Brief History of About Saluda County South Carolina


The Saluda Old Town Treaty was signed on July 2, 1755 by Royal Governor James Glen and the Cherokees. This treaty may be the most-important political event ever to occur in Saluda County, from a national standpoint. There is a tablet on the west side of the Court House about the treaty. Also, there is a beautiful mural depicting the Saluda Old Town Treaty on Church Street.

The Saluda area had been in the National picture long before the county was formed. It was the night of May 21, 1791, that President George Washington spent the night in a home near Ridge Spring. Two great heroes of the battle of the Alamo in Texas, William Barret Travis and James Butler Bonham, were from Saluda County. There is a monument on the Court House grounds in their memory.

Saluda County has a total land area of 288,877 acres, covering 451 square miles. It ranks 39th in size among the counties in South Carolina. Saluda County is conveniently located 43 miles from Columbia, 40 miles from Augusta, 76 miles from Greenville, 145 from Charleston. The town of Saluda sits squarely in the center of the county at the crossroads of South Carolina Highway 121 and U.S. Highways 178 and 378.

The town of Saluda is the county seat. There are two smaller towns located to the south, Ridge Spring and Ward, both of which are quaint villages. And, interestingly, a small portion of the town of Batesburg-Leesville which sits primarily in Lexington County, is also in Saluda County.

Saluda County was named for the Saluda River, which forms one of its borders. The county was established in 1895 from part of Edgefield County, and the county seat is the town of Saluda. The Cherokee Indians lived in this area for many years. In 1755, they signed a treaty with the British at their settlement, known as Saluda Old Town. Scots-Irish and English settlers subsequently began moving into the area, while the Cherokees moved farther to the north. Two famous heroes of the Alamo, William Barrett Travis (1809-1836) and James Butler Bonham (1807-1836) were natives of what is now Saluda County.

Saluda County, formed in 1895 from Edgefield County, which in turn had been laid out from the Ninety-Six District, is situated northwest of the central part of the state, with an area of 435 square miles, about 278,400 acres. The name is from a tribe of Indians who lived on the Saluda River from 1695 to 1712. The county is in the Piedmont Plateau, except a few indentations from the Coastal Plain on the southeastern border.

Big Saluda River skirts the northern edge, with the Little Saluda River emptying into it a few miles above the Lexington County line. Little Saluda is formed by a junction of Red Bank and Mine creeks at Saluda Court House, with Burnets, Richland, Big, Indian, and Clouds creeks joining at regular intervals. These streams with their branches give the county an excellent water supply, much undeveloped power, and fine bottom lands, little subject to overflow, which produce corn, oats, cane, and grasses without the aid of fertilizers.