USA > South Carolina > Spartanburg County > A history of Spartanburg county > Part 26
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Some Effects of Highway Development
The development of the highways has made Spar- tanburg a center for bus systems, and one of the outstanding new developments of 1940 has been the erection of a modern bus station. The number of privately owned automobiles in Spartanburg County in 1904 was seven; and in 1940, 23,450. With good roads, cheap automobiles, school busses, and multiplication of public conveyances, a back-to-the-land trend is ob- servable.
Railroads In railroads, as in highway construction, Spartanburg leads the counties of South Carolina. The reports of the Railroad Commission show that in the total value of railroad property Spar-
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tanburg County is first, Charleston second, and Richland third. The wealthiest of the railroads is the Southern, with its main line from Washington to New Orleans and one of its principal branch lines from Charleston to Cincinnati crossing here. The Southern Shops have more than 700 employees and a pay roll not far short of a mil- lion dollars. The Southern Railway's taxes amount to over $120,000 annually, the city receiving about $8,000 of the amount. The Southern pays Spartanburg annually for water more than $14,000; and for electric current a like amount. The Charleston and Western Carolina Railway has been absorbed into the Atlantic Coast Line, and Spartanburg thereby has direct freight connection with that great system.
The Clinchfield Railroad has made Spartanburg a great coal distributing point, and its activities add easily a half-million dollars to local incomes. This road hauls into Spartanburg each year as much as 100,000 tons of fuel coal.
The Piedmont and Northern Electric Railroad maintains a very convenient mode of interurban travel and traffic, operating crowded trains through one of the most densely populated industrial areas in the county-between Greer and Spartanburg-and doing an ex- tensive freight business.
Fruits of The Interstate Commerce Commission recognized Preferential Freight Rates in 1925 that Spartanburg had become one of the strategic junction points in the Southeast, and there- fore it was granted the same preferential freight rates enjoyed by Norfolk and Atlanta. An immediate effect of this action was the location in the county of the Taylor-Colquitt Company for timber conservation, and this enterprise has become one of the largest of its sort in the world, with a branch plant at Wilmington, N. C. Ex- perimentation, manufacture of special types of machinery, and varied treatments and processings adapted to special types of timber and their proposed uses, are going on all the time at the Spartanburg plant.
While the pay roll of the Taylor-Colquitt Company and the taxes it pays are assets to the county, the indirect results of its establishment in providing new business and markets for timber which had previously had little value are also important. Many other industries profited by the lowering of freight rates-especially the cotton manufacturers, wholesale grocers, and peach growers.
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A new slogan, "The Hub City of the Southeast," echoed that adopted in 1888, "The Hub City of the Piedmont."
Textile In 1930 the report of the South Carolina Commissioner
Wealth of Agriculture, Commerce, and Industry stated: "Spar- tanburg is again the premier textile manufacturing county for the State. This county has led in the industry since 1920." It led in value of products, number of employees, amount of wages, and also in the number of bales of cotton consumed and produced. In 1930 the textile plants were valued at $13,184,275 ; textile products for one year were valued at $37,473,253 ; and 9,952 workers earned $6,440,887 in manufacturing them. Ten years later, after passing through a series of ups and downs, the industry was again pros- pering, and W. P. Jacobs, Executive Vice President of the Cotton Manufacturers Association, wrote : "As we go into 1940, the textile mills of the county are releasing larger pay rolls than ever before in the history of the county, an average of over $1,000,000 a month." The amount invested in the county's thirty-five mills in 1940 has been estimated at nearly $40,000,000; the value of annual products at more than $58,000,000; the number of employees at almost 16,000 ; and the number of bales consumed at 200,000.
When the World War began, the era of mill building had passed its peak, but rebuilding or improving plants went on, and a few new mills were founded. First after the war was the Model Mill, erected in 1919, as an adjunct of the Textile Industrial Institute. It was operated a number of years, producing a superior shirting marketed under the name "Character Cloth." Practical considera- tions led to the abandonment of this enterprise, and the plant was sold to the Powell Knitting Company.
