For a town that once consisted of nothing more than a shed, a pine forest and a name, Florence, South Carolina, boasts a surprisingly rich history. From the ten-foot bomb dropped on a Mars Bluff farm by apologetic Air Force pilots to a record-breaking seventeen-inch snowfall, this Pee Dee hub has seen plenty of extraordinary events and famous characters. Here, William Howard Taft enjoyed pine bark stew and Herbert Hoover visited Mikado Millie- a world champion cow known for her prolific milk-making. Longtime journalist Thom Anderson lovingly recalls these hometown tales collected over thirty years of writing columns for the "Morning News."