Lyman started as Groce's Stop that then became Lyman, South Carolina after the mill was built in 1923.

When Pacific Mills bought about 750 acres of property from the Gross family in 1923.

They built one of the largest mills in the state of South Carolina.

The investment made by Pacific Mills at the time was roughly $6 million, which be equivalent to BMW investment in today's money.

It was significant.

So the textile industry, especially in the upstate of South Carolina, was huge, and our mill was actually one of the largest mills in the area.

It was the largest single sign employer in Spartanburg County at that time.

People came from far away as Polk County and North Carolina to work in textile placed.

My dad moved to Ireland when he was around 14 years old because of the new houses, the new plant, and after The Great Depression they were jobs that paid money.

So dad and his family of seven moved here and he went to work at the plant here in Lyman.

Pacific Mills built the full community, including the village.

They built like 375 homes.

I think for prospective employees.

There was one writing that said the Pacific Mill built this village, they didn't know that whether they were building a mill village or they were building a Hollywood set, because siding was outside, hardwood floors throughout, running water and electricity and all the houses, and that was a common for mill villages was back in the middle 1920s.

They helped build churches.

They helped build schools.

In fact, the first building that was built, was the engineer Study area that then became the library.

In addition, this building that we're in now is one time a gymnasium.

It was a community center.

Well, you could have all kind of dance basketball games for the youth and for the adults as well.

They built a lake for recreation, for boats and swimming, and then they built a swimming pool for us.

And that was the highlight of our teenage years.

And they also built the elementary school.

The plant paid for the teacher's salary.

That was kind of unusual.

And they had a teacher reach for them.

They hired the best of teachers.

At that time.

Now you're going back to the 1920s.

The plant was the community.

The mill was all there was for a long, long time.

There was a sense of pride for everybody.

You can ask somebody on the street that lived here, they will tell you it was the best place to be.

Textiles was where we started.

We've kind of made a turn from there in the 80s to 90s.

The mill slowed.

The mill to have partial demolition in the early 2000s.

So we've had other revenue sources and other businesses move into our town, including American Farm fabric.

We also have the largest refrigerated warehouse in the country for Walmart, with an investment of over $400 million.

That is on our Lyman business corridor.

We're centrally located with lots of distributors for BMW, for instance, and we have the inland port that's literally three miles from us.

So we are in a very good spot to continue to develop.

We have our rail trail that has changed from spur lines that were off the railroads, that were not being used any further.

and we also have our river trail.

We have our park.

And that is a big draw for folks all over the upstate, because one of the parks that was built with children's, with disabilities in mind.

In addition to that, we also have lots of restaurants.

We also have lots of stores downtown.

Botanical Brew is our concept with plants and coffee that me and my wife came up with, and we decided to put it here in Lyman because we wanted something in our backyard, something local.

Well, we came up with the idea by thinking about the plants, as the wow factor.

My wife, she liked plants and she was always into planting and gardening.

That was always a eye-catching appeal.

And it's calming and relaxing.

And I've always been into coffee and working with beans, so that was always a calming and relaxing time as well.

So we figured putting them together create a nice vibe.

As they say.

My customer reacts really well.

They come in and they say immediate, wow, look at all these plants.

And their eyes get big and you see all this greenery and lushness and it creates a feel good, euphoric like feeling.

And then you smell the coffee and you can hear the grinding in a relaxing moment.

A sensory.

We sell more coffee.

The plants they sell.

And they do really well in the summer and springtime.

And coffee that the spike is when the seasons change.

We change the menu with each season.

So fall season we have our pumpkin stuff, but in winter we do more winter right off.

And in summer now we're doing a lot of tea and citrus and things like that.

Very, Very nice.

I'm happy with my choice.

There you go.

Thank, thank.

We try to combine it with plants to make it, but you can have a deal or something like that and just make it fun.

I opened the barber shop in Lyman in 2023.

My husband works for the town of Lyman, and we started coming to a lot of Lyman events and we really saw the potential of the growth of the town of Lyman.

And we just decided to open up a shop over here.

So the Black Sheep Barber Shop, we do men's haircuts, fades come straight, razor shaves.

We do like the hot towels, hair washing, just regular men's barber shop.

We started the shop naturally, so we didn't have the clientele already.

The girls that came to work here, we're pretty new to barbering.

It has grown a lot.

The girls that work here are so nice and they're very friendly, and they've really built a good finds out.

And everybody that I meet, they seem to love the girls here.

I really think that shop.

Eventually we're going to growing and adding more barbers to the shop.

I think it's just going to get busier and busier.

Last year, we celebrated the 100th anniversary of the founding and of the village here at Lyman.

And that was the year that Pacific started buying up the property.

We celebrated that with a weekend, celebration.

We had bands come in, we had food trucks, we had a car show, we had a concert.

we also had vendors selling wine and merchandise.

We had a meet and greet for those from Lyman from long ago, and from those that are here now.

It was great to see a lot of people, too.

They came back.

They were not just local folks.

During the centennial for Lyman, we have some coffee sales.

So we just came and walked around and did a little shopping, and the kids rode the rides and saw the animals.

Lyman put on a good show for us.

It lasted two days and it was just wonderful.

Lyman is great because of its people.

Our people are what makes our town great.

People always were just genuine.

People support each other.

I love that connectivity.

I really like that.

It's just a small town.

I feel like it's very tightknit.

You know, if something were to go wrong here, somebody would call me.

I like the small town atmosphere.

I like the weather most of the time, and I like the proximity again to the mountains, to the sea.

It's a great place to be.

The future of Lyman is great, and bright.

Lyman has vast potential.

We still have building areas that are building out, whether that be commercial or residential.

we currently now have over 7000 residents.

That's up from 3100 people back in the 90s.

So we have a more than doubled our people in that time.

And we have people moving to Lyman every day.

We have new businesses coming into Lyman every day, and we look forward to more growth.

I like Lyman because it is my home town.

Lyman is our town.

Lyman is our town.

Lyman is our town.

Lyman.

This is our town.