Historic York County

HISTORIC YORK COUNTY 

An Illustrated History 

by Michael C. Scoggins 

A publication of the York County Regional Chamber of Commerce

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HISTORIC YORK COUNTY 

An Illustrated History 

by Michael C. Scoggins 

Commissioned by the York County Regional Chamber of Commerce 

Historical Publishing Network 

A division of Lammert Incorporated 

San Antonio, Texas

❖ 

This old well shed is located on SC 

Highway 97 in the Bullocks Creek 

community of western York County, 

where some folks still dry their 

laundry on a sunny day by hanging it 

on a clothesline. 

PAINTING BY JOHN WINE. COURTESY OF THE 

CULTURE & HERITAGE MUSEUMS. 

First Edition 

Copyright © 2009 Historical Publishing Network 

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, without permission in writing 

from the publisher. All inquiries should be addressed to Historical Publishing Network, 11555 Galm Road, Suite 100, San Antonio, Texas, 78254. Phone (800) 749-9790. 

ISBN: 9781893619944 

Library of Congress Card Catalog Number: 2008943562 

Historic York County: An Illustrated History 

author: Michael C. Scoggins 

cover design: Jack Bolin 

contributing writers for “Sharing the Heritage”: Joe Goodpasture 

Historical Publishing Network 

president: Ron Lammert 

project manager: Larry Sunderland 

administration: Donna M. Mata 

Melissa Quinn 

book sales: Dee Steidle 

production: Colin Hart 

Craig Mitchell 

Charles A. Newton, III 

Joshua Johnston 

Roy Arellano 

Glenda Krouse 

PRINTED IN KOREA 

2 ✦ HISTORIC YORK COUNTY

CONTENTS 

4 PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 

6 INTRODUCTION 

8 CHAPTER I the Catawba Indian Nation 

12 CHAPTER II York 

16 CHAPTER III Clover 

22 CHAPTER IV Bowling Green 

26 CHAPTER V Kings Mountain Township 

30 CHAPTER VI Smyrna 

34 CHAPTER VII Hickory Grove 

38 CHAPTER VIII Bullock Creek Township 

42 CHAPTER IX Sharon 

46 CHAPTER X McConnells and Brattonsville 

54 CHAPTER XI Fort Mill 

58 CHAPTER XII Rock Hill 

64 CHAPTER XIII Catawba Township 

70 CHAPTER XIV Lake Wylie and Tega Cay 

74 BIBLIOGRAPHY 

76 SHARING THE HERITAGE 

110 SPONSORS 

111 ABOUT THE AUTHOR 

Contents ✦ 3

PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 

Over the years a great number of books, pamphlets, and articles have been published on the history of York County. These works 

have traditionally given a chronological overview of the county’s history, but this approach makes it difficult to present organized histories 

of specific towns and communities. Most of York County’s incorporated towns also have their own individual histories, but these 

are by necessity narrowly focused and usually ignore what was happening in other parts of the county. In either case, the smaller, 

unincorporated rural communities either get sparse recognition or are overlooked entirely. 

For this new York County history we have taken a different approach. Each chapter focuses on the history of a specific town or 

township, and these chapters include not only the large cities and incorporated towns but most of the small rural communities as 

well—at least those that are still in existence. This book is a kind of “grand tour” of the county, both geographical and chronological. 

It begins with York County’s oldest inhabitants, the Catawba Nation, and its oldest town, York. The tour then proceeds north to Clover 

and Bowling Green, then heads west and executes a counterclockwise loop through Kings Mountain Township, Smyrna, Hickory 

Grove, Bullock Creek Township, and Sharon. From there we proceed southeast to McConnells and Brattonsville, turn northeast to 

visit Fort Mill, Rock Hill, the Catawba Township, Lake Wylie, and Tega Cay. At each stop along the way, we discuss the history of the 

towns and communities, and document that history with photographs and other images keyed to the text. 

As the title implies, this is a study of Historic York County. The greatest focus has been on the early history of the county, prior to 

the mid-twentieth century, and space limitations make it impossible to treat all the modern communities and planned developments 

that have sprung up since the 1970s. On the other hand, there are a number of historical communities in the county that are no longer 

extant, and they are, for the most part, also beyond the scope of this volume. 

