A permanent exhibit on the life of Revolutionary War General Andrew Pickens, for whom our county is named, has opened at the Pickens County Museum of Art & History. The exhibit is made possible with funding from the South Carolina 250^th Commission, which was chartered by the state General Assembly to recognize South Carolina’s role in the American Revolutionary War, in anticipation of next year’s celebration of the 250^th birthday of the United States. The reception and grand opening for the exhibit was held from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. on Thursday, October 16, 2025. The exhibit displays artifacts, including a cavalry sword and dueling pistols, owned by Pickens, and wall panels tell the story of General Pickens during his service in the American Revolutionary War and his life afterward. Setting in the center of the room is the model of the Colonial era Fort Prince George made by archaeologist Marshall Williams, who excavated the Fort Prince George site before the site was flooded by the waters of man-made Lake Keowee in 1968. As Pickens County Administrator Ken Roper noted in a story by The Chronicle earlier this year, about the rebuilding of Fort Prince George, Andrew Pickens spent time at Fort Prince George as a young soldier.

Nick McKinney, Director of the Pickens County Museum of Art & History, told The Pickens County Chronicle at the grand opening, “I’m just very excited for the opportunity to work with the 250 and to be able to create something that recognizes Upstate history. We have a very unique and interesting history in the Upstate of South Carolina that doesn’t get told very often. We get outshown by places like Charleston and places farther over to the East. So, I’m glad that we were able to work with them and have this kind of statewide site exist in the Pickens County Museum.”

Heather Hawkins, Grants Manager for South Carolina 250, drove from Columbia to attend the opening reception. “We’re just thrilled to have another interpretive center open, this one on Andrew Pickens,” she told The Pickens County Chronicle. “We’ve got Thomas Sumter and Francis Marion and an African American traveling exhibit that we’re working on and several others across the state as part of the 250^th anniversary of the American Revolution. And Andrew Pickens was so important to what happened here in South Carolina, at the Battle of Cowpens and Kettle Creek and Eutaw Springs, and it’s so essential to the story that we’re so glad it’s being told more fully here.”

Wayne Kelley, Senior Vice President for The Pickens County Historical Society, also spoke with The Pickens County Chronicle at the reception. “I think it’s spectacular, and our Museum Director did a wonderful job,” he said. “We’re very proud to see that Fort Prince George is right in the center of all of this, because that’s really where it all began, not just for here, but what became the United States of America. Everybody needs to come here to see this wonderful, educational exhibit.”

Pickens County Administrator Ken Roper also attended the reception. “It’s important that we remember the history that led us to where we are today,” he told The Pickens County Chronicle. “As I’ve told my employees, as I’ve told different community groups, the stories we tell each other about ourselves become true over time, for good or for ill. There’s a lot of the story that’s not being told. I hope this is part of bringing it back.”

Dennis Chastain, Blue Wall Vice President for The Pickens County Historical Society, also spoke with The Pickens County Chronicle at the reception. “I am so impressed with this display,” he said. “This truly tells the story of Andrew Pickens, which is a big story, and it tells it in small bytes, so that you can walk along and read about one period in his life, what his accomplishments were, and move on down through there.

“A fellow recently approached me, and he had read one of the biographies about Andrew Pickens, and his only question was, ‘How could one man do so much in one lifetime?’ And that really is the story of Andrew Pickens. He signed up for the militia when he was like 16 years old. He fought in the Cherokee wars, fought in literally — from the first skirmish of the Revolutionary War to the final battle at Eutaw Springs, Andrew Pickens was there.

“So, it’s a great story. It’s a goal of our SC 250 Committee and The Pickens County Historical Society to tell that story as much as we can, to get it out to the public, because he was a remarkable figure in American history — not just South Carolina history, in American history. The man had two private dinners with George Washington in Philadelphia, just incredible. He had become such a widely known expert in how to deal with the southeastern Indians — not just the Cherokees but the Choctaw and the Creek Indians in Georgia — that George Washington asked him to come up twice to have a private dinner with him and the Secretary of War in Philadelphia. This is a man who had no formal education, grew up on the frontiers of Virginia, sitting down to have dinner, a private dinner, with the President of the United States, just incredible.”

The Pickens County Museum of Art & History is located at 307 Johnson Street, at the corner of Pendleton Street (Highway 178) and Johnson Street, and across the road from Pickens City Hall, the Pickens Police Department, and the Pickens Fire Department. The museum is open Wednesdays through Fridays 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Saturdays 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.