Qualla: Spartanburg

Spartanburg: Introduction

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Six battles in four weeks. That is what the summer of 1780 dropped on the patch of South Carolina foothills now called Spartanburg County - Cedar Springs, Gowen's Fort, Earle's Ford, Fort Prince, a second Cedar Spring, and Musgrove Mill, all of them between July and August, all of them inside what would later become a single county. Two more battles, one of them Kings Mountain and the other Cowpens, would tip the southern theater of the Revolution. Spartanburg's name came from the Spartanburg Regiment, the local militia that fought through all of it. The town that emerged after the war was named for soldiers, not generals - and the place has carried that practical, unsentimental temperament forward through every reinvention since.

Read more: Spartanburg on Qualla

Spartanburg: From Hub to Mill to Modern

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

By the mid-19th century the railroads converged on Spartanburg from so many directions that maps showed it as a wheel hub. The nickname stuck. The town incorporated in 1831. Textile expansion began in 1877 and ran hard for three decades - between 1880 and 1910, industrialists bui...

Read more: Spartanburg on Qualla

Spartanburg: What Survives Downtown

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Daniel Morgan Square sits at the city's center, named for the general who beat the British at Cowpens. The original courthouse stood here, near a spring that now runs underground. The oldest buildings on the square date to the 1880s. A few blocks away, the Magnolia Street Train D...

Read more: Spartanburg on Qualla

Spartanburg: Mill Villages Become Something Else

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Glendale Mill on Lawson's Fork stopped operating in the 1960s and burned in 2004 - the gigantic main mill is gone, but the company store and the Victorian mill office remain, the latter restored as a field center for Wofford College's Environmental Studies program. The discontinu...

Read more: Spartanburg on Qualla

Spartanburg: The Beacon, and the Trails

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The Beacon Drive-In claims to be the world's largest seller of iced tea, an institution where you'd better know your order before J.C. calls for it - 'walk and talk.' Wade's Restaurant earned its reputation on yeast rolls and country cooking. Wasabi Sushi covers the other end of ...

Read more: Spartanburg on Qualla