By Shelia Watson
Contributing Writer

The rich aroma of roasted coffee beans may give every customer a taste of the “Starbucks Experience,” but for a small county living in the shadow of South Carolina’s capital city, it smells a lot like money.

Straying far from its home city of Seattle, Wash., the world’s largest coffeehouse company came to St. Matthews, S.C., the county seat, to find something it couldn’t get in the Pacific Northwest: Sunshine and fresh air.

But Calhoun County has more than unpolluted air. It also has unemployment numbers that hit over 7% twice this year and hasn’t beaten the state average by more than half a percentage point in more than 12 months. Residents hope a welcome wave of investment might be enough to give their county momentum to attract more business and industry to improve their county along with their jobless figures.

After Starbucks Coffee Co. announced it would add 160 full-time jobs to the local economy by 2009, the county’s largest employer, The Eastman Chemical Co., said it was making a $100 million investment to expand its operations in Calhoun County.

While Calhoun County hasn’t prospered like its northern neighbors Richland and Lexington counties, any perceived culture clash of rural vs. industry is hardly mentioned along the streets of St. Matthews. If there is a struggle, it is concentrated more on accommodating increased industry than on keeping the pristine countryside that attracted Starbucks to begin with.

“Calhoun County is a great place for businesses to set up shop,” said Jane Dyches, who works in development and planning for the county’s chamber of commerce. “We have a good tax base and people who are willing to help companies get established here. The thing is, we need good jobs with good wages, and we’re eager for companies to come here.”

Calhoun County is ideally positioned, seemingly in the middle of everything: It is located in the Midlands region in the exact center of the state, halfway between New York and Miami and within 24-hour ground access to more than 70% of the U.S. market. The county is fairly small, with a total area of about 390 square miles.

“We’re the third smallest county in the state, and we’re a very close-knit community,” said Dyches. “This is a county that has family roots. The children go away to college, then they come back, have kids and settle down.”

Still, she said, the citizens are eager to embrace progress and maintaining the county’s rural feel isn’t of major concern.

“Now, we’re still very country around here,” she said. “We have a lot of cabins here and people come here on the weekends to hunt deer and dove. Plus we have a lot of agriculture going on. We’re good with peanuts and soy and corn.
But believe me, when Starbucks started looking around for somewhere in the Southeast to put its facility, everyone here was cheering for it. We want those jobs.”