Border between South, North Carolina is flexible

Redrawing the boundary between South Carolina and North Carolina might move some longtime residents into the other state, officials said. A nearly-finished survey has been quietly under way since 1994 to establish the official boundary between the two states, first drawn in several sections between 1735 and 1815, disrupted by wars and lack of funding, and marked by axe-cuts into long-gone trees and an occasional stone marker. Last fall officials sent letters to 93 owners of border property, the majority in North Carolina, informing them their land may be in the other state, the newspaper The State reported Sunday. "The first thing I thought was, I am not paying back taxes to North Carolina," said Judy Helms, who was informed her house sits on the boundary. "But they said you don't have to do that." She thought she resided in York County, S.C., but researchers learned her home is actually in Gaston County, N.C. "We may have to adjust the line to accommodate some of those people, or set up a law where we can grandfather some of them in," said a South Carolina state representative and Joint Boundary Commission member, Wes Hayes.