Gilbert, SC

Gilbert is a Lexington County town whose local identity still has a little peach juice on it. During the middle decades of the twentieth century, area farms harvested, packed, and shipped peaches; only a few orchards remain, but the crop still owns the calendar. The Lexington County Peach Festival has been running for more than six decades, filling Gilbert Community Park every July 4 with a parade, peach treats, crafts, antique cars, live music, rides, and fireworks. It is the kind of event where the town’s agricultural past turns into a very present-day reunion.

Gilbert also has an older architectural side. The David Jefferson Griffith House and Music Hall Evangelical Lutheran Church are both on the National Register, giving the small town a pair of landmarks that reach back beyond the peach years. Lexington School District One runs Centerville Elementary, Gilbert Elementary, Gilbert Middle, and Gilbert High, while the Gilbert branch of the county library gives the center a place for books and local programming. Put it all together and Gilbert reads as a small Midlands town with a strong summer tradition, a few historic signposts, and a school-and-library core that keeps daily life close to home.