Economy, Detention Center, Centennial Parade Highlight Anderson County Progress

Greg Wilson/Anderson Observer

With 2026 moving into the fourth quarter, Anderson County is planning its bicentennial showcase celebration.

It provides an occasion for looking backward, but it is also an unusually good excuse to look around.

While official 200th anniversary falls in December, Sunday will bring a downtown parade, and the weeks ahead a new county history book, the imminent opening of an $83 million detention center, the slow redevelopment of old mill sites, negotiations over a historic federal courthouse, a search for homeless-shelter space and the ongoing, less ceremonial work of paving roads, clearing blighted homes and trying to keep a growing community supplied with electricity, broadband and decent jobs.

Rain or shine, Sunday’s 3 p.m. Bicentennial Parade through downtown Anderson, beginning near Calhoun Street and proceeding to River Street will feature more than 40 entries.

The idea came from Anderson County Administrator Rusty Burns, who had been looking through local history and noticed that Anderson County had held civic parades, including celebrations connected to Decoration Day, in the past. The county annually has Christmas and Veterans Day parades, but few comparable occasions for civic institutions, towns, businesses, schools and community groups to move through downtown together.

The 1928 City Centennial Parade, documented in old photographs, helped inspire the current event. Burns described those images as “awesome,” and the new parade consciously returns to an older civic tradition in which floats, bands and public institutions collectively told a community’s story.

“I thought, why not have a parade every 200 years to celebrate the history of Anderson County?” Burns said, smiling.

The parade will include the T.L. Hanna High School Band, the Anderson University band, the Westside High School band, municipalities, public-safety agencies, nonprofits, businesses and civic organizations. The sheriff’s department, Burns noted, will be represented by more than a single unit, as will other larger organizations.

There will be floats, equipment and displays intended to appeal to children and adults alike. The county’s own float, Burns said, will be “amazing and awesome.” The historic courthouse bell will appear on one float, and another float from the Solid Waste entry assembled by Greg Smith and his team will be another county highlight. The Anderson Regional Airport will also have a display.

“It’s going to be a pretty long parade,” Burns said.

The forecast may include rain Sunday morning, but the event is scheduled to continue rain or shine. Some downtown businesses are expected to be open.

The parade is only one part of the county’s bicentennial observance.

On Oct. 29 at 5:30 p.m., the Anderson County Museum will host the official signing event for a new history of Anderson County. The book, assembled by volunteer writers, including The Anderson Observer’s Greg Wilson, is the first county history of its scale in many years. Authors who contributed chapters will be on hand to sign copies, and the museum plans to include music and other programming.

“You can contact Beverly at the museum to find out more details,” Burns said, referring to museum executive director Beverly Childs. “All of the people who wrote chapters are going to be there signing the book.”

The event places local history in the hands of people who helped write it. Burns said he expects the book to be well received.

“I think it’s really good,” he said. “I think people will enjoy it.”

While the bicentennial date itself comes in December, the county’s celebrations have filled much of the year.

The county will also assume responsibility for the Veterans Day Parade in November this year. Former Fire Chief Randy Bratcher and his wife had organized the event for years. Going forward, the county and museum will oversee it.

The Veterans Day event will retain its military and patriotic character while connecting to Anderson County’s bicentennial and the nation’s 250th anniversary.

“It also ties in very well with the museum’s military exhibit,” Burns said.

In other updates, the county’s most visible construction project is less festive.

The new Anderson County Detention Center, at an estimated cost of $83 million, remains on schedule to open just after Thanksgiving. Burns said the county plans to hold an open house so residents can see what their tax money has paid for.

“We will have an open house where the public can come in and look at it,” he said.

No one, Burns acknowledged, enjoys spending public money on a jail. But the old detention facility, built in 1956, has long outlived the era for which it was designed. In its early years, the sheriff lived in the front portion of the building. Today, it holds far more people than its original design could reasonably accommodate.

“It was horrible,” Burns said. “It’s still horrible.”

The new jail will not be luxurious, he said, but it will be safer for detainees and officers. It will also provide room for expansion without requiring the county to rebuild core systems such as kitchens and utilities.

“You’re not going to want to go there and live,” Burns said. “But you’re also not going to die in the old jail, and our detention officers will have a decent place to work.”

The county is also considering whether part of the newest section of the old jail could be used for juvenile detention. The state assumed responsibility for that system, Burns said, but existing capacity is already full.

