My father recently sent me a video which prompted some investigation.
Due West: May be named for lying due West of an old Cherokee trading post, though the only source I've found for this calls itself ePodunk. The last mayoral election was decided by a single vote out of 243. The Chamber of Commerce for its metropolitan area mentions it was know as the Holy City, which seems off somehow.
North: Lying South of the capital, the town slogan is "All points lead to North, South Carolina". Confederate Veteran John North (the first mayor) and some friends founded the town and established a railway depot in 1891. Eartha Kitt, best-known singer of "Santa Baby", Catwoman actress, and "most exciting woman in the world" according to Orson Welles, was born in North. Later in life she named her daughter Kitt and became a vocal supporter of same-sex marriage. She died on Christmas Day.
Ninety Six: Not ninety six miles from the nearest Cherokee settlement, but someone thought it was. Of towns with numerical names in America it is the greatest. Home to the only professional baseball player to wear his hometown on his jersey, the largest historical gathering in Ninety Six appears to have been a celebration of Preston Brooks's violent assault of Charles Sumner. Occasionally cited as the birthplace of Andrew Jackson.
Sugar Tit: Not actually a recognized government unit of any kind, it was previously a place with a general store and race track. It also inspired an odd speculative essay. Sugar Tit appears to have successfully self-destructed by requesting to be absorbed by one large nearby town to avoid being absorbed by a much larger nearby town. You can buy shirts.
Pawleys Island: A small island (or glorified sand bar) that has been producing hammocks for over a hundred years, named for an early owner. It has its own ghost. Pawleys depends on the nearby city of Georgetown, site of a steel mill and the first European colony with African slaves in America. As of the last census there were eighty-one households; when my mother was growing up there, she remembers two.
That's all. Ψ
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