
Hartsville | Our Town
8/6/2024 | 8m 22sVideo has Closed Captions
See how Hartsville is a place where business, education, and community spirit thrive.
Nestled in South Carolina's Pee Dee region, Hartsville beckons with rich culture, character, and abundant opportunities. Boasting thriving industries, charming locals, vibrant downtown dining, and renowned educational institutions, Hartsville invites residents and visitors alike to explore and embrace its unique allure.
Our Town is a local public television program presented by SCETV
Support for this program is provided by The ETV Endowment of South Carolina.

Hartsville | Our Town
8/6/2024 | 8m 22sVideo has Closed Captions
Nestled in South Carolina's Pee Dee region, Hartsville beckons with rich culture, character, and abundant opportunities. Boasting thriving industries, charming locals, vibrant downtown dining, and renowned educational institutions, Hartsville invites residents and visitors alike to explore and embrace its unique allure.
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Learn Moreabout PBS online sponsorshipHartsville, South Carolina, is small, with a big heart.
Hartsville might surprise you.
For a small town our size, if you just look at the map or look at some of the numbers about Hartsville, you would not realize just how cool this place is.
Hartsville wants you here.
and it's just who Hartsville is.
It's who we are.
Everything about it is welcoming.
To me, Hartsville is all about our community.
We are close knit.
A community where people know you by name.
You can't go anywhere without knowing somebody.
You could ride right through the town and not blink and not know that you missed out on something great.
But once you stop, it'll be on your mark for the next time you ride through.
Here is definitely a place that you plan to stop.
Get out.
Shop.
Possibly even stay for a little while.
It's just that type of place.
When you come to Hartsville, we're not just a place in South Carolina.
We're a destination parcels, home to a great deal of innovative business owners, from very small businesses to very large businesses.
When you are here, you feel like you've lived here or you've been a part of the community for a very, very long time.
I have grown up here.
I did go to school.
I went to College of Charleston, but when I came back, it allowed me to just enter the world of Hartsville as an adult rather than a kid.
And it still made me feel like I was at home.
So this is my town, and I love it.
And it's got the biggest heart ever.
My husband and I own Vintage, and I basically do all the marketing and all the booking for the live music.
We're a pub that brings in so many different aspects of the world, not just what you're drinking, but just the vibe, the feel, but also we provide cheers.
You will leave here knowing pretty much everybody and feeling like, oh my God, were they my best friends.
Hartsville is the home to strong businesses.
We have small businesses and we have the very large businesses.
It's home to a Fortune 500 company in downtown.
We're a place for you to come and find an eclectic group of restaurants and shops, and in a situation where that you can walk from one place to another.
Education is very important to our community.
Coker started as Coker College and how it now has grown into Coker University.
We are truly a college town with a university right downtown, half a block away, and we also are home to the Governor's School of Science and Math, which gives us access to faculty from around the world as part of our community.
We also get to be host to some of the brightest students in the state, and they bring a vibe and an excitement to our downtown and our city as a whole that we can't replace.
I grew up here in Hartsville.
In this building that we're in now was my grandfather's feed and seed store.
He started the business when he got back from World War Two.
I go off to school, get my degree, I come back to Hartsville.
I just get really lucky and get a job at Sonoco.
The big of our manufacturing company here in town, I was into research department, and I was here for about ten years.
And I realized what it was about small businesses that my granddad and my dad felt.
Just the culture of it.
So I decided to leave that position, and I started a little consulting company.
And a number of years later, my buddies at shows up with this idea where we design Wild Heart to be an awesome place for Hartsville.
We were visiting the construction site about 75% of the way through, and she starts and said, you know, this place isn't just Casey's, it's not just yours.
This place is Hartsville's.
And when he told me that, like, it made a tear come to my eye because it really put into words what we were trying to do, and I had never been able to wrap it up that tightly like that.
Hartsville was envisioned and designed as a place for Hartsville to enjoy and be proud of, and for us to be a part of the community and the community to be a part of us.
And if that sounds cheesy, I'm sorry, but that that really was the intention.
One of the coolest things we have, and it's not common amongst municipalities, is we have a full blown water park here in Hartsville.
The water park is does sort of runs a little bit like a recreation function because it's designed to serve the people of Hartsville, particularly those people who maybe can't afford to go to Carowinds or Myrtle Beach for the weekend.
So they have that opportunity for recreation, outdoor recreation and swimming and fun.
The last but not least, right here in their hometown.
I'm from Virginia Beach, Virginia, and I'm a transplant to South Carolina, I have gone to school in the state and then, marrying afterwards and raising a family here.
So I've been in Hartsville for about 20 years now, but I find this community to be one where I can put my roots down and everything that I need is here, from church to social groups to important work that I can do here at the museum to make a difference in our community.
The Hartsville Museum was founded in 1980, and so we've been around for little over 40 years.
But through donations from our community members, it helps to tell the story of the beginning of time of Hartsville all the way up till today.
And I think people find themselves in this museum when they come to visit.
The Hartsville Museum is a place where people are seeing themselves.
it's a it's a walk back in time and a walk up to the future.
it's so exciting to bring in new exhibits or even new projects that we're working on.
If anything, I believe the Hartsville Museum is more relevant today than ever.
We've kind of changed the narrative in the museum to make us more relevant with the history and the community that we are preserving, and so people can come in and explore something a little bit unique, whether it's a ghost tour or whether it's a new project and helping us with digitization.
Or maybe they have a picture that they have found in their collection and they just feel it belongs here at the museum.
These pictures tell most of the stories here in our museum.
We came here to Hartsville about a year ago.
My wife and I were looking for a second location.
We had one location in Bennettsville, South Carolina.
Both educators by trade.
Hartsville just seemed to be the perfect place.
We're in and out of Hartsville.
We love the people that we've met here.
Found a great partner and doctor Leroy Robinson.
he seems to be one that everyone loves.
And so we knew this was the perfect place for us.
What makes The Humidor unique is the fact that we have a humidor in Hartsville, South Carolina.
cigar lounges are very popular in, bigger cities, bigger communities.
And it's unique.
First of all, because we're in small town South Carolina, people of all interest, all races, all creeds, where they we come together on a common desire to enjoy good cigars and good bourbon and I think that one thing makes me the happiest about The Humidor is that, when I walk in here, in the evenings and just to see the mixture of people, people from different backgrounds, different walks of life, different religions, it just amazes me.
I think we're on the brink of something big.
It's a small town with a big town atmosphere.
very progressive minded thinking.
I'm definitely looking forward to seeing where Hartsville takes us in the next 5 to 10 years.
Just because we're small doesn't mean we can't do some of the things the bigger cities do.
It is Hartsville, and there's a reason why it's Hartsville.
Because you leave here feeling loved.
And when you are here, you are loved.
This is our town.
This is our town.
This is our town.
This is Hartsville.
Our Town is a local public television program presented by SCETV
Support for this program is provided by The ETV Endowment of South Carolina.