walking map south carolina - Spartanburg Convention Bureau

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Morgan Square
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visitspartanburg.com
walking map
In Morgan Square stand two important Spartanburg monuments: The Daniel
Morgan Monument, for which the square is named, and the Clock Tower.
Dedicated in 1881, the large bronze statue depicts General Daniel Morgan,
the Patriot commander at the Battle of Cowpens. When the monument was
dedicated, the country was still divided by the recent trials of the Civil War and
Reconstruction. Take a moment to read the inscriptions at the monument’s
base and you’ll hear connections to both the Revolutionary War and the PostReconstruction period. The inscriptions emphasize the need to overcome
sectionalism by unifying the various factions of the country, an issue relevant to
both time periods. The Clock Tower’s clock and bell were originally housed in the
Spartanburg Opera House, which was located at the site of the Masonic Temple. The Opera
House was Spartanburg’s original city hall and housed city offices, the post office, and a
public auditorium that could be used for large meetings, speeches, and performances.
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mobile app with expanded audio content.
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historic downtown
Ezell Street3
Morgan Square, 1884
The block of brick buildings on Ezell Street are all that remain of a small warehouse
and wholesale district that was built along the Piedmont and Northern Railroad
line. These warehouses stored goods sold in businesses on Morgan Square. The
large patio in front of the buildings is not original, but many of the columns
include cobblestones that were part of the original street pavement. Ezell Street was
named for Samuel Ezell who owned a hardware and farm goods store in the Spartan
Inn, a hotel which stood facing Morgan Square until it burned down in 1910.
Towards the east end of Ezell we come up behind the former Spartanburg Water
Works building, which is now the private residence of former mayor Bill Barnet.
He and his wife purchased the building and renovated it into one of the most
The Spartan Inn fire, 1910
unique homes in Spartanburg in order to promote downtown living.
2Masonic temple {190 W. Main St.}
The Masonic Temple Building
spartanburghistory.org
864.596.3501
This map is intended to be a self-guided walking tour of historic downtown Spartanburg. Follow the order of the locations on the map and it should take no
more than 1 hour. We hope you enjoy your visit and please stop by the Spartanburg Regional History Museum at stop #14 for more information.”
Produced by the Spartanburg County Historical Association in conjunction
with the Spartanburg Convention & Visitors Bureau and the City of Spartanburg.
Historic Downtown Walking Map
south carolina
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The Masonic Temple building was designed by local architect Frank Collins
in 1927. Collins designed several landmark homes and buildings in the area
including the old Spartanburg Water Works building just up the street at 168
West Main. Masonic lodges still meet in the large hall on the second and third
floors. When the Opera House was located on this site, the Spartan Inn, a large
Gothic Revival style hotel which could accommodate some 500 guests and housed
a variety of businesses, sat next-door. Adjacent to the Masonic Temple is the
Cantrell Wagons Building which currently houses apartments and Carriage House
Wines, a retail wine and beer shop that offers regular wine tasting events. The
building was constructed in 1900 to house a carriage factory and repair shop.
As automobiles gained in popularity it began selling early cars.
However, the building’s sign advertising wagons can still be viewed in the rear of the property.
4Spring Street
Spring Street in this section is little more than a back alley behind the
businesses that face Magnolia Street, but it's possible to see the great age of
some of the buildings here. At the bottom of the hill is the first sign of a
tiny stream that once bubbled up underneath one of the buildings on this
street. The QS/1 Building stands on the site of the former Piedmont and
Northern Railroad Depot. This was an inter-urban electric railroad that
connected Spartanburg with Greenville and Greenwood. After the railroad
was gone, it was a parking lot for several decades before QS/1 built here in
The Piedmont & Northern Railroad line the mid-2000s. This is one of a handful of environmentally-sensitive construction projects
in Spartanburg. Below ground, a cistern collects rainwater for landscaping and interior uses
and the building is positioned to collect sunlight for maximum energy efficiency.
Spartanburg County was established in 1785 as the Revolutionary
War was ending. Officials decided to place the county courthouse in
the approximate center of the county where downtown Spartanburg
now rests. Prior to this there was no village or crossroads here
and only gradually did taverns, shops, and homes take their place
along the streets of the courthouse village. The city grew steadily
and, in 1859, was connected to the railroad, revolutionizing the
local economy. Following the Civil War, leaders capitalized on
the area’s tiny but profitable textile industry and by the 1880s
Spartanburg had become a national leader in textiles. With the
establishment of military training camps during WWI and WWII,
the growth of local colleges, and the influx of textile money and The advertisement above inv
ites its audience to visit, settle, and
easy transportation, Spartanburg gained a cosmopolitan air.
invest in Spartanburg. “Please rea
d and hand to a friend!”
