Joanna, SC

Joanna is an unincorporated census-designated place in eastern Laurens County, South Carolina, along U.S. Route 76 between Clinton and Laurens. The community was first settled in the 1760s and became known as Martin’s Depot by the 1850s, after planter Martin Kinard helped bring the Laurens Railroad through. The railroad pulled homes, stores, and work toward the depot, giving Joanna the compact shape of an Upstate crossroads. The upper reaches of the Bush River extend into the CDP west of the settled center.

Joanna-Woodson Elementary is part of Laurens County School District 56, while Clinton supplies the county’s nearest larger civic center and high school connection. Route 76 carries traffic southeast toward Newberry and northwest toward Clinton, with Laurens close by in the opposite direction. Joanna is a small place whose history is tied to a renamed depot, a railroad that changed the local map, and the farm-and-woodland country of eastern Laurens County. The old railroad story still gives the community its clearest shape.