Pickens County   /   HISTORICAL MARKER

01. Pumpkintown

Pumpkintown sounds like a place named for a harvest festival, but the pumpkins came first. The community’s historical marker credits an unnamed early traveler who saw the Oolenoy Valley covered with enormous yellow pumpkins and called the place Pumpkin Town. The account omits the person’s name, but the observation has become part of the community’s permanent identity.

The same marker records that Pumpkintown and Pickens Court House, now known as Old Pickens, were the only two towns in the territory of present-day Pickens County in 1791. It also mentions visitors to Table Rock staying at William Sutherland’s inn. That adds another layer to the story: this cheerful agricultural name belonged to an early foothills stopping place. Explore the names of Pumpkintown and Oolenoy for more of the local connections.

Read the history: Pumpkintown historical marker, 39-8

Spartanburg County, near Reidville   /   LOCAL TRADITION

02. Sugar Tit

Sugar Tit comes with an explanation rooted in rural life. The term described an early homemade pacifier used to soothe babies. Local tradition connects the community name to wives teasing husbands who lingered at the store, as though the gathering place were a pacifier of its own. The story combines an everyday household object with a joke that outlasted the people who first told it.

The story’s important part is the gathering place. In an era when a country store supplied both necessities and neighborhood news, lingering there was an easy habit to acquire. The teasing explanation is local folklore, but it captures a recognizable piece of community life: someone waiting at home while a quick errand turns into a lengthy conversation.

Read the history: Livin’ Upstate, citing the Reidville Historical Society

Upstate, in the Saluda River area near Belton   /   COMPETING STORIES

03. Possum Kingdom

Possum Kingdom has more than one story, and the versions share one thing: plenty of possums. South Carolina Living traced one account to Jim McAllister’s 1981 Greenville newspaper article. In that version, people enjoying picnics beside the Saluda River commented on the animals’ abundance until someone described the area as a possum kingdom.

Other accounts involve hunting trips and catches that failed to live up to expectations. Residents’ recollections preserve these explanations, rather than proof of a single naming ceremony. The uncertainty suits the name: a little wild, a little humorous, and attached to a riverside community whose identity is larger than a dot on a map.

Read the history: South Carolina Living, “Place Names”

Horry County   /   FAMILY RECOLLECTION

04. Ketchuptown

Ketchuptown began with a country store and the habit of stopping to catch up on the news. In 1927, Herbert “Hub” Small bought an acre from Lewis Gerrald for $100 and built a house and store. Food, hardware, clothing, and ice brought customers through the door, but visiting with neighbors helped turn the crossroads into a gathering place.

The spelling has a more personal story. Small’s daughter, Ruth Marie Small Ham, recalled enjoying the letter K and writing Ketchuptown while she worked in the store. Her account, preserved through the Horry County Historical Society and discussed by SC Picture Project, helps explain how “catch up” became Ketchup. Better roads eventually made larger shopping destinations easier to reach, but the community kept the name its old store had helped create.

Read the history: SC Picture Project, drawing on Ruth Ham’s account

Spartanburg County   /   MILL HISTORY

05. Fingerville

Fingerville’s name comes from Joseph Ellis Finger, a cotton manufacturer whose surname became attached to the community. Spartanburg County Public Libraries’ historic photograph collection records that Joseph Finger incorporated the Pacolet Manufacturing Company in 1840. The name therefore belongs to the region’s early industrial history, when river-powered businesses helped settlements grow.

The library collection preserves an image of the later Fingerville Manufacturing Company, giving the name a visible connection to the mill landscape. Around South Carolina, a family name on a factory could eventually become the name on a post office or a road sign. Fingerville is one of the more memorable examples of that process.

Read the history: Fingerville namesake account   ·   Spartanburg County Public Libraries, historic mill photograph

Florence County   /   DEBATED NAMESAKE

06. Coward

Coward’s official town history offers several possible namesakes. It identifies Captain Solomon Coward, who received land along the Lynches River in 1831, as the most likely explanation, while also recording accounts involving Colonel Asbury Coward and John Wilson Coward. The surname connection is clear, but the individual being honored is debated. That makes the story more interesting than the simple explanation that an unnamed early family supplied the name.

John Wilson Coward’s connection is especially tangible: the town history credits him with donating land for the first depot and public school. Coward was already in use well before the municipality incorporated in 1963. Its unusual sound can distract from the real story: land ownership, a railroad stop, and the people who helped shape a community.

