MARION — Mike Jackson is a lifelong son of Marion, a small, rural town hardly an hour from South Carolina’s coast.
He and his aunt opened Main Street Cleaners in 1983 in the heart of downtown.
He remembers the foot traffic.
Folks walked up and down Main Street, popped by businesses and window shopped. Barbershops, clothing stores, banks — everything they needed was right there, he said.
Then, the culture shifted.
Businesses closed, industries shrunk and money slowed. Downtown Marion became little more than a ghost town over the years.
Marion's downtown has several historically recognized buildings. G.E. Hinson/Staff
The Historic Marion Revitalization Association has been working to bring a rhythm back to downtown’s pulse. Grants, events and business support have been the backbone of downtown’s turnaround.
“We struggled to maintain,” Jackson said. “Now, it’s done better than maintain. It’s improved.”
The road to improvement
The Historic Marion Revitalization Association was formed in 1993. It originally functioned as more of an event planning organization, Executive Director Taylor Newell said.
Jackson was involved from the beginning.
Jackson was in his 40s when the nonprofit got off the ground. He and other older residents met on Tuesday mornings to see what they could do to keep their downtown alive.
They put on a number of minor events — photos with Santa and horse-drawn carriage rides at Christmas, essay contests for local elementary school kids, a photo book sale with historic Marion photography.
Something — anything, really — to keep the community’s engine running.
“In the 1990s, I don’t think we were focused as much on growth as we were on surviving,” Jackson said.
That period of time in Marion was hard, Jackson said. He remembers a slowdown in the town’s textile and tobacco industries — once heavy hitters in the area.
Marion relied on agriculture, namely tobacco, for decades after its stint as a Revolutionary War battleground. The town, originally Gilesborough, was renamed in 1847 after General Francis Marion, the area's notorious guerilla-fighting Revolutionary hero, known as the swamp Fox.
Money stopped coming in like it used to when planting and industry slowed down.
Downtown’s heartbeat left with it. Businesses were gone. People couldn’t go downtown for what they needed.
Marion residents started traveling for what they needed. They ran to Horry County’s beaches for entertainment and fun. They drove to Florence when they needed a new outfit or haircut.
They lived in Marion but didn’t function there.
Reinventing the revamp
Newell grew up in Marion, too. She moved back after starting a family and spending a few years in other South Carolina locales.
Marion's Main Street Commons opened as a community gathering spot in 2016. G.E. Hinson/Staff
“When I grew up here, it was more we drove downtown to get to church,” she said. “It was just the pass through.”
She got involved with the nonprofit when she moved back to Marion. She wants her town — her home — to be somewhere her kids can return to one day like she did. Somewhere they can be proud of.
The Historic Marion Revitalization Association started taking a different approach around five years ago. What was once an event planning organization is now a backbone for local businesses.
The nonprofit offers grants to help bring businesses back downtown. It applies for grants that are pooled to award to downtown business owners.
Facade grants are one of their biggest pulls.
Those funds help business owners give the outside of their buildings a facelift. It can help cover anything from paint, outdoor light fixtures or a new roof.
Facades are the tip of the iceberg.
Tactical urbanism grants give business owners the ability to add flare outside of their spaces. Outdoor games, furniture, sidewalk signs and landscaping are all covered under the grant.
Sign grants help businesses evade Newell’s dreaded adversary: the “strip mall sign.”
Applicants can get up to a 75 percent match of a project’s cost from the nonprofit because of the grants. That could be the cost of paint for an entire building, installation of new windows and signs. The match is one of the nonprofit’s biggest assets.
“We're able to really help people get things going, get things off the ground, and, and show that we have skin in the game, too,” Newell said.
The formula has been working. A combination of a larger-than-average match with the nonprofit’s willingness to go beyond its original purpose caused a shift downtown.
Downtown Marion saw 13 businesses open in a one-year period around 2021. Finally, a boom after nearly three decades of silence. Some of the businesses didn’t stay open for long, Newell said, but that can happen to anyone.
There are boutiques, ice cream shops, a coffee shop and antique stores. Even a pizza place is on the horizon.
Today, there’s only one available storefront in Marion, Newell said. Locals aren’t traveling to the coast or Florence as much. Visitors from neighboring towns, near and far, are traveling to see Marion’s facelift.
“It’s heartwarming,” Jackson said. “It really has restored a sense of pride.”
Part of a whole
Brittany Fincannon’s business, Swoon Boutique, opened downtown nearly two years ago. She’s also from Marion — born and raised.
She grew up in the same Marion that Newell did. The one that was quiet and usually empty.
She and her friends would drive to Myrtle Beach or Florence when they were in high school just to have something to do.
Swoon Boutique was one of the first businesses to join downtown Marion's recent boom. G.E. Hinson/Staff
Fincannon returned to Marion after attending college in Charleston. She never imagined that she’d own a business in the same downtown that she and her friends drove away from every weekend.
She also couldn't imagine it would be in the same building where her aunt and uncle had a clothing store 30 years ago.
“What’s been the most exciting part is that all these people notice the change and they want to be a part of it,” she said.
The downtown business owners have their own little community now, she said. They have a group text full of advice, alerts and support for one another. There are no feelings of competition or anxiety.
That only happens in a small town, she said.
Fincannon, a member of the Historic Marion Revitalization Association's board of directors, thinks that the organization has been instrumental in making Marion a place that young people want to be again.
The nonprofit still plans and hosts events beyond business support.
The events are much bigger than they were three decades ago. A summer concert series, sponsored by the Marion Chamber of Commerce and the association, draws hundreds of locals and visitors downtown.
A farmer’s market packs downtown on the first and third Saturdays for nine months out of the year. Paint Your Part, a yearly art competition, keeps local art hanging in an alleyway near Swoon Boutique.
The Historic Marion Revitalization Association's Paint Your Part contest is held annually. G.E. Hinson/Staff
The nonprofit is helping build businesses, but the events help make sure people know downtown is back and here to stay, Newell said. They’re trying to build a community people are proud of.
Years of silence and stillness sparked the Historic Marion Revitalization Association’s push for a better downtown. Their grants, events and business support have made a world of difference to the once sleepy town.
Today, there’s only one ghost left in the former ghost town. It’s nestled away in the last available storefront on Main Street.
It’s surrounded by a new energy — new life — that many in Marion thought they’d never have again.