This book embodies the contributions of a great many people and organizations. During the research phase of the project, we collected 

far more photographs and reference material than we could possibly incorporate into a work of this size. Hopefully we will be 

able to utilize this additional material in future publications on the history of York County. Most of the photographs used in this book 

have never been published before, and many are in color, another departure from previous York County history books. 

On behalf of the Culture & Heritage Museums and the York County Regional Chamber of Commerce, I would like to extend my 

appreciation to the following individuals and institutions for their assistance in this project: 

Nancy Sambets, Brooke Harris, Andrea Rice, Denise Jensen, and Rick Owens of the Culture & Heritage Museums, York, SC; 

Michael Baldwin, Tom Longshaw, and Heather Andrus, interns from Winthrop University, Rock Hill, SC; Jerry L. West of the Museum 

of Western York County, Sharon, SC; Sandra Reinhardt of the Catawba Cultural Preservation Project, Rock Hill, SC (Sandra wrote the 

article on the Catawba Nation and assembled the illustrations for it); Gina Price White of the Louise Pettus Archives, Winthrop 

University, Rock Hill, SC; Mary Mallaney of the York County Public Library, Rock Hill, SC; Ann Evans of the White Homestead, Fort 

Mill, SC; Bill Henson of YC Magazine; the South Carolina Department of Archives and History, Columbia, SC; and the South 

Caroliniana Library, University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC. 

I would also like to acknowledge the generous contributions of the following individuals, who shared their photographs, paintings, 

postcards, newspaper articles, scrapbooks, memories, and advice on the history of York County’s towns and communities: 

York: Mary C. Montgomery, Mary R. Lowry, Anne Allison, Jeanne Ferguson, John Wine, and Jan Ramsey; Clover, Bowling Green 

and northern York County: Margaret McCall Smith, Sis Bentley, J. R. Caldwell, Betty Love, Floyd Ballard, Estelle Withers, W. B. Dulin, 

Jr., Mr. and Mrs. Cary Grant, Janelle Dixon, Robert Black, Vera S. Wyatt, Dorothy Montgomery Good, Eddie D. Pursley, and Rick 

Owens; Sharon and western York County: Jerry L. West, Eleanor Whitesides Jones, Carl F. Hope, and Phillip Faulkner; McConnells 

and southeastern York County: H. J. Harshaw, Jr., Agnes Aycock Love, Phyllis Morgan, Harold S. Walker, Nancy Scoggins, Robert 

Scoggins, Jr., and Curwood Chappell; Fort Mill: Ruth Meacham, Nancy B. Thomas, Jack Bolin, Ann Evans, Annie Case, Elwyn Case, 

and Louise Pettus; Rock Hill and Ebenezer: Phyllis Morgan, Robert Ratterree, Sr., Michael Baldwin, John T. Misskelley, Millard 

Stafford, Dot Amick, Allan Miller, Robert Scoggins, Jr., and the Rock Hill Fire Department. 

Finally, I would especially like to thank Jenny Kaemmerlin and Ashley Barron of the Culture & Heritage Museums for their hard 

work in proofreading the manuscript. Any errors that remain are my responsibility, not theirs. 

Michael C. Scoggins 

Culture & Heritage Museums 

April 2008 


❖ 

Snow is a rare occurrence in York 

County, but when it does occur the 

results are striking, as shown in this 

scene of a snow-covered barn located 

off SC Highway 5 several miles 

northwest of York. 

PAINTING BY JOHN WINE. COURTESY OF THE 

CULTURE & HERITAGE MUSEUMS. 

Preface & Acknowledgements ✦ 5

INTRODUCTION 

York County is the northernmost county in the central region of the South Carolina Piedmont or “foothills.” It is bounded on the 

north by the North Carolina state line, on the east by the Catawba River, on the south by Chester County, and on the west by the 

Broad River and Cherokee County. The climate is moderate, and the terrain is hilly, forested, and well-watered, supporting a large variety 

of fish and game. Human beings have called this area home for at least 12,000 years, and for several centuries prior to European 

settlement the York County area formed a buffer between the Catawba Indians to the east and the Cherokee Indians to the west. 

