Pacolet Mills was the company village of the Pacolet Manufacturing Company, on the Pacolet River east of Spartanburg. The company's mills went up in the 1880s and 1890s, the 1903 flood destroyed much of the complex, and the village was rebuilt. Most of the houses standing today were built between 1915 and 1920. The mills themselves were torn down in the late 1980s.
Pacolet Mills was once its own town. In 1997 it merged with Pacolet Station to form today's Town of Pacolet, so the old mill village is now inside town limits. The Pacolet Mills Historic District, listed on the National Register in 2007, covers about 112 acres and 126 contributing buildings, roughly bounded by Brewster, Millikin, Walker, Montgomery and Moore streets and Granite Avenue.
Since the village is inside the town, permits run through the Town of Pacolet, which contracts its building inspections out. Spartanburg Water supplies water, and the Spartanburg Sanitary Sewer District runs a treatment plant at Pacolet. Pacolet Mills is part of the Gas Guys service area, and we answer around the clock.
Pacolet Mills at a glance
- Natural gas
- City of Union (Union Gas); confirm on your bill. Pacolet Town Hall takes payments for Union Gas, the City of Union's gas system; we could not confirm gas service street by street in the mill village, so your bill is the final word.
- Water
- Spartanburg Water
- Sewer
- Spartanburg Sanitary Sewer District
- Permits
- Town of Pacolet, through its contracted building inspection firm
- Housing
- National Register mill village of Craftsman bungalows and Tudor Revival houses built 1915 to 1920, with later homes around it.
Plumbing and gas in Pacolet Mills: what to know
Bungalows on piers
Many of the 1915 to 1920 bungalows sit on brick piers with open or skirted crawlspaces. Plumbing was added and redone under the floor over the decades, so supply lines often run a long way through cold, drafty space. That is where lines freeze and split in January.
The last of the galvanized
When a house has a little galvanized pipe left, it tends to be the oldest pipe in the system and the main source of rust, low flow and leaks. Replacing what remains with PEX, supported and insulated in the crawlspace, usually ends the cycle of patching in a small bungalow.
Black iron gas pipe
With Union Gas, as with any utility, the meter and service line belong to the gas system and the house piping belongs to you. Old black iron gas pipe in a mill house is usually fine if it is tight and properly sized. Adding a range, dryer or tankless heater means checking that the existing pipe can carry the new total load.
Historic district, ordinary repairs
National Register listing recognizes the village as a whole; on its own it does not control plumbing work inside a privately owned house. Most jobs here need the same town permit as anywhere else in Pacolet. If you are planning exterior changes, ask Town Hall about any local rules first.