Laurens was established by an act of the General Assembly on March 15, 1785, as a location for commercial activities.

There has been evidence of broken potsherds, weapons, and a mound found linked to Cherokee culture on land now called Laurens.

[8] Before the American Revolution, thousands of immigrants, mainly from Scotland and Ireland, settled in Laurens County.

Future President Andrew Johnson worked as a tailor in downtown Laurens from 1824 to 1826.

[9] Before the beginning of the American Civil War, Laurens provided a great deal of political leaders to the state government.

The fighting of the Civil War never neared Laurens, but it was affected by the influx of refugees fleeing Charleston to avoid the progressing Union Army and Navy.

[10] In the postwar Reconstruction years, Laurens's economy evolved to include industry.

The textile, manufacturing, and glass industries were at one point a major source of employment.

Although many of the textile plants and the glass production facilities have closed over the last 30 years, a variety of industries exist within the county, including corporations like CeramTec, International Paper, Milliken & Company and others.

Walmart operates a distribution center outside the city near Interstate 385, which is a major employer.

The area has seen several recent economic retail developments, and is seeing new capital investment in heavy industry, including a major new transmission production facility for German ZF Group.

James "JT" Taylor, the lead singer of the funk/R&B band Kool & The Gang, grew up in Laurens.

The church is styled in Gothic Revival and was the county's first African American public school until 1937.

[10] In 1859, Colonel John Drayton Williams built the Williams-Ball-Copeland House, an Italian Villa architectural design.

Several families owned it before the South Carolina Baptist Ministries for the Aging bought it in 1970.

[10] The Governor Simpson House was originally built by one of the first families of Laurens, Christopher Garlington, in 1839.

[9] Also on the National Register of Historic Places is the Charles H. Duckett House, located off of West Main Street since 1892.

Its owner, Charles Duckett, was a freedman who owned a lumberyard and prayed at the Bethel AME Church.

[10] In 1896, George F. Barber designed the John Calvin Owings House, characterized by its gingerbread details and turrets.

The Edna Poole House is also located on West Main Street, designed in the Art Deco style and featured in Home Magazine and at the World's Fair in Chicago.

[9] Reverend Zelotes Lee Holmes was a Presbyterian minister and educator in Laurens.

[13] According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 10.6 square miles (27 km2), all land.

As of the 2020 United States census, there were 9,335 people, 3,759 households, and 2,450 families residing in the city.

Attorney Nathan Senn serves as mayor, and members of the city council include Marian Miller, Alicia Sullivan, Cassandra Campbell, Sara Latimore, Martin Lowry, and Johnnie L. Bolt.

Senn was elected mayor on March 5, 2019, defeating the incumbent, John Stankus.

This radio station is well-respected and the oldest of the two daily news sources in Laurens, SC.

The city's only print newspaper, The Laurens County Advertiser,[22] is a weekly, published every Wednesday.

Laurens is home to the upstate's premier commercial printer, Print-A-Matic, Inc., founded by Robert Seymour in 1979.