The erection of a Pacific Mills plant at Lyman, in 1924, sig- nalized a new stage in Spartanburg's mill history, which began in 1816 with the building of the Hill and Weaver factories on Tyger River. Even after having seen the miracle of Camp Wadsworth, people found a singular fascination in watching the rapid construc- tion at Lyman. The wondering visitors to Hill's and Weaver's and Bivings' early factories were not more impressed in their day than were Spartans of 1924 by what they saw at Lyman. The entire village shows careful, intelligent planning, with parks, recreational facilities, an armory, a community building, a library, a modern school building, and two churches.
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The purchase of Tucapau in 1939 and its conversion into a thor- oughly modern mill community, renamed Startex, presents a parallel example.
Cotton Not only in textile production but in cotton growing,
Growing Spartanburg has maintained preeminence. Throughout the year 1919 much discussion went on concerning cotton. During an intensive three-months campaign, Congressman A. F. Lever, in an address in Spartanburg before an audience largely composed of cotton growers, said :
The definite thing to come out of this organization of the growers of cotton is a system of cotton warehouses for Spartan- burg County that will make possible for all time the systematic and economical marketing of the county's cotton crop. It is estimated that the cotton, together with its seed, grown in this county this year will be worth $13,000,000. A crop of that value coming on the market in a few weeks now is certainly worth taking care of. That sum of money would build three army camps the size of Camp Wadsworth, so it is no small undertak- ing that is being presented to the men of Spartanburg County who are on the farms and controlling the agricultural destinies of the county.
From 1920 during a long period Spartanburg led the counties in the number of bales produced and in the value and quantity of its cotton seed products. In 1929 it reached its highest production figures : 135,459 acres, with a yield of 78,962 bales.
The Spartanburg County Warehouse Company was organized and capitalized at $300,000. On its list of incorporators were : L. M. Lanford, Pauline; W. W. Murph, Whitestone; D. B. Ander- son, Reidville; J. W. Gaston, Duncan; O. M. Moore, Duncan ; Roy P. Whitlock, Landrum; J. J. Finch, Moore; A. F. Burton, New Prospect; W. W. Painter, Cherokee; A. M. Chreitzberg, Spartan- burg; John B. Cannon, Spartanburg; Thomas M. Lyles, Spartan- burg; W. R. Dillingham, Spartanburg; H. W. Kirby, Spartanburg. Directors were: Ben Gramling, Gramling; V. E. Hatchette, Ches- nee; L. H. Irby, Woodruff ; W. B. Patton, Cross Anchor.
Another organization, the Spartanburg Cotton Association, was formed in the city and erected a building, the cornerstone being laid with elaborate ceremonies. Nation-wide attention was attracted to the "Spartanburg Plan" for cotton warehouses. One of the first instances of conversion to other uses of Camp Wadsworth property
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was the acquisition of a large regimental warehouse by the Spar- tanburg County Warehouse Company. The supremacy of King Cotton seemed assured.
The Peach Yet there were straws to show a change in the winds
Industry of destiny. The boll weevil threatened the cotton growers. In their search for other cash crops, Spartanburg farmers found that the soil and climate of the county were suited to the growing of peaches. This realization was the outgrowth of an educational campaign begun in 1920 by Ernest Carnes, at that time county farm agent for Spartanburg. Carnes and A. E. Schilleter, horticulturist in the Clemson College Extension Service, preached the same doctrine, and set on foot a series of experiments which, before twenty years had passed, led to Spartanburg County's pro- ducing more peaches than any other county in the United States. These men advocated diversified farming; the planting of cotton was not to be abandoned, but supplemented by fruits, vegetables, and forage crops.
The detailed story of the development of the peach industry has many episodes-such as the planting of cooperative orchards under the guidance of Clemson College Extension agents, the emergence of the Gramling family to national fame because of their success in peach growing, the transformation of the upper section of the county into a panorama of landscape beauty, and the development of such related industries as basket-making, crate-making, canning, and trucking.
The peach industry succeeded from the start; in 1924 four car- loads were shipped by rail to Northern markets; in 1925 the number of cars was 24; in 1926 it was 62; in 1934, 298 cars were sold; in 1935, 468 cars; in 1936, 646 cars; in 1937, more than 900 cars ; in 1938, more than 1,200 cars; and in 1939 Spartanburg County's peach production surpassed every earlier record. Official records indicate that in 1938 Spartanburg County had 1,800,000 trees planted, 350,000 of them bearing. The industry employed more than 7,000 part-time workers. The crop is estimated to have sold for more than $600,000. These figures do not take account of the sales to independent trucks at the shipping points, which do a good small business in culls. In 1939 the peach growers of the Carolinas and Georgia formed a corporation for marketing and advertising, called the Georgia-Carolinas Peach Marketing Board. Other organiza-
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tions growing out of the industry are the South Carolina Peach Growers Cooperative Association and the Piedmont Truckers' Ex- change.
