RUSSELL COOPER

Cooper’s Country Store
6945 US Highway 521
Salters, SC 29590
(843) 387-5772

“We keep all the meats. We keep all the hams. We got a full line of groceries and we got a full line of hardware. We got gasoline. We got propane. We got diesel fuel. You name it, we got it.” — Russell Cooper

Up through the late-1930s, South Carolina’s Pee Dee region, in the northeast corner of the State, wasn’t nothing but dirt. But in 1937, D.C. built Highway 521, connecting Manning, in the west, to the lowcountry colonial town of Georgetown. That same year, along the new highway, tobacco and cotton farmer Theron Burrows opened an Esso Service Station, a country store, a place to purchase provisions to feed and fuel automobiles, livestock, and the belly.

When Mr. Burrows died in 1974, his son-in-law and daughter, George and Adalyn Cooper took over. After watching families serve car-trunk barbecue along the highway that fronted the service station, George Cooper decided to do his own cooking and built a pit—smoking chickens on one half, hogs on the other.

Present owner Russell Cooper, George’s nephew, describes the whole-hog barbecue as “downright vinegar and salt and pepper.” It’s damn spicy, with enough black pepper, crushed pepper, and ground red pepper to “pull the sweat out from under your eyes.”

RELATED MEDIA

TRANSCRIPT

AUDIO CLIP

PHOTOGRAPHS

INTERVIEW INFORMATION

Subject: Russell Cooper
Date: June 15, 2012
Location: Cooper’s Country Store — Salters, SC
Interviewer: Rien Fertel
Photographer: Denny Culbert

Southern BBQ Primer | Browse by State | Map | More Trails | Contact