“S” is for Simpsonville

“S” is for Simpsonville (Greenville County; 2020 population 25,272). Incorporated in 1901, Simpsonville began many decades earlier as a crossroads hamlet where the old Stage Road intersected a former Cherokee trail. In 1838 the farmer Peter Simpson arrived and established a blacksmithing operation. As his services grew in popularity, the crossroads became known as Simpsonville. For much of the twentieth century the town remained a stagnant agricultural center. In 1953 when the Greenville Water Works extended its system to the town it became an attractive location for industrial development in the early 1960s. In the 1980s Simpsonville began attracting residential overflow from the Greenville-Spartanburg metropolitan area. In the twenty-first century as Simpsonville responded to the effects of urban sprawl, city officials worked to combine efforts to encourage growth while preserving the ambient appeal of the small town core.