The success of peach growing stimulated similar attention to other fruits. County Agent W. H. Stallworth led in the organization of the Spartanburg Farmers' Market Association, and in July, 1939, the first truck-load of standardized crated cantaloupes ever shipped from this county left for the New York markets. It consisted of 341 crates, bearing the trade name "Spartan Brand - Mountain Grown Cantaloupes," and the melons it carried were produced on sixteen different Spartanburg farms. More than five hundred acres were planted in cantaloupes in 1940, and this crop was expected to bring in a cash return of approximately $60,000.
Federal Government The selection of Spartanburg, in 1934, as head- Aids to Farmers quarters for the Southeastern Division of the Soil Conservation Service of the United States Department of Agri- culture has greatly influenced the agricultural development of the county. In 1934 the South Tyger River Project was set up, the first area in the Southeast chosen to demonstrate, in cooperation with farmers within the area, methods of soil erosion control and soil reclamation. Diversification of crops, more intelligent care of wild life, the development of dairying and grazing, and the planting and management of timber and forest products have all been fostered by this service.
The program of the Federal Agricultural Adjustment Adminis- tration, like that of the Soil Conservation Service, supplemented the efforts of the county agents to develop crop diversification. After 1933 the cotton acreage was greatly reduced, and correspondingly the grain and forage crops increased. Poultry and dairy farming and forestry became increasingly important, and the development of cooperative marketing methods provided means for the average gen- eral farmer to sell farm surplus in small quantities.
The Farm Security Administration of the Federal Government has attacked one of the most vexing social problems in the agricultural realm-that of the drifting tenant farmer-by providing opportunity for men of this class to become property owners and thereby, presum- ably, more thrifty and more patriotic citizens. After the depression of 1929 the number of rented farms in the county reached 71.1 per
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cent. It is slowly decreasing, but this is one phase of life in the county which calls for anxious thought and constructive action.
Spartanburg County is, with all its textile wealth and educational activity, a rural area, with agriculture as the leading pursuit. Ninety per cent of the county area is in farm lands ; annual crops yield ap- proximately $6,000,000 ; 46,704 persons make their living from 8,563 farms.
Public Health The World War interrupted plans for the building of a Measures county hospital, and the resumption of this under- taking was one of the first concerns of the county commissioners, the physicians of the county, and the general public. Dirt was broken in July 1919, and work went forward until the opening of the Spar- tanburg County General Hospital, September 29, 1921. Frank Col- lins was the architect. This hospital cost a quarter of a million dol- lars, and was paid for by a special bond issue. It is maintained by a special tax levy supplemented by generous donations. The suc- cessful launching of this hospital was made certain by the coopera- tion of the three hospitals already established. The John Nina Hos- pital for Negroes was continued in operation until 1930, when the Negro ward was established at the General Hospital. The same year a Tuberculosis ward was built near Fairforest.
The General Hospital is operated at an annual cost of approxi- mately a quarter of a million dollars, employs thirty-two staff phy- sicians, four resident doctors, one hundred and twenty-five full-time employees, and has approximately one hundred student nurses in training. The hospital cares for about 7,000 patients each year. There is now agitation for its expansion.
In addition to the facilities provided by the General Hospital and the city and county departments of health, Spartanburg County has several excellent private institutions. The largest is the Mary Black Memorial Hospital, established in the city in 1925. Good hospitals have been established in Woodruff and Chesnee, and all of the larger mills maintain clinics and community nurses. During the war years the city modernized its health department, which has been maintained since in accordance with the best standards. Approximately fifty thousand dollars annually is set aside on the city's budget to operate this department.
