A town with horse history and grand colonial homes, charming Camden has never paved some of its roads for the sake of the hooves that regularly trot over them. The steeplechase season-opening Carolina Cup is run here each spring.
Camden is South Carolina's oldest inland town, dating from 1732. British general Lord Cornwallis established a garrison here during the Revolutionary War and burned most of the town before evacuating it. A center of textile trade from the late 19th century through the 1940s, Camden blossomed when it became a refuge for Northerners escaping the cold winters. Because General Sherman spared the town during the Civil War, most of its antebellum homes still stand.