Read the history: Town of Coward

Pickens County   /   CHEROKEE PATH

07. Six Mile

Six Mile’s name follows an old route through the Cherokee landscape. The town’s Cherokee Path marker places it six miles east of the Cherokee town of Keowee and the later trading post at Fort Prince George. Both historic places are now beneath Lake Keowee, but the distance survives in the town’s name.

The marker describes a much larger trade network that connected Cherokee towns with English coastal settlements and inland trading posts. It also says the old path roughly followed present-day Main Street through Six Mile. That makes the name more than a measurement: it is a small surviving piece of a travel corridor that helped shape South Carolina’s early history. Legends about Issaqueena later added a romantic explanation to the region’s numbered places.

Read the history: Town of Six Mile

Pickens County   /   NINE CREEK CROSSINGS

08. Nine Times

The Nature Conservancy explains that an old route connecting Cherokee communities required travelers to cross the same tributary nine times to remain on the path. That stream became Nine Times Creek, and the name endured in the surrounding community. It is an unusually specific record of how people once moved through the foothills. Our Nine Times Preserve and Nine Times Forest guide explores the landscape associated with the name.

The creek runs along the preserve’s northern boundary, so the name still describes a real feature of the landscape. The conservation history adds a modern chapter: Upstate Forever purchased the property in 2007, and The Nature Conservancy took ownership in 2009. A place once known for how hard it was to get through became valued for the forests, streams, and wildflowers it protects.

Read the history: The Nature Conservancy

Greenwood County   /   EARLY MAP EVIDENCE

09. Ninety Six

Ninety Six has inspired enough explanations to fill a separate article. The National Park Service gives the familiar account that traders believed the settlement was ninety-six miles from the Cherokee town of Keowee. That was an estimate, not a modern highway mileage figure.

An important clue helps separate history from the later Issaqueena or Cateechee legend. The Park Service reports that surveyor George Hunter’s 1730 map already used Ninety Six, while the romantic warning-ride story is usually set around 1760. The name therefore predates that version of the legend. The settlement’s later Revolutionary War history, including the Star Fort, made an already unusual name nationally significant.

Read the history: National Park Service, naming evidence and the 1730 map   ·   National Park Service, history and culture

Abbeville County   /   COMPETING ACCOUNTS

10. Due West

Due West invites an obvious question: due west of what? One familiar explanation links the name to directions toward a trading area and to the older name DeWitt’s Corner. Local historians and residents have repeated those accounts, but another explanation is worth including.

A history of the Due West Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church discusses a May 13, 1859 account in the Due West Telescope. It describes an elderly resident’s recollection that the church got its name because it was the westernmost church in its denomination when it was established. In that telling, the town adopted the church’s name. These competing explanations remind us that an apparently simple direction can have a complicated history.

Read the history: Due West church history and its discussion of the 1859 newspaper account   ·   South Carolina Living, alternative naming accounts

Orangeburg County   /   RAILROAD FOUNDER

11. North

North, South Carolina sounds like a direction that escaped into an address. The town’s official history explains that it honors John F. North, who helped bring the railroad to the area and joined other landowners in donating land for a depot and town. He later served as mayor. The name therefore records a person’s contribution to a railroad community, even if it has been confusing people in conversation ever since.

North joined George W. Pou and Sampson A. Livingston in donating 100 acres for the railroad project. Town history traces its beginnings to the early 1890s and records John North’s election as mayor in 1893. Freight, passengers, cotton, and telegraph connections helped turn the donated land into a town. Behind the confusing address is a straightforward story of railroad growth and local investment.

Read the history: Town of North

Greenville County   /   TRAVEL & TRADE

12. Travelers Rest

Travelers Rest describes exactly what an earlier generation needed at the edge of the mountains. Drovers brought cattle, hogs, and even turkeys through the area from Tennessee and North Carolina toward markets farther south. Other travelers passed through on their way to the cooler mountain country. Inns, taverns, farms, and stopping places served that traffic.

The Travelers Rest Historical Society records the railroad’s arrival in 1888 and the town’s first incorporation in 1891. The railway later became known as the Swamp Rabbit, and in 2009 its corridor became the Swamp Rabbit Trail. The community has welcomed people arriving by trail, road, train, and bicycle, while keeping a name that makes its original purpose easy to understand.

Read the history: Travelers Rest Historical Society   ·   South Carolina Encyclopedia, early stopping-place history

Near Lake Hartwell in the Oconee and Anderson county area   /   LOCAL LEGEND

13. Fair Play

Fair Play’s best-known naming story involves a fight between pioneers and a bystander who urged them to play fair. The phrase supposedly became the community name. It is a local tradition rather than a fully documented account of a particular fight, but it gives the place an appealing bit of personality. Few road signs sound quite so much like advice from someone watching a disagreement get out of hand.

