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About Irmo
   
Located off the shore of Lake Murray and only ten miles from Columbia, the capital of South Carolina, Irmo was a sleepy little town of 500 people in the early 1970's. Today with more than 12,000 residents Irmo is one of the country's most sought after places to live.
The Cherokee Indians first roamed the waterways and woodlands of this area while following the Cherokee Trail. Later German and Swiss immigrants were the first Westerners to settle the area bounded by the Broad and Saluda Rivers and extending to the Newberry county line. Germans, using land grants from the King of England, settled the Dutch Fork area in the mid 18th century. Self-sufficient farms were established in spite of the rocky, red clay that was unsuitable for plantation farming.
Development has progressed over the years from adjacent rivers, Indian trails, railroads and interstate highways. One of the few antebellum homes to escape Sherman's destruction during the Civil War is the Lorick Home which now serves as the information center for the Lake Murray Tourism Association. Irmo was incorporated in 1890 and florished along railroad tracks. The town was named by combining the first two letters of the names of two railroad company men - C.J. IRedell and H. C. MOseley.
About 35 years later, work began on the largest earthern dam in the world (at that time) across the Saluda River to form Lake Murray. The dam (and the road atop it), Lake Murray, and the construction of Intersate 26 adjacent to Irmo in the late 1950s made possible the continuing rapid growth of the Irmo area. Today, Lake Murray is the focal point of water recreation in the Midlands area (Irmo, Columbia and Lexington) of South Carolina.
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