HistoricSiteMarkers
Postwar & Contemporary

Blue Star Memorial Highway A tribute to the Armed

Dillon County, Dillon County, South Carolina

Marker Inscription

Blue Star Memorial Highway A tribute to the Armed Forces that have defended the United States of America sponsored by The Garden Club of South Carolina in cooperation with The South Carolina Department of Highways and Public Transportation

Erected by National Garden Clubs, Inc.

The Story

The Blue Star Memorial Highway program started in 1945 and spread nationwide, honoring the armed forces with markers named for the blue-star service flags of the World War era. This Dillon County, South Carolina marker was sponsored by the Garden Club of South Carolina with the state highway department. It ties the Pee Dee region into a national chain of roadside tributes.

Why it matters

It is part of one of America's most widespread volunteer-built memorial programs, honoring service mile by mile.

Own a business near here? Add it to the map.

Themes & tags

Nearby & related markers

Blue Star Memorial Highway (Robeson County)

Robeson County, NC

The Blue Star Memorial began in 1945 as a garden-club tribute to World War II troops, its blue star borrowed from the service banners families hung in their windows, and it spread into a nationwide roadside memorial program. This Robeson County marker is notable for its sponsors: youth clubs of The Garden Club of North Carolina, working with WoodmenLife chapters and the state Department of Transportation. It honors the armed forces that have defended the nation.

Mars Bluff Atomic Bomb Accident (1958)

Florence County, SC

At the height of Cold War tension in March 1958, a B-47 bomber on a training flight bound for England accidentally released an atomic bomb over the South Carolina countryside near Mars Bluff. The weapon carried no nuclear core, but its conventional trigger charge detonated on impact, blasting a crater dozens of feet across and demolishing the farmstead of railroad conductor Walter Gregg. Gregg's family and a niece were injured by the concussion, and buildings for miles around were shaken.

Sneedsborough

Anson County, NC

Laid out in 1795 on the banks of the Pee Dee River, Sneedsborough was promoted by the reformer Archibald D. Murphey as an inland port that would carry Piedmont goods to market. The dream never fully materialized, the town faded, and today only its graveyard remains. It stands as a quiet reminder of the many speculative river towns that never grew.

Campbelton Colonial River Port

Fayetteville, NC

Chartered in 1762, Campbelton was a busy colonial trading town near the head of navigation on the Cape Fear River, where goods from the backcountry met boats bound for the coast. Its riverside commerce drew Scottish merchants and inland farmers alike. In time it joined with neighboring Cross Creek to become Fayetteville, named in honor of the Marquis de Lafayette.