Easley, SC: The Train That Ran Backward, the Mills Along the Doodle Trail and a City That Runs Its Own Power

On the 8.5-mile run between Easley and Pickens, the Pickens Railroad train went out headfirst and came back in reverse, because its engine had no way to turn around. It backed down the line like a doodlebug, which is how it came to be called the Doodle. Freight rode that line for more than a century, until the last train ran on April 2, 2013. That August, the City of Easley and the City of Pickens bought the line together for $500,000.

Easley is a railroad and mill city of about 22,900 people, by the 2020 Census, that runs its own electric, water and sewer and is joined to Pickens by the Doodle Trail. I'm Jeff Moran, NMLS #483943, a mortgage broker licensed in South Carolina through C2 Financial Corporation, and I have been in the mortgage business since 1996. My office is down in Bluffton, so everything here comes from the public record: the state encyclopedia, the Pickens County Courier, Upstate TV and newspapers, and state and county offices. I checked it on October 21, 2026. The wider Upstate, from Greenville to Anderson, is on my Greenville area page, and this page stays in Easley.

The Doodle Trail starts at Doodle Park on Fleetwood Drive

The two cities opened the old rail bed as the Doodle Trail over Memorial Day weekend in 2015, with the ribbon cutting on May 23. Easley's trailhead is Doodle Park, at 514 Fleetwood Drive, where you'll find a playground, restrooms and picnic shelters about half a mile from downtown.

City Council also gave preliminary approval to a route that brings trail users closer to downtown without crossing the railroad. It sends them down Wilbur Street, made one-way for the purpose, and through the cemetery to the sidewalk in front of the Easley Police Department. The cemetery stretch closes during funerals. The Courier's reports on that route are undated, so if you are counting on walking from a particular street to the trail, please ask the City whether that piece is open.

If a home near a rail trail is what drew you to the Upstate, Travelers Rest has its own version of this story at the north end of the Swamp Rabbit Trail.

Robert Holcombe's depot, and William King Easley's name

The Atlanta & Charlotte Air Line was building through this part of the county in 1873 when Robert Elliott Holcombe made the railroad an offer. He would build the depot himself, at his own expense, if the tracks ran through land he owned or held an option on. The railroad said yes. Holcombe laid out the lots and became the town's first intendant, or mayor, and he asked that the town carry another man's name.

That man was William King Easley, a Pickens County native and the lawyer for the railroad company, who is credited with pushing the line through the county. He died before the town was laid out. A Greenville newspaper reported on August 8, 1872 that he had died in Atlanta while working on the Air Line, and it called him "mainly instrumental" in the whole enterprise. The South Carolina Encyclopedia says the General Assembly chartered the town on January 20, 1874. Downtown Main Street still runs beside that same track, which Norfolk Southern operates today.

Easley Mill, Alice, Glenwood, Arial and Southern Weaving

Cotton came next. The state encyclopedia says a cotton buyer named John M. Geer got the townspeople to raise the stock for Easley Cotton Mills. Glenwood Cotton Mills followed in 1902 and Alice Mills in 1910.

The Easley Mill building at 601 South 5th Street is a four-story brick mill from 1900, designed by the firm Lockwood, Greene & Company. Dan River ran it until 1990, and it went on the National Register of Historic Places on September 23, 2013. Residents started moving into Easley Mill Lofts in the summer of 2021. The builder, Triangle Construction, kept the original hardwood floors and the exposed trusses, and the apartments run from one to three bedrooms over five floors.

Foster McKissick and his son Ellison bought Alice Mill in 1923 and renamed it Alice Manufacturing Company. The family went on to build Arial at the end of the 1920s, then Elljean in 1953, Foster in 1959 and Ellison in 1966. The president of Alice Manufacturing, E. Smyth McKissick IV, is the fifth generation of the family. A local museum director told the Courier that the McKissicks once wrote to Walt Disney for permission to use the Alice in Wonderland image as the mill's logo. Alice has since sold the 19.2-acre Arial site on Rice Road to a group led by Farpoint Development, which plans lofted apartments along the Doodle Trail.

