Newberry, South Carolina

This small town is the home of Newberry College, a liberal-arts Lutheran school. It is located on a ninety-acre campus just north from the center of town on College Street. The crown-jewel of Newberry’s historic downtown is the 1882 Newberry Opera House, with its impressive 130-feet-high French Gothic clock tower. Nearby Lynches Woods is part of the 425-mile-long Palmetto Trail that traverses South Carolina from the mountains to the sea. Newberry has many features that we consider desirable in a small town. These include an abundance of historic masonry structures, brick-paved streets, coffee shops, sidewalk cafes, book stores and antique shops. Its location between Greenville-Spartanburg and Columbia makes Newberry a popular small-town-getaway escape from these metropolitan areas. In 1996, Newberry was recognized in the book The 100 Best Small Towns in America and, in 2001, was nominated by Sweitzer & Fields in their publication The 50 Best Small Southern Towns.