On American Pastimes: “The Death of Ellenton,” the story of an American town killed by the military industrial complex.

Ellenton, South Carolina was incorporated in 1880. A quintessential southern rural community, it was established along a railroad line. Local lore says that it was named Ellen’s Town by the railroad superintendent who was smitten by the beauty of a young local girl. For most of its existence it was a bucolic agricultural, merchant and sawmill town, although it was also the center of South Carolina’s civil disturbances during the post-civil war Reconstruction Era. The “disturbances” were a series of race riots sparked by the South Carolina gubernatorial election. The riots all occurred in counties where African Americans were the majority. The Ellenton conflicts culminated with white mobs overwhelming the black citizens, killing at least 39 of them including Simon Coker, a freed slave who had been an elected legislator in the South Carolina House of Representatives.

With the downturn of cotton prices after World War I and the Depression of the 1930s the town’s population declined, and by the early 1950s, Ellenton had a population of about 760. But like many small rural communities it still maintained about 30 commercial buildings, a cotton gin, five churches, and two schools, along with a city hall and jail, and a railroad station.

Where the broad Savannah flows along to meet the mighty sea,
There stood a peaceful village that meant all the world to me.
The home of happy people--I knew each and every one,
My kin folk and all the friends I loved---the town was Ellenton.

That all changed with the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the advent of the atomic age and the Cold War. In November, 1950 the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission authorized the development a production facility for plutonium and tritium, key components of hydrogen bombs. The commission chose Ellenton and its surrounding environs for the location of The Savannah River Plant. Radiation concerns required that the facility have a 300 square mile perimeter. All residents within this perimeter were to be evicted and the buildings, houses and graveyards of two incorporated towns (Ellenton & Dunbarton) and four unincorporated villages were to be moved or leveled.

After the AEC decision in December 1950, someone posted a handmade sign on road entering Ellenton:

"It is hard to understand why our town must be destroyed to make a bomb that will destroy someone else's town that they love as much as we love ours. But we feel that they picked not just the best spot in the US, but in the world. We love these dear hearts and gentle people who live in our Home Town."

In all 6,000 people were affected by removal; a significant portion of those forced to leave were African-American farmers and sharecroppers. The government purchased property for ten dollars an acre or less, or simply condemned the property. A total of $19 million were spent in the purchase of all the property, but subsequent accounting suggests that the lumber in the structures alone was worth $28 million.

But the military came one day and filled our hearts with woe.
"We'll study war right here," they said, "The little town must go."
Then they came with trucks and dynamite. The din and dust rose high.
I stood and gazed in silence as I watched my hometown die.

After the exodus, all that was left of Ellenton were remnants; curbs, sidewalks, streets and building foundations.

By 1953 the first of the nuclear reactors was started up by DuPont under government contract, and the area boomed as 24,000 people were employed by the plant during the Cold War era..

The little church was hauled away. The fields are brown and bare,
And in their place a mighty plant. They build the H-bomb there.
Now the smoke hangs o'er the valley like the mist before my eyes,
Has been there ever since the day I said ‘Goodbye.’

By the 1970’s most of the reactors were being shut down, but a few remained operational as production of various nuclear products continued. Today the site is currently operating as The Savannah River Site, a research facility that focuses primarily on “neutralizing” and disposing military and nuclear waste.

Now the homes are gone, the schoolhouse too, the sweat and toil and tears
And with them all the joys and hopes of past and future years.

“Death of Ellenton” was written by Jesse “Pa” Johnson & Dixie Smith.
It was recorded by Pa Johnson & the Johnson Family Singers from Greensboro NC in the 1950’s; also by Rosalie Sorrels on “Somewhere Between” (1964); The New Lost City Ramblers on “Modern Times” (1968); and Hank & Shaidri Alrich on “Carry Me Home” (2009).

Theatrical Play: “I Don’t Live There Anymore” http://www.idlta.com/index.htm

Video: “Death of Ellenton”: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7149735011075061892#