Historic Village of Flat Rock – The community of Flat Rock began in the 1800s when affluent Charlestonians, Europeans and prominent plantation owners of the South’s low country built large summer estates in the English manner. The families of South Carolina’s Low Country came to Flat Rock to escape the sweltering heat and the epidemic of yellow fever and malaria. South Carolina’s Low Country gentry affectionately called Flat Rock The Little Charleston of the Mountains.
Flat Rock is built around a tremendous outcrop of granite that is said to have been the site of Cherokee Indian gatherings as well as a site used by early traders. The main rock is mostly flat and large portions remain exposed on the grounds of the Flat Rock Playhouse. Thus the community became known as Flat Rock. The village was placed on the National Register of Historic Places as the Historic Flat Rock District in 1973.
