Belton

Belton, South Carolina, is indeed a child of the railroad. By 1853, the fledgling town had begun developing at the junction of the Columbia and Greenville Railroad and its spur line to Anderson. Josephine Brown, daughter of Dr. George Reece Brown who owned most of the land around the railroad, named the community after Judge John Belton O'Neall, president of the C&G Railroad Company. By the turn of the century, Capt. Ellison A. Smyth began the Belton Cotton Mill, which quickly became the la...