Dean

Front: Dean is named for the Dean family, whose cemetery is located about a mile west. Samuel Dean came to South Carolina from Maryland in 1786 and settled here in the Mountain Creek area along with the Cummins and James families. Dean and his wife Gwendolyn James raised a large family and his descendants have lived here for more than two hundred years. Reverse: A depot was built at Dean in 1886 by the Savannah Valley Railroad (later the Charleston and Western Carolina Railroad). Described by the Anderson Intelligencer in 1896 as “a very pretty little town,” this rural community included the depot, a post office, several stores, a gristmill and sawmill, a blacksmith shop, a school, churches, and several residences.