Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1982.
From the record
“People's Free Library of South Carolina is a historic library building located at Lowrys, Chester County, South Carolina, United States. It was built in 1903-04, and is a small, one-story, rectangular building with a single room.”
Wikipedia article People's Free Library of South Carolina, CC BY-SA 4.0.
One of 19 National Register listings published here for Chester County · listed in 1982 · category: Building.
National Register reference number.82001520- the number the National Park Service assigned this property when it was listed, and the key its nomination file is catalogued under at the National Archives.
Fires near this property
107 since 1992
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The
federal wildfire occurrence database
lists 107 fires within 5 miles of People's Free Library of South Carolina
between 1992 and 2019, burning about 400 acres in total. None started naturally. 5 were recorded as arson.
Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a fire counted
here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.
Reported cause
Fires
Missing data/not specified/undetermined
59
Debris and open burning
24
Equipment and vehicle use
10
Arson/incendiarism
5
Smoking
3
Misuse of fire by a minor
3
Recreation and ceremony
1
Other causes
1
Power generation/transmission/distribution
1
The most recent of
them, most recent first, with the day each was reported and the service
that recorded it.
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists
4 workings within 5 miles of People's Free Library of South Carolina: 3 producers, 1 unknown.
3 still produce. What was taken out: Sand and Gravel, Construction, Granite, Stone, Crushed/Broken, Stone, Crushed/Broken. Distance is straight-line from the
map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring
settlement's page as well.
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The National Weather Service names
Lowrys, the town this property stands in, in 16 storm reports between 1994 and 2024: 9 thunderstorm wind, 5 hail, 1 tornado, 1 heavy rain.
The reports record 1 death and 4 injuries. Each account below is quoted exactly as the forecast office
filed it, from the NOAA Storm Events Database, and each date
opens the federal record of that event.
A short-lived, but intense, mesocyclone developed along a squall line ahead of a cold front at about 0045 EST and moved into western Chester County. The mesocyclone intensified within a matter of 10 to 20 minutes into a F2 tornado that touched down four miles southwest of Lowrys and moved four miles to near Lowrys before dissipating. Three mobile homes completely disintegrated, three barns crushed, a new pickup truck was completely destoyed, four mobile homes were damaged, four people were injured (one seriously) and another killed. More than 2000 residents lost electrical power due to the tornado. F64M.
Several pine trees were blown down and minor roof damage was reported to several homes along George Bridge Rd and Thompson Quarters Rd in extreme northwest Chester County. One tree fell on and destroyed a barn.
County comms reported multiple tree limbs blown down on power lines and at least a couple of trees down in the northern and eastern parts of Chester County.
Numerous trees were blown down from near Lowrys in the northern part of the county, across the city of Chester, to areas southeast of Chester. Numerous roads were blocked by fallen trees. In addition, six metal turkey houses were damaged at a farm near Lowrys, killing numerous turkeys.
No historic map-sheet match is published
for this property yet. That does not mean no map exists. This record needs
a coordinate-quality review before it can be joined to a sheet boundary.
Browse the county's mapped places while that work is
pending.
Listed places nearby
6 within 8 miles
Other National Register properties close
enough to walk or drive between, ordered by distance from this one. Both
positions come from the same geocoding pass that matched these properties
to their map sheets.
Listing record. National Park Service National Register of Historic Places, listed-properties dataset, current to 2026-05-22.
Map join. Address geocoded through the United States Census geocoder, then tested against the published boundary of every sheet in the USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection.
How this page is made. Listing fields come from federal records; map-sheet coverage is a labelled coordinate-to-boundary calculation, not a source-field claim.
Wildfire. Short, Karen C. 2022. Spatial wildfire occurrence data for the United States, 1992-2020 [FPA_FOD_20221014]. 6th Edition. Fort Collins, CO: Forest Service Research Data Archive. https://doi.org/10.2737/RDS-2013-0009.6 Collected with United States Government funding and usable without additional permissions or fees.
Mines and quarries. USGS Mineral Resources Data System (MRDS) https://mrdata.usgs.gov/mrds/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105.
Storms. NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Storm Events Database https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/stormevents/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105. Narratives are quoted verbatim from the National Weather Service report and are not edited or summarised.
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