The original inhabitants of Laurens were the Cherokee. John Duncan, the first known white settler, arrived in 1754.
The county's name derives from the Honorable Henry Laurens of Charleston, president of the Continental Congress during the Revolutionary War and later an ambassador to France.
The town of Laurens (known as Laurensville well into the 1800s) became the county seat and the first courthouse was erected in 1786. By 1820, Laurens was known for its trade of tailor-made clothes, which is what drew Andrew Johnson, a future U.S. president, and his brother to Laurens. They arrived in 1824 and established a tailor shop.
By 1840, the area was booming. The local landmark courthouse on the square was built that year and later enlarged in 1857. Businesses in the area included medical practitioners, a fancy confectionery and fruit store, carriage, buggy and wagon shops, tailoring establishments, building contractors, flour and corn mills, and 81 registered whiskey distilleries.
No military action occurred in Laurens during the Civil War, but many native sons were casualties of the war. During Jefferson Davis's flight from Richmond, he passed through Laurens and gave a speech to the residents of Mountville.
By the end of the nineteenth century, textiles were becoming very important in Laurens and the upstate. The Laurens Cotton Mill was established in 1895. Mercer Silas Bailey built the first cotton mill in Clinton in 1896, and both Lydia Mill and Watts Mill were established in 1902. Today, textiles have been displaced by a wide variety of industries: plastics, automotive, and advanced manufacturing.
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