Eastover, named for being “east and over” from Columbia, was a small rural community in the mid-19th century that grew into a town after the Wilmington, Columbia, & Augusta Railroad completed its line through the area in 1871. The town was chartered in 1880 and incorporated in 1907, with its limits set as one-half mile in each direction from the tracks through the center of town. Railroad lines to and through Lower Richland County expanded local markets and helped farmers and merchants prosper. By 1910 Eastover, then the only incorporated town in the county outside of Columbia, had a post office, a bank, several stores, and a cotton gin. In 1984 Union Camp, later International Paper, opened a pulp and paper plant near the town.