How SC 11 measures up as a scenic highway

A question posed recently after a talk to a Walhalla civic club conjured up thoughts from long ago when a two-lane country highway, from Fair Play to Gaffney, was touted as a scenic highway. SC 11 which connects with I-85 from Fair Play at one end to Gaffney at the other was built in the 1970s with the vision that it would make for leisurely driving for motorists with the time and the inclination to divert from the interstate highway. And it still is under the name of SC 11, the Cherokee-Foothills Scenic Highway. And, if all these years later the highway lives up to the name of a scenic highway, may well depend who you talk to. “I still think it’s a pretty cool driver,” says Steve Pellisier who, with his family, will occasionally enjoy a country drive on weekends. On weekdays, you can find Pellisier directing the offices of the South Carolina Appalachian Council of Governments in Greenville. There’s a history connection between “A-COG” and highway 11. The federal program that funded the highway in the early 1970s was the Appalachian Regional Commission, an outgrowth of the President Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society Program of the 1960s. Retiree Steve Sokol looks at highway 11 from his vantage point as an Oconee County resident and sees areas that need improvement if 11 is to live up to its name as a scenic highway, taking advantage of natural resources. A major interchange along 11 in Oconee is 123, where there’s a complex of manufacturing plants. Geographically, that’s the center of Oconee County. An ideal spot, Sokol, believes for a convention center and other tourist amenities.