Originally constructed in 1935, the Chicora Graded School served the Chicora-Cherokee neighborhood of North Charleston, a community closely connected to employment at the Charleston Navy Yard. The school replaced an earlier facility built in 1921, which by 1929 enrolled approximately 307 students, prompting capacity expansions. As enrollment continued to grow, the campus was expanded multiple times between 1938 and 1955, adding classrooms, an auditorium, a cafeteria, and administrative space.

For decades, the building functioned as a public elementary school, first as a segregated school for white students and later as a more integrated neighborhood school. Following the closure of the Navy Yard in 1996, the surrounding area experienced economic decline and shifting demographics. By 2011, the school suffered from deferred maintenance and declining enrollment, leading to its closure. Vacant for more than a decade, the building remains significant for its role in local educational history.

Originally known as Clifton Mill No. 3, the building was constructed in 1896 on the bank of the Pacolet River as part of the Clifton Manufacturing Company, one of the largest textile mills in the United States. The mill complex was part of the major growth of Spartanburg County, South Carolina’s textile industry leading the area to become one of the nation’s largest textile centers. At its peak, the factory complex housed over 57,000 spindles and 2,200 looms by the year 1900, nearly twice the number of its nearby competitors.

On June 6, 1903, a devastating flash flood destroyed dozens of homes and businesses, including Mill No. 3. It was rebuilt within the year as a five-story mill complex with adjacent cotton warehouses by the famed Boston mill engineering and architectural firm Lockwood, Greene, and Company. It remained a working textile mill for over 50 years.

By mid-century, Spartanburg County’s hold on the textile industry began to loosen and in 1965, the Clifton Manufacturing Company was sold to Dan River Mills, a large textile firm based out of Virginia. It was the beginning of the end as the company shut down all three mills between 1968 and 1973. Converse Mill was used as a warehouse for many years until two of the three mills were demolished between 2002 and 2013. The only remaining vestige of the vast Clifton Manufacturing Company is Converse Mill.

In 2006, a local owner purchased the building to preserve its history and bring new opportunities to Spartanburg County.