Page 91 - Florence County, SC Florence County 2032: Connecting Our Past, Defining Our Future

Existing County | Cultural Resources

Before the 1820s this intersection of two
major roads, one from Georgetown to
Camden and the other from Charleston to
Cheraw, was popularly called “the
crossroads.” After Aaron Graham built a
33° 52.288' N,
21-37 Church Street house here ca. 1830, the area became
79° 45.177' W
known as “Graham’s Crossroads.” Church
Street, the main north-south road through
the town until 1924, was named soon after
Bethlehem Baptist Church (now Lake City
First Baptist Church) was built in 1828.
Farmers in this vicinity began growing
tobacco in the early 1890s, and by 1895
Lake City opened its first tobacco market
and warehouse. It built its second
Lake City Tobacco 33° 52.159' N, warehouse by 1903, a third by 1909, and
21-38
Markets 79° 45.353' W two more by 1917. In the heart of the S.C.
“tobacco belt,” this was the second-largest
market in the state for most of the 20th
century, and one of the largest in the five
states producing flue-cured tobacco.
Lake City was a significant produce market
as early as 1894, shipping fruits and
vegetables to Northern markets until World
War I. The market revived in the late 1920s
Lake City Produce 33° 52.268' N, and flourished during the Depression, when
21-39
Markets 79° 45.243' W it shipped beans, squash, cucumbers, peas,
and other vegetables. Lake City was one of
the largest truck markets in the U.S. and
claimed to be the largest string-bean or
snap-bean market in the world.
This two-story commercial building was
built in 1910 by Henry Horace Singletary
(1848-1912) as the H.H. Singletary
Company, with a grocery store on the first
H.H. Singletary 33° 52.377' N, floor. Singletary, perhaps the most
21-40
Building 79° 45.281' W prominent businessman and civic leader in
the town from Reconstruction into the 20th
century, once owned almost 600 acres in
what is now downtown Lake City. He also
ran a sawmill and brickyard.

Florence County, SC | Comprehensive Plan pg. 90