Mars Bluff is the center of a rural community eight miles across in both directions, bounded by the Great Pee Dee River, Black Creek, and Jefferies Creek. A ferry across the Great Pee Dee began operation in 1767, and Patriot and Loyalist militia later clashed in the area during the Revolution. Mars Bluff grew in size and significance after the Wilmington and Manchester Railroad arrived in the 1850s. By the 1830s J. Eli Gregg (1805-1873) ran a general store south of here, and when the railroad was completed in 1853 he built a new store on this site across from the depot. A blacksmith shop, cotton gin, grist mill, and saw mill made this the focus of Mars Bluff life for many years. Gregg’s original store had burned by 1930, but a store operated on this site until the 1950s.