Bishopville: From a Crossroads Tavern to a County Seat

The land that became Bishopville was granted by the state of South Carolina in seventeen eighty-six and eventually passed to William Singleton, who built a log-cabin tavern at the intersection of two stagecoach roads. Travelers stopping between Georgetown and Charlotte dubbed the place Singleton's Cross Roads. After William died in seventeen ninety-eight, his wife Frances kept the tavern running until her own death in eighteen twenty.

In eighteen twenty-one, a man named Jacques Bishop bought the property, and the settlement took his name. When Lee County was created in eighteen ninety-two, Bishopville became its county seat, a role it still holds today.