On August 31, 1996, the unthinkable happened again when a family and one other person drowned at John D. Long Lake, just outside of Union, South Carolina. This is the same lake where Susan Smith also did the unthinkable in 1994. The Phillips family, from nearby, visited the site when their Suburban began to roll…
Is Union County, South Carolina, Sitting on Civil War Treasure
Down Highway 49, past Monarch, near Browns Creek Baptist Church, sits a swamp and plenty of pasture land. The highway once served as a former stagecoach route that connected Union to Charlotte. After the Civil War ended, the Union army entered the Upstate, pulling wagons and distributing food to the local population. A German man…
The Great Depression, Public Enemies, and the Number One “G-Man”
Many may be shocked to learn that the person who was responsible for bringing down more public enemies was Melvin Purvis from South Carolina. Purvis was born in 1903 in the small town of Timmonsville, South Carolina. He graduated from the University of South Carolina’s law school in 1925 and passed the bar. After 20…
The 1923 Cleveland School Fire
The Cleveland School Fire occurred in May 1923 near Camden, South Carolina. It is one of the deadliest school fires in American history, killing 77 people during a school play. The incident should have never happened, as the school was set to close permanently after the 1923 school year. The two-story school, which employed only…
The Gunfight at the O.K. Corral Had Nothing on this Small S.C. Town
The Gunfight at the O.K. Corral had nothing on this small South Carolina town. On August 12, 1878, two Edgefield County families had a shootout downtown to settle an almost 10-year feud between the two, when in 1869, Benjamin Booth killed Luther Toney. In the midafternoon, Brooker and Mark Toney sat in the bar room…
Tunnel Hill Village: A Rough and Rowdy Town of Violence
Below is a picture of the Stumphouse Tunnel in South Carolina, but many may not be aware of the rough and rowdy town located atop the mountain that housed the workers on this project. Stumphouse Tunnel was the westernmost tunnel of the three; Middle Tunnel was ½ mile SE, and Saddle Tunnel was 1-¾ miles…
The Mystery of the Hunley
The Civil War era was a challenging time for the country. Many arguments exist about why the war was fought in the first place. Ask several historians, and you will likely get different answers. Another argument is which state was most impacted by the fallout. Even today, a ride through the countryside of South Carolina…
Little Africa
The Civil War was a tumultuous period in American history, and many in the South struggled to recover for years. One place in northern Spartanburg County serves as a reminder of how the war impacted everyone involved in the skirmish. Little Africa is a small community founded in 1880 by former slaves Simpson Foster and…
NASCAR Driver Lands Plane on Main Street in Easley in the 1960s to Grab Booze
Legendary NASCAR driver Curtis Turner, en route to Charlotte from Atlanta in the late 1960s, decided to visit a friend in Easley to grab a bottle of whiskey. Turner touched down in his twin-engine Aero Commander on Main Street but quickly realized he had made a colossal mistake. As Turner taxied to his friend’s house,…
Did You Know That Albert Einstein’s Grandson is Buried in Greenville, South Carolina
Albert Einstein’s 5-year-old grandson, Klaus, is buried in Greenville’s Woodlawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Section U, just off Wade Hampton Blvd. Einstein’s son, Hans, lived in Greenville at 223 Randall Street in 1938. It was here that his son, Klaus Einstein, tragically died at age five on January 5, 1939. James F. Mackey & Sons…