Williston, SC

Williston was built beside an early South Carolina railroad route. The Barnwell County town sits on the former Charleston-to-Hamburg/Southern rail bed along U.S. 78, where the South Carolina Canal and Railroad Company established an important station stop in the 1830s. The Best Friend locomotive, which began service in 1830, belongs to that line's larger story. The tracks were removed in the 1990s, yet the old route remains part of the South Carolina Heritage Corridor. Williston's position nine miles from Blackville and twenty-one from Aiken keeps the town tied to the highway as well as the rail map.

Inside town, the railroad's civic shadow survives in the buildings and institutions around Main Street. The 1912 High School Annex now houses the Williston Public Library, which began in 1933 as Barnwell County's first library. The Ashley-Willis House is listed on the National Register, and the town's old cemetery carries family and war memorial history. Williston-Elko schools, the volunteer fire tradition, and the Main Street town offices keep daily business close to the same corridor. Fires erased large portions of Williston several times, so the surviving library, house, cemetery, and rail bed carry unusual weight in the town's present-day map.