Interest in building a town at the intersection of present day U.S. Route 178US 178 (Charleston, South CarolinaCharleston Highway) and S.C. 210 (Branchville, SCBranchville-Providence Roads) was evidenced in the acquisition of substantial properties of the Reddick A. Bowman estate by one http://dibblebook.tripod.com/ Samuel W. Dibble, Sr. of Orangeburg, SC in 1887. The Smoak Tramway, a six-mile logging railroad extending from Branchville toward north Four Holes Swamp which was chartered in 1884, was also targeted for acquisition by Mr. Dibble's associate, Thomas M. Raysor, who operated the Raysor Mill near Stokes. These actions, aimed at developing and exploiting the agricultural and lumbering potential of an area that had remained rather dormant since the American Civil War, were taking place in the late 1880s. These represented the prelude to the chartering of the future Town of Bowman and the transportation and land development organizations and operations which preceded its chartering. The site chosen for Bowman was actually situated in the center of a rice farming country, later transformed into a major cotton producing area where the land has a clay sub-soil, ideal for this and other crops. it was located on an old road that was traveled in colonial days by people going from Charleston to Orangeburg, and which was once alleged to have been known as Oak Ridge, a plateau about ten miles long and five miles wide. Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bowman%2C_South_Carolina