Latta, SC

Latta is a Dillon County town seven miles south of Dillon along U.S. 301 and 501. The town grew from a railroad bypass and loading station established in the 1880s, was incorporated in 1890, and became a local trading center during the Pee Dee tobacco market's heyday. Main Street still carries that history: the Latta Downtown Historic District has a concentration of early twentieth-century commercial buildings, and its storefronts give the town a clear center. The district also records the town's rise alongside the railroad and tobacco trade.

Latta's civic landmarks sit close to that older core. The Latta branch of the Dillon County Library System occupies a 1914 Carnegie library building, one of South Carolina's thirteen Carnegie public libraries, and the Dillon County Museum is across from the library. Latta School District runs the town's elementary, middle, and high schools. The result is a small town organized around a historic commercial street, a library with countywide importance, and schools that still draw everyday activity into the center.