By the 1980s, however, the collapse of the textile industry, declining
agriculture, and lingering racial tensions left Spartanburg with a struggling
economy and an ailing downtown. Today, a new generation brings life back into the old city.
spartanburg
SPARTANBURG
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Magnolia Street5
Magnolia Street is one of the oldest commercial and residential streets in the city. In Spartanburg's early days, this was one of the premier residential districts of the city. Benjamin
Wofford, the founder of Wofford College, and many others had grand homes lining this
street. Notice how the left side of the street contains only new, large buildings, while the
right side features buildings of many different eras. This is because the entire block was leveled in the late 1970s in preparation for a large civic center that was never built. Also erased
was a small street that ran between Magnolia and Church Streets known as Short Wofford
Street. This was a small African-American commercial district that included some small
restaurants and music venues where well known jazz musicians of the 1920s-1960s played.
At the junction of Magnolia and Howard Streets lies Magnolia Cemetery.
In 1838, Spartanburg received two and one half acres of this land for a graveyard.
Many of Spartanburg’s early civic, educational, and political leaders are buried here.
6Spartanburg Co. Courthouse
{180 Magnolia St.}
The Spartanburg County Courthouse
The grassy lot on the corner of Magnolia and St. John Street was once the site of the
Spartanburg County Courthouse which now sits on the adjacent lot. Built in 1890
in the Romanesque Revival Style, today it is considered to have been one of the most
interesting buildings of its era but in the 1950s many thought it extremely unattractive.
The newspaper editor even called the building a "monstrosity.” It stood on the site until
1958, when it was torn down following the construction of the current courthouse. This
illustrates the changes in taste that occur over the years. Many would now consider the
1958 courthouse to be an ugly building and would celebrate its demolition in favor of
a newer building. Fortunately, though, others see its appeal as a fine example of midcentury modern architecture with its clean lines and elegant use of materials.
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Historical Places
Historic Walking Trail
Parking
Greenspace
Colleges
Bike Trails/Safe Roads
Map
Key
1. Morgan Square
2. Masonic Temple
3. Ezell St.
4. Spring St.
5. Magnolia St.
6. Spartanburg Co. Courthouse
7. Montgomery Building
8. One Morgan Square
9. Palmetto Corner
10. Main St. Stores
11. Main St. Mall
12. Denny’s Plaza
13. Converse at Main
14. Chapman Cultural Center
Chamber of Commerce/
The Visitor’s Center
The Edward Via College
of Osteopathic Medicine
Art Museum
History Museum
Science Center
USC Upstate
George Dean Johnson Jr.
College of Business and Economics
One Morgan8
Square Building
{100 Dunbar St.}
Built in 2003, the One Morgan
Square Building occupies the site
of the old Andrews Building, which
was lost along with other buildings
in this block in 1977. While working
to demolish the building, many of
the building’s support columns were
removed to aid in the demolition.
Unfortunately, a miscalculation
occurred and the building simply
collapsed a day or so before the
demolition was scheduled to occur. At
the time of the collapse, six workers
were in or below the building, five
of whom died. A plaque on the One
Morgan Square building
memorializes those
workers. Also on this site
was the original location of
the Kennedy Free Library,
built in 1885. This was
the first public library
in Spartanburg and the
predecessor to the current
Spartanburg County
Public Library. The
library’s headquarters are
now located on South Church Street.
Palmetto
Corner 9
E. M
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Spartanburg
Community
College
Downtown Campus
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7Montgomery Building {187 N. Church St.}
Built in 1925 as the second multi-story office building in Spartanburg, the Montgomery Building was the
premier office building of its day and exhibits a fine Chicago architectural style with hints of Art Deco in the
interior. According to a newspaper article from 1925, the new building would provide desperately needed
office space to the town. The writer claimed that lack of office space had been all that had kept businesses
from flooding Spartanburg to date. The bottom floor was used as a retail space, and the upper floor housed
the Cartography Division of the Soil Conservation Service. A select group of the Cartography Division was
chosen to create top-secret maps for use during WWII, including the maps used to drop the atomic bombs
on Japan. A variety of musicals, operettas, and plays were presented at the theater on the bottom floor,
which boasted 6 chandeliers. Elvis Presley also made a notable performance in this grand theatre.
The Palmetto Hotel
The Aug W. Smith Company
On the corner of Church and
Main, known in old days as the
Palmetto Corner, stands the Palmetto
Building. It was built around 1898
and replaced an1840s hotel known by
the same name. This was one of the
major social centers of Spartanburg
in its early days. When the building
was being restored in 1999, a worker
discovered a whiskey bottle containing
a note, which gave the name of the
writer and read, “I drank this whiskey
and laid these floors on September
21, 1898. When will it be found?”