A county health department was organized in 1925, and has done distinguished work. In 1935 this department received a "Progress
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Trophy"-the only one of its class awarded in the nation-in recog- nition of three successive years of excellent work in the observance of National Negro Health Week. Dr. Hilla Sheriff, who led in this activity, was reported as being, at the time, the only woman county health officer in the nation. This department has stressed educational work, rural demonstrations, health clubs, lectures, and exhibits. Close cooperation has been established with the Work Projects Adminis- tration and the National Youth Administration in conducting clinics, and in training classes in bedside nursing and nutrition.
Public Education
The progress of public education was closely tied up with road improvement. Redistricting, consolidating of weak schools, transportation of pupils by school busses, were direct consequences of better roads. During the two decades following the World War, Spartanburg County ranked often first and always among the first three or four counties in school expenditures, enroll- ments, and achievements. In 1919 the county's school revenue was $333,973.08-the largest in the State. The city of Spartanburg had a graded school system unexcelled, and there were accredited high schools at Campobello, Chesnee, Cowpens, Cross Anchor, Inman, Landrum, and Woodruff-a larger number than in any other county. The county had, including these graded schools, forty white and two Negro schools with more than three teachers ; twenty-five white three- teacher schools ; thirty-four white and nine Negro two-teacher schools ; thirty-one white and sixty-six Negro one-teacher schools. Twenty years later (1939), reports of the State and County Commissioners of Education were to show Spartanburg the richest county in the State in school property, with valuations of more than $4,000,000. To the list of accredited schools have been added: Boiling Springs, Duncan, Fairforest, Gramling, Greer, Holly Springs, Mayo, New Prospect, Cooley Springs, Pacolet, Pauline, Reidville, Roebuck, W .- L .- T.
The consolidated high school situated at Wellford and known fa- miliarly as "W-L-T"-a thoroughly modern, well equipped high school, not so widely recognized as Greenville's Parker District, but very similar in character-is outstanding among the county schools. Pupils from Wellford, Lyman, and Tucapau districts make up the enrollment, and many of them are transported several miles to and from their homes by school busses.
The annual budget on which the county school system operated
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for the year 1938-39 amounted to $1,379,452.66, of which sum the State furnished $555,898. With this money 1,016 teachers were em- ployed in ninety-five schools for whites and sixty-eight for colored children. The enrollment was 31,510, and the average attendance was 26,407. Forty-five school busses were operated. During this one year, twelve new schools for white children and six for Negroes were built in the county.
A Municipal The year 1931 marked the centenary of the incorpora- Centenary tion of Spartanburg, and it was highly significant that the city in its celebration almost ignored its history as a municipality and focused its program on the development of the county rather than of the city. An executive committee was selected to arrange a suit- able program: Frank Bostick, chairman; H. B. Carlisle, Dr. R. P. Pell, Dr. H. N. Snyder, Dr. J. A Tillinghast, Dr John W. Harris, Jr., and S. J. Nicholls. This committee arranged an all-day celebration November 20, 1931, which included a historical exhibit, a pageant, and a banquet. The exhibit included costumes, china, furniture, household equipment, works of art, household linens and fabrics, weapons, letters, newspapers, and documents. Mrs. J. Boykin Lyles was general chairman of the exhibits committee, and throngs of citi- zens studied the remarkable collection this committee displayed in the "Brick House Antique Shoppe."
At two o'clock in the afternoon a "Centennial Pageant," prepared and directed by Dr. August Vermont, was presented on Snyder Field on the Wofford College campus. The grandstand and bleachers overflowed with spectators, and the sidelines were packed. More than a thousand participants, representing every group of citizens in the county, presented in orchestral music, song, dance, pantomime, and drama, the outstanding features of the county's history.
At seven in the evening a formal centennial banquet in the Con- verse College dining room ended the celebration. W. G. Jackson and J. Neville Holcombe were associated as chairmen of the dinner com- mittee, and D. A. Russell was chairman of the publicity committee. Miss Ruth Sara Routh was chairman of the music committee, which, with the cooperation of the city's musicians, individually and as or- ganizations, provided a varied and colorful musical setting for the different events of the day. The centennial chorus included repre- sentative delegations from the accredited high schools of the county.
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The centennial orator was the president of Wofford College, Dr. Henry Nelson Snyder.