On Fern Street, just off the trail, is a mill that first housed Hudson's Narrow Fabric. Southern Weaving later made its cargo-restraint and safety fabrics there, and the building has been redeveloped as a community hub. The Post and Courier reported that the Southern Weaving Food Hall at 210 Fern Street was set to open in July 2025 with six food concepts and a separately run restaurant. The partners also rebuilt an outdoor venue with a 40-foot stage and seats for more than 700. Discover South Carolina's write-up named stands such as Doodle Noodle and Burger Lab.

North 1st Street, Old Market Square and the trains on Main

Easley City Hall is on North 1st Street, and the engine and coal tender of a bronze toy train stand in front of it. The rest of the cars are scattered near shops and landmarks downtown as a scavenger hunt called Trains on Main. Local artist Zan Wells made the molds, and Wells is also the artist behind Greenville's Mice on Main.

On Saturday mornings in season, the Easley Farmers Market sets up in the lot in front of City Hall, at 205 North 1st Street. The City's 2026 page listed May 9 through August 29, from 9 a.m. to noon, with no market on July 4. It takes EBT and SNAP, senior vouchers and Healthy Bucks.

The City finished an amphitheater in Old Market Square in October 2011, and Movies on the Market and Music on the Market have both run there. The Easley Spring Fling came back to the square on April 11, 2026, from noon to 8 p.m., with Luke Deuce, Nathan Angelo, Freebird and John King, and Prisma Health as the main sponsor. In December, the Greater Easley Chamber of Commerce runs the Christmas Parade of Lights on a Saturday evening. The City lights its Christmas tree too, and its 2025 calendar listed that for Friday, November 28. The Chamber sets each year's parade date, so I'd check with them for 2026.

Over on South 5th Street, Foothills Playhouse has put on its shows at West End Hall since 1991. Volunteers started it in 1981 as Easley Community Theatre, and its first season was at Easley High, according to a 2026 resolution in the South Carolina House.

The Easley library at 304 Biltmore Road is the Captain Kimberly Hampton Memorial Library. Captain Hampton was an Easley native who flew the Army's OH-58D Kiowa Warrior, and she was shot down near Fallujah on January 2, 2004. Beside the library, a Kiowa airframe painted by Lockheed Martin with her call sign, "Dark Horse 6," arrived in December 2019 for the Operation Dragonfly memorial.

The City's parks are spread around town as well. Pope Field Community Park on Pope Field Road has six renovated tennis and pickleball courts, Hagood Park on Liberty Road has the dog park, and J.B. "Red" Owens Park has the ball fields and the Larry Bagwell Gym.

Calhoun Memorial Highway, SC-153 and the land being added to the city

US-123, Calhoun Memorial Highway, is the commercial corridor through Easley. The SC-153 extension opened on December 8, 2020 to take some of that load. SCDOT describes it as a new three-lane road running 4.4 miles from US-123 north to Saluda Dam Road, with three roundabouts and a multi-use path beside it.

Annexation requests have followed that road north. WSPA reported a developer's request to annex about 153 acres in two pieces: 65 acres at SC-153 and Saco Lowell Road, where the City's building official put the total at 286 homes, and about 93 acres near Saluda Dam Road. I did not find the dates or the council's final action on either, so the City's planning office is the place to ask about land near a home you are considering.

The City paused new development under a moratorium set to run out in November 2025, and Mayor Lisa Talbert said a new Unified Development Ordinance had to pass first. Council gave that ordinance its first reading on a split vote in September 2025. If you are buying in a newer subdivision or next to open land, the planning office can tell you which rules now apply to the parcels around you.

The newest proposal is a Target on land behind QuikTrip and Rock Springs Baptist Church, near US-123 and Rock Springs Road. A July 13, 2026 work session reviewed annexing and rezoning four parcels, about 37 acres, and the developer said the store would pause a 108-townhome project already approved on two of them. The City held a public input meeting on August 11, 2026 at the Larry Bagwell Gym. I have not seen a final council vote, so I'd treat the Target as proposed until there is one.

