I don’t often document convenience stores, but before a chain dollar store moved into the community, the Fast Track was the de facto shopping center for the Beards Creek community. I think they sold a little bit of everything and had a laundromat.
This photograph was also made in 2012, when I began documenting signs of the growing Hispanic population around Beards Creek. The colors of the Mexican flag were painted on this store building and a sign for a nearby Hispanic church is also visible.
When I made this photograph in 2012, the Beards Creek neighborhood was well on its way to becoming a center of the hard-working Hispanic community of Tattnall County. Though located in northern Long County, unincorporated Beards Creek is home to many of the people who make Tattnall County’s Vidalia Onion business possible. La Cueva de Aguila, the Cave of the Eagle or Eagle’s Cave, is no longer in business, but there are other restaurants and churches in the area catering to the growing Hispanic population.