Simpsonville had its beginnings in the 1820s as a stage stop operated by Thomas Goldsmith on the Old Stage Road twelve miles south of the Greenville Court House. Among the first businesses at the crossroads were Silas Gilbert, who in 1836 opened a large general merchandising operation at the crossroads, and then Peter Simpson, who two years later set up a blacksmith shop next to Gilbert. The same year Simpson arrived in 1838, the place was assigned a post office in the house of neighbor, Jarrett Cook, entitled Ô Plain. This post office was established when mail began to arrive by stagecoach.
Traffic on the Stage Road was fairly brisk until the 1850s when the burgeoning village fell into a virtual standstill throughout the Civil War and Reconstruction. Early in the Reconstruction period the black population, who were leaving their respective church of mixed congregations, gravitated to a more central location for worship and Cedar Grove Baptist Church became, in 1870, the first church organized within the present city limits.
In 1885, the Simpsonville High School was established and North Carolina native, Sidney J. Wilson, had streets and lots surveyed for the making of a town that would straddle the grade for the new railroad track. These streets and lots today remain laid out in what are largely their original beds. Although the place had been alternately know as Plain and Simpsonville for quite some time, the post office was officially changed to Simpsonville in 1885. The town was named after the Peter Simpson, one of the first settlers.
In 1982, our school was established and named after the original post office and titled Plain Elementary School. We are proud of our tradition of excellence. We are “A School Family – Positively Committed to Excellence!”