The name also makes a fitting starting point for a trip through the foothills. Our Highway 11 guide follows the broader region, where names like Pumpkintown, Nine Times, and Walhalla can turn scenic stops into history questions.

Read the history: Livin’ Upstate

Greenville County   /   HISTORICAL MARKER

14. Tigerville

Tigerville’s historical marker supplies a much wilder explanation than a field of tiger lilies. Early settlers called the bobcats they encountered “tygers,” a usage the marker also connects with the nearby Tyger River. The name comes from the animals people saw in the foothills, not a modern sports mascot.

The community developed where the State Road, built in 1820, met the older Tugaloo Path. Its first post office opened in Lemuel Jennings’ general store in 1881, and the marker records the store’s later history as Wood General Store. Those details place Tigerville in a landscape of wildlife, travel routes, and commerce. The cats gave the place its memorable name; roads and stores helped give it staying power.

Read the history: Tigerville historical marker, Greenville County Historic Preservation Commission

Kershaw County   /   LOCAL RAILROAD ACCOUNT

15. Lugoff

Lugoff’s familiar origin story leads to a Russian engineer known as Count Lugoff. A July 17, 2003 article from The State, preserved by a Kershaw County history site, connects him with the construction of the Seaboard Air Line Railway in 1899. It cites regional place-name research and the Camden Archives and Museum as sources.

That is a stronger explanation than guessing the word’s origin, although the article does not provide a complete biography or an original naming document. Lugoff fits a broader South Carolina pattern in which railroad construction created communities and left behind workers’ or benefactors’ names. The local railroad account is the story to tell, with the limits of its supporting detail kept in view.

Read the history: Kershaw County history article

Spartanburg County   /   A NATURAL LANDMARK

16. Boiling Springs

Boiling Springs takes its name from a bubbling spring. The community’s historical marker records settlement around the site in the mid-1700s and describes its use by travelers and, later, farmers watering their horses on market trips. “Boiling” refers to the water’s appearance as it moved. The name preserves a natural landmark that mattered long before the busy roads and businesses surrounding the area today.

The marker places the spring’s importance in everyday travel: trappers used the route between mountains and coast, and farmers later stopped with their horses. It is easy to imagine why bubbling water would make a useful landmark for giving directions. The feature didn’t have to be a hot spring to earn a name suggesting boiling.

Read the history: Boiling Springs historical marker

Newberry County   /   1873 NEWSPAPER ACCOUNT

17. Prosperity

Before Prosperity, there was Frog Level. The town’s own history records that name in its 1851 charter and describes the legislature changing it to Prosperity in 1873. It connects the newer name with Prosperity Meeting House, shown on an 1825 Mills’ Atlas map. The frog-filled pond account is preserved as a legend explaining the earlier name.

The change was not effortless. A June 25, 1873 Newberry Herald article described a contest involving Frog Level, Enterprise, and Prosperity. Even after the legislature settled on Prosperity, the writer reported that people kept using the old name. Here, the contemporary newspaper adds something a tidy modern summary misses: a town can receive a new legal name while its residents remain attached to the old one.

Read the history: Town of Prosperity   ·   The Newberry Herald, June 25, 1873, page 2

Spartanburg County   /   FAMILY LEGEND

18. Cross Anchor

Cross Anchor has a maritime-sounding name far from the coast. South Carolina ETV records a family legend, shared by historian Betty Jo Lawson, about two British sailor brothers who traveled inland from Charleston. One settled at Cross Keys; the other, a captain, continued farther and named Cross Anchor. The account is explicitly presented as a legend. Its link between two nearby community names is part of what makes the story memorable.

The related names are what give the tale its appeal. Keys and anchors belong to ships, yet both appear at inland crossroads. A separate explanation connects Cross Anchor with a tavern sign bearing crossed anchors. The sailor story should stay identified as a family legend, rather than being expanded into a claim that the brothers physically erected anchors at the crossroads.

Read the history: South Carolina ETV   ·   Cross Anchor, tavern-sign alternative and references

York County, on Lake Wylie   /   MODERN DEVELOPMENT

19. Tega Cay

Tega Cay’s name belongs to the creation of a modern planned community. The local historical society preserves Barbara Oswald’s account of choosing it after a Caribbean trip, with the developers using “beautiful peninsula” as the meaning. A later visit to Hawaii influenced the community’s Polynesian street-name theme. This is a twentieth-century development story, rather than evidence of a historic South Carolina Native American place name.

