North Hartsville, SC

North Hartsville is a Darlington County census-designated place across Prestwood Lake and Black Creek from Hartsville. The 2020 census counted 2,775 residents. Business Route 15, or North Fifth Street, is the main road through the CDP, with South Carolina 102 heading north from its eastern end. That makes Hartsville the practical center of the address even though the CDP has its own boundary and census count. The lake is still the visual hinge between the two places. Prestwood Lake began in 1896 when a dam was built across Black Creek, and the lake became part of Hartsville's recreation story.

Prestwood Country Club was founded on the shore in 1914, while Hartsville carries the area's downtown, schools, industry, and cultural institutions. The lake also records older travel patterns: a footbridge near the creek had served local crossings since the 1790s. North Hartsville's local scoop is a South Carolina community where a lake, a historic crossing, and a neighboring city do most of the orienting.