Concert Pavilion Will Seat Hundreds

Hagood Mill Site Manager is excited about plans to build a concert pavilion at the Hagood Mill.

Bolt spoke at the Pickens County Historical Society's annual meeting earlier this month.

He said the county is set to take bids on the 10,000 square-foot pavilion sometime this month.

The pavilion will be built across from the mill site, on acreage the county purchased for the mill site several years ago.

“It will seat 400 with the doors closed,” Bolt said. The site plans call for several of the pavilion's doors to slide open.

“Basically in the summer, you can open the whole thing up and put 100 chairs out on this side, and 100 chairs over here,” Bolt said. “You could have a really, really big concert there.”

He said county officials believe the site and the county need such a venue.

“We can have evening concerts there,” Bolt said. “If it's raining on the Third Saturday (events), we can move the music over there. The field school that we have, we have open hearth cooking classes, classes with herbs, wilderness survival classes, the pavilion could be used for the field school.”

Before they purchase of the additional property across the street, there were 15 acres in the Hagood Mill site.

“With the addition of those 35 acres over there, that makes it a total of 50 acres, so we have a 50-acre site,” Bolt said.

Even with the addition of the pavilion, and the use of some of the additional land for parking, much of the 35-acres still remains to be utilized later.

“It's a beautiful site,” Bolt said. “There's still an awful lot of possibilities for what could be done at the mill.”

Bolt said he's asked every day if the South Carolina Rock Art Center, which will protect and interpret the prehistoric petroglyphs that were found at the Hagood Mill sight several years ago, is open yet.

Funds are still needed for interpretive signage explaining the significance of the rock art.

“Where we lucky is, what we've got is paid for,” Bolt said. “It's painted inside, the display bases are built. We just need a little bit more money to blow up all the pictures.”

The county's 2013-2014 budget contains funds allocated for the rock art center work.

Bolt said he hopes the Rock Art Center will open in September or October.