Finding Local History at Four Spartanburg County Museums
Tuesday, March 03, 2015
Aren’t museums odd kinds of places? They’re often solemn and still, and yet they straddle a dizzying whirl of centuries in just a few feet of space. The best are as theatrical as they are informative. And it’s often the circumstantial details of a visit that transform a museum experience from mundane to magical. I’ve seen the attention of a room suddenly transfixed by t
Continue Reading >Local Cemeteries: Two-and-a-Half Centuries of History
Monday, February 09, 2015
By Brad Steinecke, produced in cooperation with the HubCity Writers Project. On a frigid morning in January, an older woman walks into the Kennedy Room at the Spartanburg Headquarters Library. After a recent visit to the cemetery, she has resolved to find whatever information she can summon on her dear grandmother—a woman gone for more than fifty years, but still deeply love
Continue Reading >To the Mountaintop with the Founder of The Assault on Mt. Mitchell
Monday, February 09, 2015
By Brad Wright, produced in cooperation with the HubCity Writers Project. When it came to cycling, John Bryan was simply a Southern pioneer. In the 1970s, when the idea of a bicycle as a legitimate means of transportation was an afterthought at best, laughable at worst, he used his on his daily commute. It should be mentioned, however, that this was a commute between Spartan
Continue Reading >Skating on the Square
Tuesday, December 16, 2014
By Rachel-Richardson, produced in cooperation with the HubCity Writers Project. I am not the most graceful of girls. My center of balance has yet to be found. If I were an animal, I’d be less of a swan and more of a hedgehog. In short—which I also am—the idea of putting on ice skates and swishing around a rink seemed like an express pass to a pair of crutches. I would fa
Continue Reading >Festivals Galore!
Tuesday, November 25, 2014
By Susan A. Sistare, produced in cooperation with the HubCity Writers Project. If Spartanburg is your hometown, and you graduated from high school in an era when a Bluetooth was something you had to see your dentist for, you might be old enough to recall Spartanburg’s greatest annual festival: the Spring Fling! And ... that was pretty much it. And while the annual Spring
Continue Reading >Cycling Spartanburg, Year-Round, Day and Night
Monday, November 17, 2014
By P. L. Thomas, produced in cooperation with the HubCity Writers Project. If you are visiting Spartanburg and happen to be driving at night in the city or country during those increasingly cooler months after the end of daylight savings time, you may see an unusual sight: small, white and blinking red lights approaching you slowly and seemingly unconnected along the road.
Continue Reading >Italian Eating
Monday, November 03, 2014
By Jan Scalisi , produced in cooperation with the HubCity Writers Project. Updated for accuracy in July 2019. Sometimes, only a steaming plate of pasta and a glass of good red wine will do. A stroll along downtown Spartanburg’s Morgan Square has many enticing options, one of the most exciting being a beloved Italian restaurant that was once located on East Kennedy Street.
Continue Reading >Triple Tree Aerodrome
Monday, November 03, 2014
By Brad Wright, produced in cooperation with the HubCity Writers Project. Updated for accuracy in May 2019. It’s a beautiful, early fall day as I make my way down Highway 221 to the Triple Tree Aerodrome near Woodruff. The sky is as clear as my expectations are hazy. I have never heard about this place in our community, yet it’s billed as the "Augusta National of Aviation.
Continue Reading >B-Cycle B-Fun!
Tuesday, September 30, 2014
By Susan A. Sistare, produced in cooperation with the HubCity Writers Project. I’ll admit, when I first saw the row of cute little red bikes with baskets on them downtown, a twinge of nostalgia hit me. I used to ride one just like that when I lived in Osaka, Japan. I missed being able to scoot up to a little market and throw some fresh veggies in my basket, ding my little be
Continue Reading >The Cottonwood Trail
Monday, September 29, 2014
By Brad Wright, produced in cooperation with the HubCity Writers Project. The heat radiates off the dark asphalt as I make my way down Andrews Farm Road. I feel like I’m running inside a convection oven. My pace has slowed considerably since my youthful days on the Spartan High Cross Country team, and I am already sweating profusely to compensate. Treading carefully down the
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