The town of Mullins, first known as Mullins Depot, grew up as a result of the opening of the Wilmington and Manchester Railroad in 1854. William S. Mullins gave land here for the railroad’s buildings and right-of-way and was elected president of the Wilmington and Manchester in 1857. A frame railroad depot built here in 1901 was remodeled in 1931. Mullins was incorporated on March 4, 1872, by an act of the S.C. General Assembly, which set the town limits as “half a mile north, one-quarter of a mile east and west, and one-third of a mile south” from a stake near here. Dr. Rudolph Vampill was elected first intendant, with A. E. Gilchrist, D. W. Ketchum, James Norton, and Stephen Smith as wardens, and Smith was also the community's first postmaster, appointed in 1855.