Exploration of Clearwater Finishing Plant
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(126 votes)
Published: Sep 08, 2007 8:57 a.m.
In 1 Favorites Lists
Viewed 1109 times |
Seeing as how UER.ca’s registration email isn’t working, I can’t register there. I need a place to post a few of my recent Urban Explorations, so I figured I’d stop in and see what you guys thought of them.
*Note* A few of the images are a bit blurry, as they were taken while in motion.
Clearwater Finishing Plant is an abandoned textile mill in Horse Creek Valley, on the western edge of South Carolina, near the Georgia border. Until World War II, Horse Creek Valley’s economy was dependent on the production of textiles. The mill was closed and reopened multiple times during the 70’s and 80’s, and has been abandoned for almost 30 years.
Peter and I meet up at a Roses parking lot in Aiken, SC, then head on Jefferson Davis highway towards the Georgia border. About 15 minutes into the drive, we stop in Clearwater, SC, part of Horse Creek Valley. We park at a local CVS Pharmacy and head down the hill to where the old Clearwater Finishing Plant is. After a short walk, we end up in front of a 7 foot high fence topped with barbed wire. An old guard station serves as somewhat of a gateway through it, so we go through to the Plant.
We find an open door with a flight of stairs and climb up. The second floor is blocked by a door with no knob that we’re unable to open, so we continue up to the third floor. When we make it up, we’re immediately surprised by the room in front of us. The floor is entirely covered in cardboard boxes and tubs. I take note of the place, in case I ever need a large box to ship something.
We cross into the next room, and unlike the previous room, the floor in this one is fairly desolate, with the exception of water on the floor, which I assume to be from a leaking roof and rotted floors on the higher levels, and broken flourescent lightbulbs, which I have trouble avoiding as I step.
We traverse the room, trying to crush as little glass as possible as we step, and walk through the open entrance to the next room. Inside we find what appears to be trash from around 20 years ago, as one of the cardboard food containers is labeled as "Kentucky Fried Chicken", when in recent years it would have simply said "KFC". We spot a small office I expect some sort of superviser once occupied. There are charred areas of the walls that look like something had burnt there at one time, and graffiti that leads me to believe that this building once contained members of the local gang "Folk Nation". There’s more packaging material strewn across the floors, but not nearly as much as the first room.
We pass through another room without much to look at other than amounts of broken glass on the floor that were previously unattained, and make our way to a wide open area ahead.
We make our way into the open area, and find what looks to be a wide hallway, with small groupings of lockers on the sides, large shattered windows on either end, and a pile of old fire extinguishers in the center. We attempt to get the extinguishers to work, then Peter loses patience and throws one out of the window. We expected a small explosion of compressed air, but it became clear that these were empty, and have already been used by previous visitors.
We turn back and start to head through the previous room we came from in to continue through the rest of the building, and at one point, while backing up, I come extremely close to stumbling into a large hole in the floor. The hole was obviously there for a purpose, but I still can’t figure out what it was. After making sure I don’t stumble again, we make out way into the previous room.
Immediately when we return to the room, we begin hearing banging below us. I’m still convinced that it was either just the old building, or the construction crew working next door, but Peter thinks somebody was coming. Either way, we didn’t want to find out, so we darted out of the building. As we descend down from the 3rd story, I notice the 2nd story door we passed on the way up, with no door knob. After attempting to open it for some time, I gave up, although the sticker on the door made it’s contents seem extremely appealing. We descended the remaining flight of stairs and headed back to the guard station.
When we got to the guard station, we attempted to see if anyone else was in the building by watching the windows of it carefully, taking note of any movement.
We head back up the hill to the CVS Pharmacy where we parked, and drive to the church across the street to see if we can spot anything from there. After about 5 minutes, we try to go in through a back entrance by taking a dirt road, but unfortunately, the road just led to someone’s house, so we turn around, head back to the CVS, and walk back to the plant, this time opting to take a different entrance.
As we head towards our destination, we end up directly underneath the window which Peter threw the fire extinguisher out of.
After looking up at the window, we enter the building, and are immediately awe-struck by what appears to be 9 tanks of natural gas, but after closer inspection, turn out to be Freon.
We make our way across the rest of the room, and spot an old firehose and fire alarm.
After seeing a door to a walkway outside, we head through to check it out, and spot a ladder that leads to the roof of a sub-building across the walkway.
Halfway up, Peter decides to go for a MySpace-esque photo.
We make it to the roof, then decide there isn’t really a whole lot to see, and get down.
We head back into the main building, and go into the next room, where we find an old cart tipped over and the spot where the elevator used to run.
We walk into what appears to have once been an office, and find an old typewriter.
As we head up to the next floor, it becomes obvious that the upper floors have suffered much more than the lower due to water damage and wood flooring.
Once we get up, we end up in a room relatively empty other than a couple of printing presses.
I look out the window and catch a glimpse of the church we had parked at earlier.
We find a few cylindrical objects ontop of a belt near the printing presses. Upon further inspection, they turn out to be old-time fuses.
After a last glance at the current floor, we decide to continue up in an attempt to get to the roof of the main building.
We make it up and spot a ladder leading to the roof. Needless to say, it wasn’t the way we’d be taking.
We continue through the room, and after maneuvering around some large holes in the floor, we find an open window and climb through to the roof.
We find a stable stairway back into the building, head down, and decide to call it a day. We make it back into the room full of cardboard boxes and start hearing noises again, this time much more defined. Although the first time I wasn’t in agreement about the possibility of someone else being there, this time we were both pretty certain we weren’t there alone. After laying low in a pile of boxes for a little while, we head to the exit. Before we leave, we spot an office containing old newspapers, socks, boots, and pages from a Playboy, and come to the conclusion that someone was living there at one time. A month later, we discuss the fact that the only way to get to the womens’ bathroom on that floor was to go through that office, and wonder who the boss was who worked there.
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 | Sep 08, 2007 9:21 am -
First comment!! This egg rocks!! 5***** Nice pics. Best exploration i’ve seen for quite a while. |
 | Sep 08, 2007 10:08 am -
cool. clearwater, like florida clearwater right? i live in seminole 5* pretty good egg dont know y rating is so low |
 | Sep 08, 2007 10:28 am -
Clearwater South Carolina. It’s a very small town near where I live. |
| Sep 08, 2007 10:31 am -
oh, haha cool |
 | Sep 08, 2007 11:27 am -
Nice. It took me a long time to get through and read everything, but it was worth it. Needless to say, 5 from me. |
 | Sep 08, 2007 11:28 am -
5 fuckin stars |
| Sep 08, 2007 11:34 am -
As if i even needed to state my vote: 5* |
 | Sep 08, 2007 1:33 pm -
amazing egg, i love how slayer was spray painted, 5* |
 | Sep 08, 2007 8:50 pm -
nice. 5*
"CAPTAIN PLANET!", sorry, i had the urge to do that. |
 | Sep 08, 2007 9:41 pm -
Superb! You get five stars.
The boxes were probably placed there in bulk, used to pack all the equipment that was removed, and the remaining boxes simply abandoned there when the packing was done. |
 | Sep 09, 2007 12:52 pm -
nice and uer.ca rocks been a member for quite some time now. |
 | Jul 10, 2008 7:38 pm -
5 stars from me and that is one haggard trucker hat;) |
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