City Directories and History: Constructed in circa 1911, this wonderful bungalow style house is one of the best of that type in Laurens.
Another Craftsman style house, it was built in 1911 by Lipman George Balle, President of the Palmetto Bank. Balle served in the War Between the States as a private and came into possession of a dead Union soldier’s diary from the Gettysburg battlefield. He added entries through September 1863 when the diary abruptly ends with a penetrating tear. Family lore holds that the journal saved Balle’s life when he was hit with a Minie ball, the force of the bullet being absorbed by the book. The diary is now at the Carolinian Library on the University of South Carolina campus.
Features of the house include an elaborate gabled dormer with flower box as well as a shed-roof porch with paneled, brick pillars and simple balustrade. [Courtesy of the Laurens Museum]
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