Florence County (pop. 136,885) is west of Marion County. The only other Florence County is in Wisconsin.
The county seat is the city of Florence (pop. 37,056). It’s the eastern terminus of Interstate 20 (going west to Texas) and is about halfway between New York City and Miami on Interstate 95.
The central library for Florence County is the Doctors Bruce and Lee Foundation Library in Florence; it was built in 2004 for a cost of $13.5 million.
Francis Marion University is about six miles east of Florence. The public university has about 4,000 students.
The city of Timmonsville (pop. 2,320), birthplace of auto racer Cale Yarborough, has a large Honda plant that produces all-terrain vehicles.
The city of Lake City (pop. 6,478) was the hometown of Ronald McNair, one of the seven astronauts who died on the Space Shuttle Challenger in 1986.
Mars Bluff, an unincorporated area east of Florence, was accidentally bombed with a nuclear weapon by a U.S. Air Force B-47 in 1958. About 7,600 pounds of conventional explosives exploded, destroying one home and creating a 30-foot-deep crater.
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How does one “accidentally” drop a nuclear bomb?!! Good thing it wasn’t loaded.