- Throughout history, Lake View South Carolina
has changed and developed.
What was once a dusty old road is now a thriving community,
The center of it being Main Street.
The first building in town was Hayes Hardware.
Hayes Hardware was built in 1907 by the Hayes brothers.
- Alright, I'm Matthew Hayes,
I run Hayes Hardware in Lake View South Carolina.
And the store was started by my great grandfather
and his brother Chatty and Charlie Hayes.
And they ran it together as Hayes Brothers Hardware
until around the 1950s, early '50s.
In '51, I believe Chatty died.
Charlie was also close behind.
And my grandfather, Carleton Hayes,
had just graduated college and he moved here
and ran the hardware.
And in '62 incorporated it to just Hayes Hardware.
It's been that way ever since.
Granddaddy Carleton Hayes died in '98.
In '98 it went to my grandmother at the time,
his wife, Elaine Hayes, with controlling interest
to my father, John Hayes, and from '98 until '08,
it was ran by my grandmother and Tim Smith.
They didn't do much with it.
And then in '08, 2008, I came here
to help my dad get it back on track
and to try to keep a family business going,
March will be my 11th year here this year,
and we hope to keep it going for another a hundred.
- [Narrator] Hayes Hardware is doing thriving business
on Main Street and continues to revive for our community.
Across the street resides
the First Baptist Church of Lake View.
The church was built in 1920
and the first pastor was James Smith.
Though the original is no longer standing,
the current First Baptist Church stands in the same place.
- Main Street in Lake View as I remember it
was always really busy.
You had your main street.
We had a drug store and not only was it the drug store,
but we had a fountain area with the stools
that you could sit there and you order fountain drinks
and you could get chips and packs of crackers, ice cream,
your normal things that you would find.
Then on Friday nights or on Thursday nights
after football games or basketball games,
the main place to go, all the students
that didn't have vehicles
or parents were not picking them up
after the games at the schoolhouse,
everybody walked from the schoolhouse up to the Dairy Maid.
- [Narrator] A few other important locations on Main Street
are the Lake View Barbershop
and the Lake View Police Department.
In all of my research, I learned that though Lake View
is a small, quiet town, it has not always been this way,
and it is home.