CLEMSON, S.C. (WSPA) - Clemson University historians said the city of Clemson and the university have always had a strong connection.

Historians said the city of Clemson used to be the “Town of Calhoun,” named for former United States Vice President John C. Calhoun, who had a plantation built in 1803, later named Fort Hill.

“Prior to that, it was all eastern band Cherokee land. Then what happens is Thomas Green Clemson, both of his children died in adulthood, so he didn't have someone to leave his land to,” Otis Westbrook Pickett Sr., Clemson University Historian, said.

Businesses started to grow in the 1930s, which is what we know today as downtown. Then, faculty at the school started raising children here in the 1940s.

It was first Clemson Agriculture College in the late 1800s, then

See Full Page