In 1886, the Savannah Valley railroad reached lower Anderson County, and the depot town of Cook's Station, named for local physician and businessman Dr. Augustus G. Cook, later took the name Iva in honor of his daughter, Iva Cook Bryson. The settlement at first consisted of little more than a store, a grain mill or cotton gin, blacksmith shops, and a cottonseed oil mill. With the coming of the railroad, it changed from a farming settlement into a railroad community, and later into an industrial mill community when Jackson Mill was founded in 1906. In 1985, Iva officially became a Great Town in South Carolina, marking the beginning of its restoration. Outdoor recreation is abundant because of its proximity to Hartwell, Russell, Secession, and Thurmond Lakes, and the nearby Thomason-Bowie Outdoor Educational Farm is open to the public. Jackson Mill, built by Thomas C. Jackson and once considered one of the strongest cotton mills in the South, employed about 1500 workers at its peak and was the largest employer in that part of the county; although it closed in the 1990s, the building still stands and evidence of the mill village remains. Nearby Belton, chartered in 1855 as a child of the railroad, is now known for its revitalized town square and as the Tennis Capital of South Carolina, host of the annual Palmetto Championship, while Honea Path likewise developed from an agricultural community into a railroad town centered on Chiquola Mill and its mill village, and the nearby Split Creek Dairy Goat Farm offers cheeses, fudge, goat milk, goat milk soap, and art by one of the owners.