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Main Street of Sumter, around 1910. The straggling village, first called Sumterville after the Revolutionary War General Thomas Sumter (see Thomas Sumter), was selected in 1798 to be the courthouse...
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Main Street of Summerville, July 1906. Created by early planters as a refuge from the heat and disease of coastal plantations, Summerville was one of a number of early resorts built in the belt of...
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The town of St. Matthews predates by more than a century and a half the 1908 formation of Calhoun County, of which it is now the county seat. Originally a trading post on the Cherokee Path, the town...
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Morgan Square, Spartanburg, as it appeared in 1939. Alfred T. Willis, photographer. Courtesy of the South Caroliniana Library.
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Morgan Square, Spartanburg, showing the Confederate monument and City Hall around 1907. First known as "Public Square," it was created in 1787 as a public pasture, and renamed after a statue of...
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Spartanburg County was created out of the old Ninety Six District in 1785, but there were settlements in the area as early as 1761, primarily of Scotch-Irish from Pennsylvania and Virginia. Known only...
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Main Street, Society Hill, before paving, around 1910. Society Hill was the core of the Welsh Neck settlement along the Great Pee Dee River granted to Welsh Baptists from Delaware in 1736. The name...
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Main Street of Rock Hill at night, 1950. Courtesy of the Winthrop University Archives.
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Rock Hill, like many Upcountry South Carolina towns, began as a railroad depot in 1852 on the Charlotte-Columbia Railroad. Incorporated in 1870, its real growth came from two influences: the influx of...
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Ridgeland became the county seat of Jasper County when that county was created in 1912. Originally named Gopher Hill when settled in 1855, it was renamed based on its location on a sandy ridge. This...