Easley High on Pelzer Highway and Gettys Middle on Pendleton Street

The School District of Pickens County runs Easley's public schools. Easley High School, home of the Green Wave, is at 154 Green Wave Boulevard along SC-8, Pelzer Highway. Ground was broken in 2007, and students moved into the new building for the 2012-13 school year.

In 2013, the school board voted 4-1 to put all of the Easley area's middle school students on the former Easley High campus on Pendleton Street. After a $24.2 million renovation, it became Richard H. Gettys Middle School, at 510 South Pendleton Street. Easley's first high school building, from 1909, is a different place. It is the Easley High School Auditorium at 112 Russell Street, now residential condominiums. Its National Register listing dates to 1999.

The district is also building Gateway to Innovation, or G2i, a countywide school for grades 3 through 12 that opens in January 2027. It is in the City of Pickens, on Sparks Lane, and it serves students from the whole county. Assignment to a particular elementary, middle or high school goes by the home's address, so please confirm it with the district for the home you are considering.

Baptist Easley on Fleetwood Drive, and the hospital going up off SC-153

Prisma Health Baptist Easley Hospital is at 200 Fleetwood Drive, the same street as Doodle Park. It opened in 1958 as the second hospital of the Baptist system in Columbia, which became part of Palmetto Health through a 1998 merger and part of Prisma Health in 2017. Recent projects there include a 2021 renovation of the emergency department's Fast Track area and a new infusion suite for the Larry Winn, MD Cancer Unit.

Prisma also broke ground on May 19, 2025 on a three-story, 112-bed behavioral health hospital on a tract off SC-153 near Easley, with Governor McMaster at the ceremony. Greenville Business Magazine reported that it replaces the 65-bed Marshall I. Pickens Hospital in Greenville and is expected to be finished in 2027.

An Easley address, the city limits and the county

Easley's two ZIP codes, 29640 and 29642, cover about 136 square miles by zip-codes.com's count, and the city itself covers about 13. So a home with an Easley address can be well outside the City of Easley. It can even be in another county. The state announced Signature Foods USA's plant at 211 Pine Road, Easley, as an Anderson County project.

So the first thing I would pull on any Easley home is the county's parcel record. It shows which county assesses the home and whether the home is inside the city. Being inside the City of Easley decides whether the City's own tax is on the property tax bill, how ECU bills the electric, water and sewer, and whether the City's fire and police departments cover it.

The City runs the power, the water and the sewer

Easley Combined Utilities, ECU, is owned by the City. According to a 2011 resolution of the General Assembly, the City created its waterworks and its electric system in 1911, combined them in 1953 and added sewer under a 1959 ordinance. The ECU name dates to 1998.

On April 1, 2026, ECU raised its electric charges 1.5% and its sewer charges by up to 5.7%. FOX Carolina's example was a 2,000 square foot home, with the electric bill going from $127 to $129 and sewer from $56 to $59. More electric increases are scheduled through 2033, and another sewer increase in April 2027.

Natural gas comes from Fort Hill Natural Gas Authority, which has its office at 311 South Pendleton Street. The state created it in 1952 to serve Anderson, Oconee and Pickens counties, and it has run out of Easley since 1956. For a home outside the city limits, you will want to confirm the electric, water, sewer and gas providers for that exact parcel.

Property tax on an Easley home

Inside the city, the City of Easley adds its own millage on top of the Pickens County and school district levies. A mill is one dollar of tax for every $1,000 of assessed value. The Courier reported in May 2026 that the City's proposed budget for 2026-27 carried no millage increase. Pickens County also mailed countywide reassessment notices in September 2025. The Pickens County Auditor has the current rate for each tax district, and the tax bill on the home you are considering shows it best.

A home you own and live in as your legal residence can be taxed at South Carolina's 4% assessment rate instead of 6%, and the owner has to apply for it. The state's regulation sets the deadline at January 15 for the first year you claim it. For a home in Pickens County, that application goes to the Pickens County Assessor, and for an Easley address in Anderson County it goes to Anderson County instead.