The South Carolina Encyclopedia dates the development’s start to 1970, when the Ervin Company acquired land on Lake Wylie, and records incorporation on July 4, 1982. Its lakeside setting explains why the developers chose an attractive peninsula name. The story is unusual on this list because it involves a deliberate modern identity rather than an old trading path, family farm, or country store.

Read the history: Tega Cay Historical Society, based on a 1999 Barbara Oswald interview   ·   South Carolina Encyclopedia, development and incorporation

Oconee County   /   IMMIGRANT HISTORY

20. Walhalla

Walhalla’s name points to the German immigrants who established the community and to Valhalla in Norse mythology. The South Carolina Encyclopedia records the name within that founding history. Valhalla is traditionally understood as the hall of slain warriors, although local descriptions often use a more welcoming “Garden of the Gods” interpretation. Either way, the name carried an imagined homeland and cultural reference into the South Carolina foothills.

The city’s history places the settlement in 1850 and identifies the German Colonization Society under John A. Wagener. After arriving in Charleston, the founders sought affordable land that suited their idea of home. Walhalla’s continued celebration of its German heritage gives the mythological name a real human setting: immigrants building a community while carrying language and cultural references with them.

Nearby, another nineteenth-century community had a very different fate. Our story of the lost town of Tunnel Hill explores the settlement associated with the unfinished Stumphouse railroad project. Reading the two histories together gives a fuller picture of how immigration and ambitious development shaped Oconee County.

Read the history: South Carolina Encyclopedia   ·   City of Walhalla

Pickens County, around Pumpkintown   /   HISTORICAL MARKER

21. Oolenoy

Oolenoy’s story is closely tied to the older name Woolenoy. The historical marker at Oolenoy Baptist Church identifies Woolenoy as a Cherokee chief and records the church’s spelling change to Oolenoy in 1827. The congregation itself was organized in 1795 under Reverend John Chastain.

That record gives the name a visible local anchor. The church, river, valley, and community still carry it, keeping an older identity beside the better-known Pumpkintown name. The church’s history also traces its buildings from an early log sanctuary to later frame and brick structures. Our guide to Oolenoy Baptist Church explores the landmark and cemetery associated with that long history.

Read the history: Oolenoy Baptist Church historical marker, 39-7

Jasper County   /   TRIBAL & RIVER NAME

22. Coosawhatchie

Coosawhatchie’s historical marker identifies the Coosaw people as its namesake. The community dates to the 1740s, when Henry De Saussure established a store and inn along the King’s Highway. By the 1760s, it had become a trading post and crossroads. The name goes back further than that colonial settlement history.

The marker also records Coosawhatchie’s role as the capital of Beaufort District from 1789 until 1836. A linguistic study by Bruce L. Pearson identifies the name’s final element as a Creek or Muscogee form for river, while treating the meaning of its earlier component as uncertain. That combination of a surviving Native name and a busy colonial crossroads makes Coosawhatchie more than an unusual collection of syllables.

Read the history: Coosawhatchie historical marker, 27-18   ·   Bruce L. Pearson, 1978 place-name study

Beaufort and Hampton counties   /   A PEOPLE & A PLACE

23. Yemassee

Yemassee preserves the name of the Yamasee people, whose history is closely tied to the colonial Lowcountry and the War of 1715. Spellings vary in historical writing, with Yamasee and Yemassee both appearing. The modern town name carries that older identity into everyday addresses and travel directions. Understanding the people behind it adds far more meaning than simply noticing that the word looks unusual on a map.

The modern town also has a major railroad chapter. Hampton County’s history records the formation of a railroad hamlet and a post office in 1868. Amtrak’s Great American Stations account describes Yemassee as a gateway for Marine recruits traveling to Parris Island between 1914 and 1964. The town name connects one layer of history; the depot connects another.

Read the history: SCIWAY, Yemassee history   ·   Hampton County, town history   ·   Amtrak, Great American Stations

Horry County   /   1711 LAND-GRANT RECORD

24. Socastee

Socastee’s historical marker records an early spelling, Sawkastee, in a 1711 land grant to Percival Pawley. It identifies the name as Native American without supplying a neat word-for-word translation. That dated reference gives the entry a firmer footing than a guessed meaning would. The name persisted through the community’s later history, including the development of timber- and naval-stores businesses.

By the 1870s, Socastee was a center for producing and distributing tar and turpentine, products known as naval stores. The historical marker describes a working community with mills, a cotton gin, a cooper’s shop, and a general store. Its later historic district preserves the connection between the old name and the buildings that grew around it. A word first recorded in an early land grant became the name of a substantial coastal gateway.

