Irvin Pitts Park is a corridor of land between the Saluda River and a canal carrying water from the dam to the hydroelectric powerhouse that supplied electricity to the Riegel textile mills and the village of Ware Shoals for most of the twentieth century, and the river was the natural resource that gave rise to Ware Shoals. The dam, the mill, and the town were all born in 1902, and the Ware Shoals Manufacturing Company, later renamed Riegel Textile Corporation, shaped the community for more than 80 years until it closed in 1985. The area contains many native birds, trees, vines, lizards, fish, snakes, mammals, and turtles, and the river’s granite shoals helped inspire the community’s name, which combined the name of gristmill owner Nicholas Ware with the shoals. The banks of the Saluda River had drawn people for picnicking, wading, and fishing for more than 200 years before the town sprang to life at the meeting point of Abbeville, Laurens, and Greenwood Counties. Nat Dial began construction of the river dam around the turn of the twentieth century to power his cotton plant, and when he ran out of money Benjamin Riegel bought the mill, completed the dam, and helped create the town. For more than 80 years the mill dominated the economic and social life of Ware Shoals, employing generations of local families and reaching a peak workforce of 5,000 in 1960 as one of the largest textile manufacturing centers in the southeastern United States. Its closing in 1985 greatly affected the town’s 2,000 citizens and economy, but the community continued to prosper, aided by Brownfields Project cleanup and redevelopment of the mill site and recognition with the 2001 Environmental Protection Agency Region 4 Rising Star Award. Other important community landmarks include Riegel Stadium, built in 1931 with labor from President Roosevelt’s nationwide job program and long known for baseball, including a 1954 exhibition game between the Cincinnati Red Legs and the Washington Senators; the Memorial Fountain, created in 1968 in front of Katherine Hall through local fundraising and memorial gifts for war veterans who worked at the mill; the former company store known as the Big Friendly, begun in 1906 and expanded into a modern department store in 1920 before closing in 1963; and Katherine Hall, built in 1913 as the Peoples' Amusement Hall and named for the Riegels’ only child, which served generations of mill workers and community activities.