Georges Creek and the flood map

Flood checks in Easley start with Georges Creek. During Tropical Storm Cindy in 2005, the state climatology office reported water from the creek entering eight homes in one subdivision. On September 27, 2024, during Helene, the National Weather Service's flash flood emergency for Pickens and Oconee counties named Easley among the places expected to flood.

Neither event says anything about a particular street. The FEMA flood map is the place to look, and you can pull its panel for the exact parcel. If the home is in the Special Flood Hazard Area, the high-risk zone on FEMA's map, the lender will require flood insurance, and the premium becomes part of your monthly payment.

The loan side of an Easley purchase

The 2026 conforming and FHA loan limits for Pickens County are in the box below this article. The conforming limit is the largest loan Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will buy. Anderson County is in the same metro area and carries the same limits, so an Easley address on the Anderson side does not change them. Your monthly payment includes the property tax at the 4% or 6% assessment, the homeowners policy, flood insurance where FEMA's map requires it and any association dues. A lender qualifies you on that whole number.

No official source publishes association dues for Easley's newer subdivisions, so I'm not quoting one. Please ask for the association's budget and dues schedule before you settle on a payment. Once you have an Easley address in mind, I'd be glad to put that parcel's actual tax bill into the numbers and go through them with you.

If you'd like your financing reviewed before you start touring homes, my page on pre-approval in South Carolina explains how the letter comes together. If you already own a home in Easley and want to look at your rate or your equity, my South Carolina refinance page covers both. Attorney closings and the rest of the state's rules are on my South Carolina mortgage page.

You can run your numbers for an Easley purchase whenever you're ready, with no credit pull and no account. You will see pricing for your scenario and choose a rate option, and that selection can change later if your plans do.

Nothing here is a loan approval, a denial or a commitment to lend, and it is not tax advice. The county assessor sets the value on a parcel and decides whether it gets the 4% legal-residence assessment, and the City of Easley confirms its own limits, so please check with both before you rely on them.

Common questions

Is a home with an Easley address inside the City of Easley?

Not always. The Easley ZIP codes cover about ten times as much land as the city does, so many homes with an Easley address are outside the city limits. The county's parcel record shows whether a home is inside the City of Easley, and that decides city millage, ECU service and city fire and police coverage.

Is Easley in Pickens County or Anderson County?

Pickens County. The City of Easley is a Pickens County city: the School District of Pickens County runs its public schools, and Pickens County's loan limits are in the box on this page. An Easley mailing address can still be in Anderson County, as the Signature Foods plant on Pine Road is. Please check the county's parcel record for the home you are considering, because it shows which county assesses that home and where to apply for the 4% legal-residence assessment.

Who provides electric, water and sewer in Easley?

Inside the city, Easley Combined Utilities, which the City owns, provides electric, water and sewer, and the City has run its electric and water systems since 1911. Natural gas comes from Fort Hill Natural Gas Authority on South Pendleton Street. For a home outside the city limits, please confirm each provider for that parcel.

Why is it called the Doodle Trail?

The trail follows the old Pickens Railroad line between Easley and Pickens. Its engine could not turn around, so the train ran backward one way, like a doodlebug, and it was nicknamed the Doodle. The last train ran in 2013, and the two cities opened the trail in 2015, with Easley's end at Doodle Park on Fleetwood Drive.

Which middle school serves Easley?

The Pickens County school board voted in 2013 to bring the Easley area's middle school students together on one campus, the former Easley High School on Pendleton Street. It reopened as Gettys Middle School after a renovation. Assignment goes by address, so please confirm it with the district for the home you are considering.

How do I get the 4% property tax rate on an Easley home?

You apply to the county assessor after you buy and move in, and the deadline is January 15 for the first year you claim it. For a home in Pickens County, that is the Pickens County Assessor. If the parcel record shows the home is in Anderson County, the application goes to Anderson County instead.