’s twice the size of the seated Lincoln in Washington, D.C.
EdVenture also has a display showing a virtual meal get digested.
“Similar kids’ museums exist all over the country, but none have anything close to Eddie,” Roadside America said.
No. 8 Tunnelvision, also in Columbia, is a “deceptively realistic highway tunnel entrance painted on the side of a building in 1975,” Roadside America said. Blue Sky, whose name used to be Warren Edward Johnson, said the idea for Tunnelvision came to him in a dream.
It would be a mural of the sun seen through a highway tunnel blasted out of solid rock. He searched around for a benefactor before finding a bank - Federal Land Bank - that let him paint it.
No. 9 Statue and Tomb of Doomed Astronaut in Lake City, is a tribute to Ronald McNair, a physicist with a black belt in karate and an astronaut who perished in 1986 aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger.
A granite wall heralding his achievements was erected in 1995, There is a life-size bronze statue of McNair in his Space Shuttle jumpsuit.
“In 2004 McNair was removed from his grave 5 miles away and re-entombed in a sarcophagus next to the statue,” Roadside American said. “An “eternal flame” flickers in front of it, an old-style gas street lamp.”
No. 10 Huey Cooper and His Lucky Rabbit’s Foot, also in Lake City, a statue honoring Cooper, who The Florence Morning News called “fixture in downtown Lake City for as long as anyone could remember.”
“He lived rent-free in a small building behind the Dairy Queen that was built and paid for by the police department,” Roadside America said. “He was always cheerful, and spent most days on a low, cement wall at the corner of Acline and Main Streets, where passers-by could rub his lucky rabbit’s foot for a nickel.”
It is said he was 105 when he died in 1978.
