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Thanks for visiting the Aiken County South Carolina Historical Society web site.

Aiken County History

Few if any counties in America have a more varied and fascinating history than Aiken County, South Carolina. Once home to a Native American culture that developed the earliest known pottery in North America, our county was traversed in 1540 by Hernando DeSoto as he searched for the fabled gold of the Chiefdom of Cofitachequi. English pioneers trod its soil soon after they founded Charles Town in 1670. It was home to the first garrison of English soldiers to patrol the Carolina interior from their base at Fort Moore near the banks of the Savannah River in 1715.

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Aiken County saw one of the first railroad towns spring up in the mid 1830′s when the world’s longest railroad was built connecting Charleston and Hamburg on the Savannah. This town, Aiken, and later the county, were named for the president of that 136 mile long railroad, William Aiken. Once accessible by train, the higher elevation and sandy soil of the area lured refugees from the Charleston summers who gave the town of Aiken its first identity.

Meanwhile, the county became home to the first large textile mill in the South when William Gregg chose the Horse Creek Valley for his Graniteville Cotton Mill in 1845. This western section of the county would be dominated by cotton manufacturing for more than a century to come.

Aiken County’s reputation as a health resort soon spread north, and by the late 1800s annual pilgrimages to the county’s temperate winter climate brought the northern leisure class to ride horses and golf on one of the earliest courses in the south. The hum of the mills and the elegant mansions of the Winter Colony were uninterrupted until 1950, when the cold war led to the building of the world’s first facility for the making of thermo-nuclear materials. Thus the latest chapter in the county’s history brought a new wave of outsiders and a dramatic change in the county’s life. Mission

The purpose of the Aiken County Historical Society is to discover, document, promote, encourage, and preserve all facets of Aiken County History.

You are invited to be part of a group of local citizens interested in their county’s fascinating past. To join the Aiken County Historical Society ( individual, family) or for more information contact us at Box 1775, Aiken, SC, 29802.

The Aiken County Historical Society conducts three meetings annually. Members support various historical activities such as markers for historical sites, a University of South Carolina - Aiken History Scholarship, trips, and the publication of the Society’s Journal.

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