♪ - Pacolet was formed in the latter part of 1800, 1888, '89, and the main thing that really blossomed it out was the mill village.

- You know, this town, the way it was built and the way it was designed, it was built for the worker that lived here, the resident who lived here.

Captain John Henry Montgomery, was looking for a place to start a new mill and found this location right here on the river.

And at the time, it was called Trough Shoals.

- And it was because of the turn and twist the way the land lay, which made this bringing the water in closer together.

And that right there is a source of power.

It was no town to begin with, but they did have the railroad track.

You know, that was another source that they had to have, was a way to ship the goods out or bring goods in to run the mills.

- Pacolet Station was the original name of the town before the towns merged.

But it started at the train depot.

It was the center of town, the center of all the activity.

Mail was coming and going.

Commuters were coming and going.

Building materials.

Wool from the mills.

When the towns merged, we lost that Pacolet Station name.

It just became Pacolet.

<Patrick> What's really interesting with Pacolet is, you know, its foundation with Captain John Henry Montgomery.

When he started here, he discovered what a lot of economists are just now realizing over the last 20 years, the quality of life aspect.

In this community, they provide a nursery service that you could drop off your child before coming to work, which is something that is talked about now.

They pride themselves on creating one of the highest level of medical care.

They established a greenhouse and it was probably about 50,000 square feet.

And as a business, creating a greenhouse brings no revenue to your business, but it creates quality of life for the people who live in the community and work at your mill.

<Gene> The highlights, really, they were bringing in people from all walks of life, from all over the South here, people that were willing to work together for a common cause.

<Patrick> So I think that is the kind of people who built this town.

And that is the kind of people who now live in this town.

And that's the kind of people who want to see this community grow and thrive and do well.

- I've been living here about all my life, and we grew up on the mill village, so I think it's a real good town here.

We've gone through some bad times.

Mills closing and other things closing, but we're on the way back.

<Thomas> I'm new to Pacolet from Rhode Island and I own Callous Moto.

My family moved to South Carolina years ago and then tried to talk me into moving down.

I stumbled upon Pacolet and found these buildings.

I just fell in love pretty quickly.

Callous Moto is just getting started.

We are starting to really find our place in the community, trying to kind of revive the pride and the history.

But really, it's an outlet to kind of promote Pacolet.

Saturdays here at Callous Moto have become kind of an event in and of themselves.

And the guys sit outside and they bring their own chairs.

We run out of chairs, we run out of coffee.

It's just a great time to socialize.

We probably get more business on Saturdays than the rest of the week combined.

I should say, it's a community center disguised as a coffee shop.

It's really a gathering place.

And it's not really about coffee.

We're not here to sell coffee.

We're here to meet people and bring the community together.

It's just a great place to be and to meet new, new and old friends.

- The Benjamin E. Mays Center was built in 1953.

It was originally built as a segregated school for African-Americans in Spartanburg County.

Some folks from the Benjamin E. Mays Alumni Association reached out to the school district and asked for the school district to donate the building to the community for a community center.

The Benjamin E. Mays Center will serve folks who are low on the poverty scale.

They'll serve mothers of young children.

They'll serve folks who have mental health issues or are in recovery or have addiction issues.

Benjamin Mays was an amazing person.

He was a mentor of Martin Luther King Jr.

He was counsel to presidents.

He really talked a lot about resilience, self-determination, providing for yourself.

And then once you've achieved to give back to your community.

And that's the legacy that we want to continue at Benjamin E. Mays.

<Patrick> In Pacolet, one of the things that we have is a great quality of life.

We've got a river here.

You know, you've got two hydro dams, and we've got great access to the outdoors.

We've got events that happen in our community.

<Patrick> We just started a farmers market that's been going really well.

And we also have the annual Pacolet River Fest.

It usually brings around two or 3000 people out to the event.

And for a town the size of Pacolet, that's a pretty big deal.

Live music that goes on.

Craft vendors, food vendors there.

It's an event that everyone kind of looks forward to throughout the entire year.

- The one thing I can say about Pacolet is family.

Should any person need any help, the people of Pacolet always come together and they always support their own.

This is the small town closeness that everyone here loves and appreciates and wants to protect.

- Growing up here, you knew everybody, you was welcome in everybody's house.

If you misbehaved at the neighbor's house, they might spank you and then send you home and you get another one when you got there.

<Thomas> I love rural communities and Pacolet is a wonderful rural community.

It has that small town feel, but it's also close to anything you want to do.

In 30 minutes, you can be in Spartanburg and you can find any store you want, any restaurant you want.

<Ned> It's a great town, a good place to live, a good place to have a family.

We're looking forward to the next 2 to 5 years.

You know, we're getting a lot of growth here.

<Thomas> The best part of Pacolet is all the stories, like with the history.

We've lost a little bit of that feel good kind of heyday of Pacolet, and we're working really hard to kind of bring some of that back.

<Gene> It's gone through its changes, just like all the other small towns.

The loss of the mill hurt, the loss of our high school hurt, but we still got a good group of people here that are trying.

<Patrick> It's a small, quaint, charming little town that has a lot of potential for growth.

<Jerry> We're in Pacolet, and this is our town.

<Kim> Pacolet.

It's our town.

<Ned> Pacolet is our town.

<Thomas> This is Pacolet.

This is our town.

<Patrick> Pacolet.

This is our town.