Salley is historically significant as a commercial and transportation center for agricultural goods during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Salley is also representative of rural community life in South Carolina during this period. The town’s architecture is characteristic of the economic boom which took place in many such railroad towns during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. While most of the residential and commercial architecture in the Salley Historic District is vernacular in character, some surviving examples represent more widely stylistic influences such as Victorian, Colonial Revival, and Bungalow. There are 99 contributing and 51 non-contributing resources within the district. The district consists primarily of one- to two-story masonry commercial buildings and one- to two-story residential weatherboard buildings built between the town’s incorporation in 1887 and 1949. Possibly as early as 1735, British colonials arrived in the area upon which the town of Salley developed. The present-day town formed during the decade of the 1880s on a 1,000-acre plantation located two miles southeast of John Town. D. H. Salley, the plantation’s owner and a member of the South Carolina General Assembly, had become aware of plans for railroad transportation of kaolin from a mine in nearby Sievern. He laid out a plan of streets and avenues, and also established the first school in the area on his property. He successfully negotiated the train’s path through his land and later secured incorporation papers for the community of Salley. Listed in the National Register October 27, 2000.