A VIST TO PEDRO ... AN OLD FRIEND!

Pedro says ... we began as a beer stand in 1949 has grown into a 300-acre complex that includes a dozen gift shops, six restaurants, an amusement park, a motel and a campground.

South of the Border is located on Interstate 95 just across the North Carolina border in Dillon County, S.C. Just follow the signs!

UNENDING hours, whimsical billboards count down the miles like sand through and hourglass o exit 1A on South Carolina’s stretch of Interstate 95 where a giant sombrero hovers in the sky like a neon UFO.

Pedro, the mustachioed, 97-foot-tall patron saint of travelers in need of a pit stop, beckons. Visitors can drive through his legs and find a parking place. It’s time to stretch, hit the bathroom, grab a hot dog, see some alligators and snag a few fireworks to detonate on the beach.

South of the Border is a roadside mash-up of novelty architecture, tacky souvenir shops and wacky attractions. If Las Vegas hooked up with Route 66 and had a baby, this would be it.

An attraction is born

In 1949, the people of Robeson County, N.C., were facing the unpleasant realities of the county's prohibition on booze sales.

So Alan Schafer, owner of Schafer Distributing and a beer wholesaler just over the state line, erected a pink, cinder-block stand in Hamer, S.C., and named it South of the Border Beer Depot. Within a few years, a small motel was added and the name was shortened to South of the Border.