The project illustrates an uncomfortable part of government: some spending is neither glamorous nor optional.

“Nobody in the world wants to spend money on a jail,” Burns said. “But then everybody wants everybody locked up too.”

The federal government’s decision to dispose of the G. Ross Anderson Jr. Federal Building and U.S. Courthouse has created another question of public space and public memory.

Anderson County has submitted a proposal to take over the building. Officials are still learning the federal process through in-person and online meetings. The effort gained urgency after S.C. Sen. Mike Gambrell pointed out that Aiken County received its former federal courthouse without cost.

Anderson County is studying whether the building could continue to serve judicial purposes, potentially in partnership with the City of Anderson, while also considering other uses.

“We’re talking to a lot of people in Anderson about the highest and best use of that building,” Burns said, “to preserve it and to make sure it stays in public hands.”

The courthouse’s historic status complicates any transfer. Whether the county receives it for free or purchases it, or it goes to someone else, the building’s preservation requirements would remain in place. Its New Deal-era mural and other historic features would need protection.

“If you get it free, you have to make sure — even if you buy it outright — that you have to follow historic preservation,” Burns said.

The courthouse has long been part of Anderson’s civic landscape: first as a post office and federal building, then as a courthouse named for a hometown federal judge. Its future will depend on whether local government can find a use substantial enough to keep it active, but sensitive enough to preserve what makes it distinctive.

Several long-discussed properties are also moving, slowly, toward new lives.

At the former Chem-Tex property near downtown Anderson, the city’s Murray Mill development has begun moving dirt. The project, expected to include apartments, commercial space and amenities, is intended to push downtown development westward.

Nearby, the county’s Equinox mill site remains dependent on prospective developers receiving housing, textile and historic tax credits. Burns said a housing proposal and public-utility components are under discussion, and he believes the developers have a better chance of receiving tax credits this year.

If the project advances, it would connect with the Murray Mill development and extend downtown’s residential growth further west.

“That would be spectacular growth for downtown Anderson,” Burns said.

In Honea Path, cleanup at the former mill site continues. At the former Pelzer lower mill property, which the county owns, Burns said the cleanup is nearly complete and the county recently received an inquiry from a prospective user.

The county’s approach in Pelzer, he said, will depend on what town leaders and residents want.

“It’s not what we want to see,” Burns said. “It’s what the town of Pelzer wants to see.”

The county is also expanding its response to homelessness. Miracle Hill Ministries is looking for a site in Anderson County for potential emergency-shelter services, and Burns said the county supports that effort. Anderson currently has far fewer shelter beds than any other city its size in the state.

Miracle Hill’s search for a suitable building continues, but Burns said the organization would add to an existing network that includes the Salvation Army and Hope Missions of the Upstate. The county has also been involved with Hope Missions’ planned transitional-housing development, Hope Village, where the architectural work is underway.

The county’s blight-removal program continues to remove dilapidated homes across Anderson County, though funding is steady rather than expanding.

Burns said the county has not received another major grant like the one it obtained about five years ago, but crews continue to demolish unsafe and abandoned structures. Such homes can become drug sites, reduce neighboring property values and discourage private investment.

“They usually turn into drug houses,” Burns said. “It pulls down property value.”

The program has helped reshape neighborhoods, especially in the Alphabet streets area of Anderson, where cleared lots are now drawing new construction.

“If you go look at the ABC streets that people used to talk about terribly, look at the new buildings that are going in there,” Burns said.

The practical difficulty is often ownership.

“They may have 10 or 20 heirs, and they don’t live here, and they don’t care about it,” Burns said.

Still, the county considers the work among its most publicly appreciated efforts. A cleared lot can become a home site; a neglected block can begin to recover.

Meanwhile, the county continues to pursue new employers, Burns said, with a focus on wages, benefits and jobs that can withstand changes in the broader economy.

Electrolux, which shut down in July after a merger with China-based Midea Group leaving its 1,200 employees without a job, is slated to be retooled to produce fabric care appliances, with new production expected to begin in the first half of 2027.

Burns said the company is expected to resume hiring in the spring through its new partnership. The company’s earlier difficulties were a major concern for Anderson County workers, and Burns said officials expect an announcement soon.

“We’re excited that it's coming back,” he said.

Belton, he added, is “on fire” with recent industrial announcements and good-paying jobs. Burns said the county hopes that kind of momentum can be replicated throughout its municipalities.

