Little Mountain, SC

Little Mountain is a Newberry County town of 249 people at the 2020 census, set beside the isolated monadnock that gives it its name. The mountain was once called Ruff's Mountain, and Interstate 26's Exit 85 is about two miles from downtown. That combination makes the town easy to place: a small settlement at the foot of a distinct landform, with a major regional highway nearby. The Little Mountain Historic District, a railroad-town collection of homes, businesses, and civic buildings, was added to the National Register in 2003.

The town's public traditions reach back to the Newberry College reunions held at the mountain's foot. The gathering began in the 1880s and eventually became the Little Mountain Reunion, one of South Carolina's oldest folk festivals; the Little Mountain Association helped restore it as an annual event in the 1970s. Local education also has a long thread: a school opened in a tenant house in 1892 under the pastor of Holy Trinity Lutheran Church, followed by a one-room school. Today, the mountain, reunion grounds, historic district, and nearby interstate give Little Mountain its recognizable shape.