The Last Auction: Part 1, Introduction
Tobacco has a long and important history in South Carolina's Pee Dee region. During the 1890s, South Carolina tobacco production went from 200,000 pounds per year to 20 million. In 1899, almost 93% of that crop was grown in the Pee Dee, a bonanza that reverberated across the region. Mullins, while not the first tobacco market in South Carolina, quickly became the most important, and remained dependent on a tobacco-based economy for a century.
Today. tobacco production has been cut in half and Mullins, like other small towns across the Pee Dee, is struggling. The Last Auction, a documentary produced by ETV, situates the viewer in the midst of this hard-hit community, contrasting the Mullins of today with that of the time when tobacco ruled. With the people and places of Mullins as guides, The Last Auction offers viewers a better understanding of the past and a means of exploring options for the future.