The pastoral backcountry was changed forever when H.P. Hammett realized the Great Shoals of the Saluda were perfect for a great textile mill on the Greenville side of the river.

Times were hard for farming in the state after the War Between the States, and Hammett was looking for a way to revive the economy.  He began to plan for a modern textile mill during hard times.  So, Hammett worked around by putting many to work using local resources.  There were architects, engineers, sawyers, masons, builders, and investors coming from all directions to use the local woodlands and river stones and red clays to make the mill happen.   And the dams had to come along with the mills.  

Hammett’s first dam was constructed of wood, all wood, at the height of 5 feet and a length of 200 with the water channel through solid rock.  This mill, later known as #1, opened with the first textiles in 1876.  Mill #1 was such a success that plans soon began for mill #2 to be attached and requiring more power for production. Thus, the reconstructed dam of wood and locally mined stone was raised to seven and a half feet and 300 feet in length.  

Several years past before the contemplation of Mill #3 on the Anderson side began.  This mill began construction in 1888/89, and the dam was raised once again.  This time a dam of solid granite hewn stones was raised to the great height of eleven and a half feet and 400 feet in length (580’ including abutments and four flood gates).  The dam’s power was increased by 800 horsepower to 1600 with the possibility of adding steam to that when needed.  All the metal working parts were crafted at Augusta Iron Works. 

Hammett’s mill #3 was the most magnificent of all.  Lockwood of Lockwood Green was the architect for the Italianate mill and a young well-trained engineer by the name of William States Lee designed the dam.  Lee, for whom the Lee Steam Plant was named, went on to construct many dams and to participate in the building of Duke Power Company.  

The stone dam was completed in late 1891 just a few months after Hammett passed away.  But his vision was completed, and later, a fourth mill was added to the Greenville side’s mill #2.  Therefore, the Piedmont Manufacturing Company’s final dam has been producing power for over 133 years now in early 2025.  

Piedmont’s dam can now be considered an early industrial archeology site.  So, as dams go in South Carolina, where does it rank in age?  

Two dams were of interest, one at Graniteville and one at Vaucluse, both mill towns.  Graniteville’s dam served the earliest modern textile mill in the state (1845), but it has been rebuilt up to three times and is now a massive concrete structure.  The Vaucluse mill dam (1877) still exists, but it was put out of commission when the mill closed in 1991.  As a power producer, it lasted 114 years.

Piedmont dam, then, is the oldest power producing dam in the state of South Carolina.  The dam was and still is a foundational pillar of support that helped build Greenville as the business center it is now.  And it is one beautiful monument, massive and powerful, after 133 years in 2025.  She (our dam) even has a couple of round grist mill stones from early Piedmont placed in among the gargantuan granite blocks that have stabilized Piedmont’s monolith for over a century. ●

Anne Peden, PhD
Greenville County Historic Preservation Commission
Fork Shoals Historical Society
Piedmont Historical Preservation Society●