Once a pass-through, TR is now a come-to town.
Courtesy City of Travelers Rest
The welcome at TR goes well beyond the welcoming signage.
It’s a name that’s downright intriguing, Travelers Rest. Soothing, from a long time ago, promising comfort and rest from the journey.
But here’s the thing. Travelers may rest…but they don’t stay. They’re heading somewhere else.
That was, in fact, the stopover story of TR for a very long time, when Native Americans (Cherokee, Creek and Catawba nations) crossed over the Blue Ridge Escarpment; drovers from Tennessee and North Carolina headed for Low Country cattle markets; stage coaches and trains carried the wealthy away from coastal heat to western North Carolina retreats.
Now, though, things are changing. TR is growing—its population grew 70% between 2010 and 2020, in part due to annexation of Furman University down the road. A few years back, TR was named one of the coolest small towns in America by Budget Travel in The Huffington Post, and one of the Best Southern Small Towns by USA Today. Its upscale restaurants along Main Street are filled by 5 pm weeknights. There’s a brewery and a creperie and a longstanding outdoors store that stocks more kayaks than any other storefront retailer in South Carolina.
Courtesy City of Travelers Rest
Aerial view of Travelers Rest highlights the beauty of the city and Paris Mountain on the horizon.
And among it all, impossible to overlook, are scores of walkers and bikers zigzagging through town.
How does a small upstate town, like its many neighboring towns left to struggle in the wake of textile industry abandonment, come back to life so noticeably?
Yes, there’s the strong group of TR natives, committed to telling their town’s story. (The TR Historical Society hosts regular storytelling sessions, and their headquarters at the end of Main Street is not to be missed, with a display case full of oral histories gathered by school children.)
And there’s young, creative leadership growing new ideas from their deep community roots. (The under-40 mayor, Brandy Amidon, grew up in TR, went away to college, and has returned to help her town shape a vision.)
And of course the beauty and outdoor recreation offered by what the Cherokee called the Blue Wall—the Blue Ridge rising up in the distance. (Nearby Paris Mountain is said to have a magnet in its core, drawing natives back home.)
Courtesy City of Travelers Rest
The farmers market on the Swamp Rabbit Trail is the largest independent market in South Carolina.
But what may well be the most interesting piece of Travelers Rest’s reinvention story is another wonderfully named location: The Swamp Rabbit Trail. (Long story short: the Swamp Rabbit was the nickname given to the Greenville + Northern Railway line that went through TR in the day—the ground was swampy and rough, making the rail lines “jumpy” like a swamp rabbit. And yes, swamp rabbits do exist!)
The 22-mile rails-to-trails Swamp Rabbit runs from Greenville through Travelers Rest along the Reedy River.
“TR was first in line to say yes to building the trail,” Amidon says. “The Swamp Rabbit’s been a major driver in the restoration of downtown. The trail was built for everyone.”
In fact, through much of TR, the Swamp Rabbit and Main Street run nearly side-by-side. So if you want to stroll Main Street, put on your walking shoes and walk the length of TR’s section of the Swamp Rabbit. It’ll take you by Charlie’s Rustiques, located in an old Sinclair Gas Station with the green DINO brontosaurus still painted near the door. By the Whistle Stop Café (“Our fried green tomatoes are the best in the South!”). Past Sidewall Pizza Company, where thin-crust pizza go hand in glove with craft brews. A sushi place, and Chinese and Vietnamese eateries.
And near the center of Main Street sits the beautiful Victorian Spring Park Inn, where, story has it, the owners used to greet the trains stopping just yards from the front door to help visitors with their luggage. Recently donated to the TR Historical Society by the original owner’s great-granddaughter, Nell Anderson Gibson, the house is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and the surrounding 20 acres now has a conservation easement that assures it will not be developed. When the restoration is complete, the Spring Park Inn property will serve as a central gathering place for TR residents and visitors.
And nearby the Inn, if fundraising is successful, there will soon be a statue of Travelers Rest Revolutionary War heroine, Dicey Langston, who lived most of her adult life in TR.
“You can’t throw a rock without hitting a Dicey descendent,” Mayor Amidon says with a grin. (Langston gave birth to 22 children.) Called “the female Paul Revere,” Langston is best known for warning her brothers’ patriot encampment at Little Eden of an impending attack by the Tory renegade Bloody Scouts.
It’s just plain fun to walk the Swamp Rabbit, used by visitors and residents, hard-core bikers and runners, kids and elders, dogs on leashes and babies in strollers. It’s beautiful evidence of “If you build it, they will come.”
Courtesy City of Travelers Rest
The amphitheater is also part of Trailblazer Park.
In fact, TR is bent on making sure that all of the city is bikeable and/or walkable. “We’ve been very intentional,” Amidon says. “Everything needs to be connected.”
Just off the Swamp Rabbit, nearby Trailblazer Park is an unusual and beautiful blend of city recreation and government administration space. The park is home to the largest independent farmers market in South Carolina, and an amphitheater that hosts summer concerts and free movies.
Courtesy City of Travelers Rest
Unique shops add to the experience of the small mountain city.
TR’s newest housing area—being built on a forty-acre site once home to a textile mill —will be easily walkable to the Swamp Rabbit and downtown.
“We’ve worked with the family that owns the land to assure that there will be a lot of green space here in Pinestone,” Amidon says. “We’ll have apartments and single-family homes and some commercial space connected by walking trails.” If all goes as planned, an estimated 850 new residents will soon call TR home.
True to its name, Travelers Rest, with its Swamp Rabbit trail connecting it to the growing city of Greenville on one end and the historic Geer Highway heading into North Carolina on the other, is still a place you can pass through. But it seems to me that it’s made a much stronger case for being a place to come to.
The story above first appeared in our May / June 2022 issue. For more like it subscribe today or log in with your active BRC+ Membership. Thank you for your support!