Retrospect One hundred years saw the "village" of 1831 grow into the "Hub City of the Southeast" of 1931. The first charter was ob- tained December 17, 1831. It was several times revised or amended, and twice the old charter was replaced by an entirely new one-in 1880, when Spartanburg became a "city," and in 1913, when the com- mission form of government was adopted, and the city's official desig- nation became "City of Spartanburg."
Not until 1915 did the city have a distinctive seal. In that year the council conducted a competition for a suitable design for a city seal. Of the twenty-four entries submitted, that of Miss Janie Adam was adopted and has been the official seal since. Its symbolism stresses those aspects of Spartanburg of which the citizens are proudest-education, industry, progress.
WINDED
The records of the town council are available except for the years 1843-1850; apparently a volume has been lost covering these years. During its first hundred years the town had, according to these rec- ords, twenty-three mayors: Thomas Poole, H. H. Thomson, Elisha Bomar, James E. Henry, John S. Rowland, Hosea Dean, R. C. Poole, G. W. H. Legg, Jefferson Choice, John B. Cleveland, S. Bobo, John E Bomar, A. Twitty, William Choice, J. H. Evins, Joseph Walker, J. A. Henneman, J. S. R. Thomson, Arch B. Calvert, John Floyd, Boyce Lee, O. L. Johnson, Ben Hill Brown.
John Floyd served altogether, but not consecutively, sixteen years. Arch Calvert and Ben Hill Brown each served twelve years. Joseph Walker served for ten years; John E. Bomar for six years ; John B. Cleveland for five years; G. W. H. Legg and H. H. Thomson for four years each; and Hosea Dean, Jefferson Choice, and J. S. R. Thomson for three years each. Before 1880 the terms of town of- ficials lasted one year ; from 1880 to 1917, two years ; and since 1917,
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four years. Just how much Spartanburg grew in a hundred years appears when the 1931 budget of more than a half-million dollars is compared with the first on record, that of the year 1834, during which H. H. Thomson, as intendant, received $201.20 and paid out $158.88.
Civic Pride The 1931 budget provided for such items as would be required by any prosperous city of 25,000 inhabitants-administra- tion, health, police, fire department, street department, lighting, parks -and stirred feelings of civic pride. Educational accomplishments were greater sources of satisfaction to the city. The graded school system, with more than 5,000 pupils and nearly 200 teachers, was within ten years to have more than 7,000 pupils, 240 teachers, and thirteen buildings valued at a quarter of a million dollars. The oper- ating cost of the city school system is practically half a million yearly. Converse College, Wofford College, the State School for the Deaf and the Blind, Textile Industrial Institute, all thriving and each a leader among institutions of its class, were also celebrated as objects of local pride.
Converse College celebrated the commencement of 1931, the for- tieth, as alumnae commencement. When Converse College was founded, doubts were voiced as to the probability of Southern girls ever subjecting themselves to such a stern intellectual discipline as was proposed by the first president. In 1931, the alumnae, upon present- ing to the college portraits of its first two presidents, could proudly say that the dreams of both had been realized. Three years earlier they had celebrated the twenty-fifth anniversary of their second presi- dent, Robert Paine Pell, whose zeal in furthering the program ini- tiated by B. F. Wilson and D. E. Converse had secured for the college they founded primacy among colleges for women in the State: it was the first to join every important academic organization.
The years following 1931 were to see Converse College again in- crease its endowment and enhance its prestige as it celebrated the year 1940 as its Golden Jubilee year. The year 1933 brought the re- tirement of President Pell, who became president emeritus. Dr. Pell retired in January and Dr. Edward Moseley Gwathmey was in- augurated as his successor at the commencement exercises. Wofford College celebrated its 75th commencement in 1933. This college in 1940 was to attain the coveted recognition of membership in America's outstanding learned fraternity, Phi Beta Kappa.
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From Highways to Skyways In material progress the years immediately follow- ing the war showed such rapid growth as had never before been known in the city of Spartanburg-a new sky- scraper, a new Federal building, apartment houses, warehouses, rail- way shops worth $2,500,000, new school buildings and churches, new manufacturing plants, another hospital, suburban extensions. At the close of the war there was not a real park in the county. In 1931 the city owned Duncan Park, Cleveland Park, Rainbow Lake and Park, and six public playgrounds. Camp Wadsworth Memorial Park was still a dream, but assured of future realization.
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