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Originally called Laurensville, the town became the county seat shortly after Laurens County was established in 1785.

Located in the Piedmont, Laurens is a county of forests and gently rolling hills.

When deposits of the mineral silica, important for glassmaking, were found a few miles north of Laurens, a group of local businessmen organized Laurens Glass Works in 1910.

Laurens has been frequently cited by historians as one of the few citizens in the lower South who expressed opposition to slavery in America as early as the 1770s.

After the British shifted military operations to the South, Laurens proposed that South Carolina arm slaves and grant them freedom in return for their military service.

By June 1858 Lebby’s suction pump had been used to remove some 145,000 cubic yards of material, an unprecedented dredging achievement.

During his years in Savannah, LeConte wrote several scholarly articles, and in 1846 the University of Georgia appointed him as professor of natural philosophy (chemistry and physics).

Pleased with his situation in Columbia, LeConte endeared himself to his students, took an active part in the cultural affairs of the city, and published articles on topics in geology, religion, art, and education.

Throughout its existence Lee County has been an agricultural community and sometimes is referred to as the “Garden Spot of the Carolinas.”

Lee’s ideas would eventually return home to South Carolina in the form of the fundamentalist movement that controlled the South Carolina Baptist Convention by the 1990s.

In 1907, in association with W. M. Riggs, Lee took on his first design project at Clemson, an expansion of one of the college barracks.

After relocating to Charleston, Lee began to practice law and went on to become one of the state’s most successful black lawyers.

Promoted to brigadier general, Lee was sent west to command artillery as the Confederacy attempted to stop the Federals from seizing control of the Mississippi River.

Barred by his race from receiving advanced medical training in South Carolina, Leevy was admitted to the University of Michigan Medical School.

As a strong proponent of minority education in a state that underfunded segregated black schools, Leevy pushed for the creation of Waverly Elementary School, Leevy Graded School (now Carver Elementary), and Booker T. Washington High School in Columbia.

The University of South Carolina dominated legal education in the state. In 1886 its graduates were granted admission to the bar without taking an examination, a practice known as the “diploma privilege.”

As literary critics, Charleston conservatives such as Legaré were slower in accepting romantic theory and practice than were those in New York and Boston.

Legaré focused considerable time and energy on mechanical invention, including the development of a new type of encaustic tile, an inexpensive glazier’s putty, and a material he called “lignine” or “plastic cotton” from which he fashioned shingles and furniture.

Leigh gave earnest and unquestioned support to the British government’s colonial policies.

LeJau worked for the more humane treatment of slaves. He denounced the law that permitted the physical mutilation of runaway slaves and carried on a veritable crusade again brutality, immorality, and profaneness.