Read the history: Horry County Historical Society, Socastee marker

Colleton County and the Ashepoo River area   /   COLONIAL RECORDS

25. Ashepoo

Ashepoo preserves the name of a Native people associated with the Lowcountry and the river between the Edisto and Combahee. Bruce L. Pearson’s 1978 study of South Carolina Native place names links it to a group within the Cusabo communities but leaves the word’s original meaning unresolved. The people behind the name are better documented than a convenient English translation.

The Charleston County Public Library’s history of the 1684 land cessions discusses the Ashepoo among the Native communities whose leaders entered agreements with Carolina’s Lords Proprietors. Surviving copies of those records preserve names and marks associated with those negotiations. A modern river or community label can therefore lead back to a difficult chapter of colonial expansion and the people whose land was being claimed.

Read the history: Bruce L. Pearson, 1978 place-name study   ·   Charleston County Public Library, land-cession records

Oconee County   /   TRANSLATION DEBATED

26. Tamassee

Tamassee is commonly explained in local tourism and school histories as the place of the sunlight of God. That interpretation became closely associated with the Tamassee DAR School and its identity. However, a treasured local interpretation differs from an established literal translation.

In his 1978 linguistic study, Bruce L. Pearson connected Tamassee with an earlier Cherokee town recorded as Tomassee and described its etymology as unknown. The school’s own historical brochure records its opening in 1919 and its use of the familiar sunlight name. Both parts belong in the story: an older Cherokee place name, and a later educational institution that helped give the name a particular local meaning.

Read the history: Bruce L. Pearson, 1978 place-name study   ·   Tamassee DAR School historical brochure   ·   Visit Oconee SC

Beaufort County, Daufuskie Island   /   ISLAND & CULTURAL HISTORY

27. Daufuskie

Daufuskie’s museum links the island’s name to the Muscogee word for “sharp or pointed feather,” likely referring to its shape. Other histories use slightly different wording, including “land with a point.” The safest approach is to preserve the museum’s attribution while acknowledging that translations vary. The island’s name is one doorway into a history that also includes its important Gullah heritage.

The museum’s broader island history includes a thriving oyster industry from the late nineteenth century into the twentieth, with oyster beds closing in 1951 because of pollution. The story also includes the Gullah communities who made homes and livelihoods there after emancipation. Looking beyond the translation turns an intriguing island name into a much fuller account of people, work, and cultural continuity.

Read the history: Daufuskie Island Historical Foundation museum

Colleton County   /   COMPETING STORIES

28. Round O

Round O sounds as though it ought to describe something obvious on the ground. Instead, it has competing explanations. One tradition involves a Native leader identified by a circular tattoo or ornament. Another points to swirling water where creeks meet. South Carolina Living’s reporting found both versions still circulating among residents.

The same article also discusses a 1926 account by A. S. Salley that supports the leader tradition. That establishes the explanation as an older recorded story, although it does not settle every detail of the original naming event. Round O is a good example of how local memory can preserve two very different images under one short name.

Read the history: South Carolina Living, discussing A. S. Salley’s account   ·   Round O name history, citing Names in South Carolina

Anderson and Abbeville counties   /   ORIGIN UNRESOLVED

29. Honea Path

Honea Path’s own town history describes its name origin as uncertain. One explanation involves an early landowner and trader, William Honey, while another relies on a Cherokee-language interpretation presented as folklore. Earlier documents used Honey Path, and the Honea Path spelling was adopted in the 1917 incorporation. That paper trail is more useful than treating any single family story as settled fact. Sometimes the most honest origin story leaves the question open.

The town developed as a water stop on the Greenville and Columbia Railroad in the 1850s and later became a cotton-mill community. Its Carnegie Library, built in 1908, is another part of that longer history. The name may remain unresolved, but surviving records and landmarks trace the town’s development. Its story does not depend on pretending the origin question has a single certain answer.

Read the history: Town of Honea Path

McCormick County   /   STREAM & CHURCH HISTORY

30. Plum Branch

Plum Branch belongs to a quieter category of unusual names: places named for the surrounding landscape. A historic-resource nomination describes the community growing beside the stream of the same name and records the tradition of plum trees flourishing along it. The local chamber also links the settlement to Plum Branch Baptist Church, founded in 1785. The name carries a small piece of the natural landscape through the community’s later church and railroad history.

The chamber’s account also cites a 1916 McCormick Messenger description of a growing railroad town with churches, businesses, a school, and blacksmith and wagon shops. A bank had been organized in 1912. Those details give the gentle-sounding stream name a busier setting: a community connected to farming, commerce, and the movement of people and goods by rail.

Read the history: McCormick Chamber of Commerce; SCDAH Bracknell’s Store Complex nomination