Greenville’s Bar Is 126 Years Old. Charleston’s Was Already 201 When It Opened

Two centuries later, the two ends of South Carolina still work for a living in entirely different ways.

In 1797 Lemuel Alston, the largest landowner in Greenville County, laid out a settlement on the east bank of the Reedy River and called it Greenville C. H. Village of Pleasantburg.

The mills came later. The South Carolina Encyclopedia counts several in the county by 1882, and describes the rail lines and northern money of the 1890s producing what it calls mill fever. Payrolls, contracts, injuries and land disputes came with them, and in 1900 the county’s lawyers organized. The Greenville County Bar Association reports more than fourteen hundred members today.

By then the Charleston bar had been at it for two centuries.

Charleston

The Charleston County Bar Association dates itself to 1699 and the arrival of Nicholas Trott at the Charles Town dock. Sixteen members by 1720. Forty-two by 1750. The colony’s business was rice, indigo and shipping, and its capital was among the busiest ports on the Atlantic coast. Lawyers followed the money in.

Two of them went to Washington. John Rutledge sat in the Constitutional Convention and was appointed Chief Justice by Washington in 1791. Jefferson appointed William Johnson in 1804. In 1826 the Charleston bar organized the first statewide association of attorneys in South Carolina.

Then it stopped growing. Seventy-three members at the turn of the twentieth century. Membership did not cross one thousand until the century was nearly gone. It reports upward of two thousand now.

One bar grew out of a harbor. The other grew out of a mill.

The Map

Greenville County holds more people than any county in South Carolina — 583,125 as of July 1, 2025. Charleston County holds 436,200. Greenville County is also growing faster, up 11.0 percent since the 2020 census against Charleston’s 6.8 percent.

Charleston County is the larger place on the ground, covering 917.98 square miles of land against Greenville County’s 785.93. More acreage, fewer people, and a good deal of that acreage is marsh and island.

The metropolitan areas run closer. Greenville-Anderson-Greer crossed a million residents for the first time last year at 1,014,101. Charleston-North Charleston stands at 889,263.

Three other numbers say more than the totals do. The median home in Charleston County was valued at $489,100 in recent Census survey figures, against $299,000 in Greenville County. Median household income runs $88,494 against $76,932. Half of Charleston County adults hold a bachelor’s degree; in Greenville County the figure is 41.3 percent.

Charleston is the wealthier and more expensive county. Greenville is the bigger and faster-growing one.

A note on which line you draw

Greenville has its own metropolitan area. So does Spartanburg. On the federal books they are separate, and the figures above reflect that.

They do not function separately. The two counties adjoin, they share Interstate 85, and the airport that serves both sits between them and carries both names. BMW’s logistics center in Greer connects to its plant campus by a private bridge over the interstate.

Spartanburg County held 380,857 people on July 1, 2025, and grew 16.1 percent since the 2020 census — faster than Greenville County and more than double Charleston County’s rate. Put the two Upstate counties together and they stand at 963,982. Two adjoining counties, thirty-six thousand short of a million.

The Office of Management and Budget groups the ten-county Upstate into a single combined statistical area of more than 1.6 million residents. OMB builds these groupings from commuting ties, while noting that the ties binding a combined area are weaker than those inside a single metro.

Dallas and Fort Worth are the case to keep in mind. OMB counts them as one metropolitan area — Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington — and subdivides it into a Dallas-Plano-Irving division and a Fort Worth-Arlington-Grapevine division. Two downtowns, one designation.

The Upstate sits one step behind that. When Charleston, or Columbia, or anyone else measures itself against Greenville, the honest opponent is Greenville and Spartanburg together.

The two Upstate counties are not interchangeable, though. A quarter of Spartanburg County adults hold a bachelor’s degree against 41.3 percent in Greenville County, and the median home there runs $233,300 against Greenville’s $299,000. One market, two very different halves.

Who Signs the Paychecks

Greenville builds machinery. Michelin North America keeps its headquarters there. JTEKT North America runs its regional headquarters in Greenville and manufactures drive shaft and bearing components in the county. Isuzu broke ground on a new production base there last year.

And BMW’s plant sits in Spartanburg County, outside the Greenville metro but inside the same combined statistical area, with a supplier network running through both. It is the largest plant in the BMW Group’s global system, turning out more than 1,500 vehicles a day and employing over 11,000 people. As of 2022 it had been the largest U.S. exporter by value for eight consecutive years.

The employment figures follow the roster. Production occupations account for 9.4 percent of jobs in the Greenville metro against 5.5 percent nationally — some 40,960 positions. Engine and machine assemblers work there at nearly eleven times the national rate.

Charleston builds aircraft, treats patients and moves cargo. Boeing employs more than nine thousand people in the region on the 787 Dreamliner line. The Medical University of South Carolina employs roughly seventeen thousand. Joint Base Charleston supports close to twenty-five thousand military and civilian jobs. Volvo Cars and Mercedes-Benz Vans both build vehicles in the tri-county area.

The harbor sits underneath all of it. South Carolina Ports moved 2.6 million twenty-foot equivalent units in fiscal 2025, along with 165,949 finished automobiles across the docks. The cargo does not stop at the coast — Inland Port Greer, the port’s Upstate rail arm, posted its best September on record last year.

And Charleston feeds visitors at a rate no other South Carolina metro matches. Food preparation and serving occupations make up 11.5 percent of employment there, against 8.8 percent nationally and 9.6 percent in Greenville.

One region turns out engines and tires. The other turns out airliners, surgeries, container moves and dinner.

The Two Bars Now

Charleston is the denser legal market. Legal occupations make up 0.9 percent of employment in that metro against 0.7 percent in Greenville, and above the national 0.8 percent.

Greenville is where a law license counts for more against its surroundings. Legal work ranks among the three best-paid occupational groups there. In Charleston it does not make the list, where management, computing and engineering take those places. Neither city pays its lawyers what the country pays; both run roughly a quarter below the national average.

The membership figures need the same caution as the population figures. Greenville County’s association counts Greenville County; Spartanburg runs its own. Charleston County’s covers the county holding most of its metro.

What the Record Will Not Say

It is widely assumed that Charleston practices maritime and hospitality law while Greenville practices manufacturing and injury law. The assumption is reasonable. No public record proves it.

The South Carolina Judicial Branch reports civil filings by county and by circuit, but reports filings by type of action for the state as a whole and no smaller unit. The federal courts report by district, and South Carolina is one district.

What built each bar is a matter of record. What crosses the desks this morning is not.

About the Author

Jim Toppe is the founder of Toppe Consulting, a digital marketing agency working with law firms, and serves as publisher and editor of South Carolina Manufacturing, a digital magazine. He holds a Master of Science in Management from Clemson University and teaches Business Law and Marketing at Greenville Technical College.

About Toppe Consulting

Toppe Consulting is a digital marketing agency in Salem, South Carolina, founded by Jim Toppe and Joe Toppe. The firm works with solo practitioners and small law firms on website development and public relations, with content written by working journalists and no long-term contracts. Contact Toppe Consulting.

Disclaimer

Toppe Consulting provides digital marketing services to law firms. This website does not offer legal advice.

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