Have you ever seen any of the Historical Markers on the side of the road? Yeah, me too! Have you ever stopped and read any of them? Nah, me either.Well there are 34 of these suckers in Spartanburg County, and I’m going to attempt to locate and write a little something about them all!
The first one I visited marks the approximate location of the Wofford Iron Works. I picked this one to be first, well, because I was there!
The Early Iron Works marker is located on Clifton-Glendale Road, near the old iron bridge and Lawson’s Fork Creek. It is at the entrance to Glendale Shoals, which is a beautiful nature preserve that I will cover in a later post.
The Iron Works were founded in 1773 by Joseph Buffington and are considered to be the first iron works in South Carolina. It provided iron goods and weapons for the Revolutionary War and it was the site of several skirmishes. It was destroyed in November of 1781 by Major William “Bloody Bill” Cunningham.
The Iron Works were rebuilt after the Revolutionary War, and provided weapons and ammunition during the War of 1812, the Mexican War, and the American Civil War.
Iron production there was discontinued after the Civil War, and this part of our history is mostly forgotten.
There has been a lot written about the iron works. If you would like to read further about this piece of our past, I encourage you to check the links below:
http://www.carolana.com/SC/Revolution/revolution_woffords_iron_works.html
https://www.myrevolutionarywar.com/battles/800808-woffords-iron-works/