It was almost exactly one hundred
years later. Looking at the corner of
the square containing Wild Wings,
notice how the building’s Church
Street side is only a bare brick wall
without any windows or doorways.
This is the result of a street widening
that occurred in the early 1960s. The
brick wall there now had originally
been an interior wall that separated
two portions of the building.
Main St. Stores
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Next door to the Palmetto Building
is the original location of the Aug W.
Smith Company, which was a local
department store that thrived until the
1980s. In later years, this site was the
downtown location for Belk’s. Beside
the Belk’s was the local Woolworths. In
1960, the lunch counter there was the
site of a sit-in by a group of civil rights
protesters. By 1963, lunch counters
in the city were legally integrated, one
year prior to the federal law. Across
the street are two other large buildings
which once housed large department
and five-and-dime stores. The building
with decorative ceramic features was
Kress, a popular chain of five-anddime stores. The empty lot beside the
Kress building once contained one
of the city’s most popular restaurants,
The Elite. It was one of the first Greekowned restaurants in the city and was
known by its slogan, “Where the Elite
meet to eat!”
The Main Street Mall
Main St. Mall
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On Liberty Street between Main
and Broad Streets, you can see one
of the few remainders of the Main
Street Mall, one of the attempts to
revitalize Main Street during the
1970s and 1980s. Created in 1974, it
closed vehicular traffic to Main Street
between Liberty and Church Streets.
In this pedestrian-only zone, trees and
benches were installed reminiscent
of the shopping malls that were
beginning to drain businesses away
from downtown. Like nearly every
other location in the country where
this concept was attempted, the Main
Street Mall was a failure. In 1989, the
street was reopened to automobile
traffic. The Clock Tower, which is now
in the lower portion of Morgan Square,
was dedicated at this site in 1979.
Decades earlier, this section of East
Main housed several movie theaters,
including the Palmetto (on the corner
of Liberty and Main), The State, and
the Strand (both in the middle of the
block).
Denny’s Plaza
{203 E. Main St.}
In the 1960s, Spartanburg native
Jerry Richardson began a successful
Hardee's Restaurant franchise
in Spartanburg and, in 1990,
he financed the construction of
Spartanburg's tallest building. The
building formerly housed Spartan
Foods but now houses the corporate
headquarters for Denny's Restaurants.
Prior to the construction of the Denny's
Building, this block housed the Finch/
Franklin Hotel. In 1917, the Finch
Hotel was the site of a racially motivated
scuffle. During WWI, the Harlem
Hellfighters, an all-black infantry
regiment, were briefly stationed in
the area. One member of the group
was struck by the hotel manager after
he kept his
hat on in the
hotel lobby.
He was quickly
defended by
fellow soldiers
and the
situation ended
without further
escalation.
Shortly
afterwards, the
Finch family
sold the hotel,
but the new owners were forced to
choose another name beginning with an
F due to the design of the large stained
glass windows throughout the building.
They called it the Franklin Hotel. It
stood until it was torn down in 1990 to
make way for the current building.
Converse at Main
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On the corner of Converse and Main
stood the second of two early hotels in
the city, the Walker House. This large
wooden building, built around 1840,
burned in 1882 and was replaced by
homes. The entire stretch of Main
Street in this section was lined by
large homes even as late as the 1920s.
The most impressive was the fivestory Col. Joseph Walker home, which
stood beside the hotel. Walker was a
Confederate officer during the Civil
War who also served several terms
as mayor during the 1870s-1890s.
Converse Street, which was also lined
with the homes of notable families,
was named for D.E.
Converse, the textile
industrialist who
salvaged the textile
mill at Glendale
from bankruptcy and
built up one of the
great textile empires
of the 19th and 20th
centuries.
Chapman
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Cultural Center
{200 E. St. John St.}
The Chapman
Cultural Center and
Barnet Park sites
stand on St. John
Street, which was
nothing but an alley
until the 1960s when
it was widened and
extended, linking
several smaller
streets. It was named
for the St. John Military Academy,
which was an early school on the
current site of Converse College.
Where the entrance to Barnet Park
currently exists once stood a house that
was later used as a school for young
girls in the city and later still one of the
city’s first graded public schools. On
the site of the USC Upstate Business
School on St. John stood the equivalent
school for boys, which was later turned
into a private school known as the
Hastoc School. The Chapman Cultural
Center, which was built here in
2007, houses several arts and cultural
organizations including the Regional
History Museum, the Spartanburg
Art Museum, the Science Center, the
Spartanburg Little Theater, Ballet
Spartanburg, and others.