Converse, SC

Converse is a small census-designated place in east Spartanburg County, South Carolina, between Spartanburg and Cowpens. The 2020 census counted 534 residents inside about seven-tenths of a square mile. Its history is tied to the Pacolet River and the textile belt that shaped the Upstate. The surviving Converse Mill began in 1896 as Clifton Mill No. 3, a major cotton complex with 57,000 spindles and 2,200 looms by 1900. A flash flood in 1903 destroyed the original building; it was rebuilt within the year as a five-story mill and ran for more than half a century.

The mill closed by 1973, but the building remains the place's clearest landmark. The 247,000-square-foot structure has been preserved and converted into loft apartments overlooking the Pacolet, after years as a warehouse. Converse sits in Spartanburg School District 3, the same district serving Cowpens, Pacolet, and parts of Spartanburg. That gives this small CDP a larger civic map than its acreage suggests: school lines, river, mill, and nearby city routes all point back to the same Upstate industrial story.