Current prospects for recruitment include medical industries, electrical and switchgear-related manufacturers, automotive suppliers and plastics technology. A French company making advanced recycling equipment has rented space in the county’s business incubator and is considering a U.S. factory in Anderson County.

That company’s work could align with the county’s own efforts to manage recyclable materials, particularly as communities confront the hazards of lithium-ion batteries and the limited market for many plastics.

If lithium batteries enter ordinary trash and are crushed or processed improperly, they can ignite. The county is working to improve recycling practices for safety, landfill reduction and revenue. Cardboard, aluminum cans and metal remain valuable; glass is still accepted despite many places discontinuing it; plastics are far more difficult.

“One of the great big myths in the world is plastic recycling,” Burns said. “It’s very hard to recycle.”

Energy reliability is another economic concern. Duke Energy’s new project $2.5 billion gas combined-cycle plant, which includes a fee-in-lieu agreement for the project, will bring about 30 jobs (at salaries mostly in excess of $100,000), and a projected annual payroll of $3.1 million that would, over 40 years, pour $702 million into county coffers.

Burns said work on the facility is progressing on schedule, and that he expects it to bring a significant economic benefit, particularly to Anderson School District 3.

Duke’s project includes a roughly $100 million investment intended to avoid relying on fresh water for cooling, a decision Burns said the county encouraged. That choice has implications beyond one facility: water use, electricity demand and the strain placed on aging power systems are now central issues in economic development.

“The electrical grid in the United States is old, aging and is not keeping up,” Burns said.

Reliable power, he said, matters as much to hospitals, schools and households as it does to industries operating high-energy equipment. A brownout can halt production and create expensive problems for manufacturers.

The county’s aim is to improve its position on the grid as demand grows.

Zoning continues to expand across Anderson County, with Broadview joining other communities that have adopted land-use regulations.

Burns said zoning initially increases the work of planning staff and requires careful public engagement. But once an area is zoned, it creates clarity. A developer cannot simply locate an industrial use in a residential area because the use is not permitted there.

“If somebody comes in and says, ‘I want to put a popsicle factory in an area that’s residential,’ (zoning say) you can’t put the popsicle factory,” Burns said.

He described the process requesting zoning as bottom-up rather than top-down: community members determine what they want their areas to become.

“It’s the purest form of democracy you can have,” Burns said.

At Anderson Regional Airport, activity continues to grow. Fuel sales, not taxes, support airport operations, and a new large hangar is nearly complete, with three additional hangars are under construction at an airport with a substantial waiting list for aircraft storage.

Corporate aviation traffic continues to increase, Burns said. The airport is also adding a pavilion near the airport playground, where families will be able to hold reunions and picnics while watching aircraft.

Road funding remains a constant concern. The county has increased money available for paving through changes to fee-in-lieu revenue, while the state budget has added funds for C-Fund road work. Burns said state paving is visible around the county, but local roads still require far more money than is available.

“We still desperately need money for roads,” he said.

Rising fuel prices add another burden. The county operates sheriff’s vehicles, heavy equipment, bulldozers, trucks and other machinery that depend on gasoline and diesel.

“It costs the county,” Burns said. “We have a whole lot more cars, trucks, heavy equipment, bulldozers and things like that.”

The county is also using donated money to improve its animal shelter. Contributions will support enhancements to the puppy room and recreation room, while Lollis Metals has offered to build shade structures at no cost.

“They said: ‘We want to help animals,’” Burns said.

The shelter remains busy, as it always is, but Burns sees the community’s response as a measure of its values.

“This is a very big animal-loving county,” he said.

By the end of November, the county will turn from parades and construction to the downtown Christmas tree.

The lighting will occur the Friday before Thanksgiving week, as in previous years, though the official First Friday in December celebration will remain on the calendar for an official tree lighting downtown. This year’s tree is expected to rise more than 55 feet.

Burns acknowledged that while it is still smaller than the Rockefeller Center tree, getting to that size is not out of reach.

“Sometimes you have a big growth spurt,” he said.

A county turning 200 years old may celebrate itself with a bell, a parade, a book and a taller tree. But it also reveals itself through more those import decisions crucial to everyday life. Whether a jail is safe, whether an old courthouse stays public, whether a blighted lot becomes a home, whether a shelter has shade, whether a rural road gets paved and whether the lights stay on when the next factory opens, are only cogs in the machine that the county is charged with keeping oiled and running.