Although the English colony of Carolina was organized in 1670, the upcountry or “backcountry” remained largely unsettled and unexplored 

by Europeans until the early eighteenth century. Around the year 1750 the area began receiving settlers from the British Isles 

and western Europe, who either moved south from Pennsylvania, Virginia, and North Carolina or landed in Charleston and made their 

way north into the backcountry. Present-day York County was settled predominantly by Presbyterians from the north of Ireland and 

lowland Scotland, and four Presbyterian congregations—Bethel, Beersheba, Bethesda, and Bullock’s Creek—were the first organized 

churches here. These became known during the colonial period as “the four B’s,” and all four are still active today. 

Prior to 1772 the upper Piedmont region was claimed by both North and South Carolina, and both colonies issued hundreds of 

royal land grants in what is now York County. South Carolina assigned the territory to Craven County, St. Mark’s Parish, and Camden 

District, while North Carolina claimed it as part of Anson County, Mecklenburg County, and finally Tryon County. In 1772 the provincial 

boundary was surveyed west of the Catawba River as far as the Cherokee Territory (the present-day Spartanburg-Greenville 

County line), and the territory between the Catawba and the Broad Rivers became known as the New Acquisition. The citizens of the 

New Acquisition overwhelmingly supported the Whig or “Patriot” cause during the American Revolution, and the area’s first industrialist, 

William Hill, operated an important ironworks on Allison Creek that supplied ordinance to the state government. Two important 

Patriot victories, the Battles of Williamson’s Plantation or Huck’s Defeat (July 12, 1780) and King’s Mountain (October 7, 1780), 

were fought in the future York County. A number of smaller battles occurred here as well, including skirmishes at William Hill’s 

Ironworks, Bullock’s Creek, Stallions’ Plantation on Fishing Creek, Biggers’ Ferry on the Catawba River, and Floyd’s Fort on King’s 

Creek. All but one of these, Hill’s Ironworks, were also Patriot victories, and all took place between June and October 1780. The notorious 

British cavalry commander, Lieutenant Colonel Banastre Tarleton, camped at White’s Mill on Fishing Creek in southeastern York 

County in September 1780, and while there was seriously ill from a fever for several days. 

In March 1785 the South Carolina legislature officially created York County as part of Camden District, with Yorkville as its county 

seat. From 1791 until 1799, York County was part of the short-lived Pinckney District, along with neighboring Chester, Union, and 

Spartanburg Counties, but in 1800 these counties were all reorganized as separate districts. York District was primarily agricultural in 

livelihood, and, after the invention of Eli Whitney’s cotton gin in 1793, the cultivation of cotton became increasingly important. 

Cotton planting also encouraged the use of slave labor, although York District had fewer slaves than most of the other districts in the 

state. The district was also noted for its mineral wealth, particularly iron and gold, and the northwestern portion of the county became 

a center for iron production and gold mining during the early decades of the nineteenth century. 

The year 1852 brought two railroads to York District: the Kings Mountain Railroad, running north from Chesterville through the 

center of the district as far as Yorkville, and the Charlotte & South Carolina Railroad, which pushed south from Charlotte and northeast 

from Chesterville and laid the foundation for a new town called Rock Hill. Other towns like Fort Mill and McConnells developed 

along these railroads as well, but the War Between the States interrupted this progress. York District dispatched at least fourteen companies 

of men to the Confederate States Army, and it suffered the highest per capita battle losses of any district in South Carolina. 

Following the end of the war, the area exploded into violent conflict between newly freed African-American slaves and their former 

owners, and the year 1868 brought two new developments: the organization of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) and the reconstitution of 

York District as York County. KKK activities resulted in the stationing of Federal occupation troops in Yorkville in the early 1870s in 

order to keep the peace. The election of former Confederate general Wade Hampton as state governor in 1876 gradually brought an 

end to the violence, and by the 1880s the state was on the road to recovery from the economic and social devastation caused by the 

war and Reconstruction. 

The Kings Mountain Railroad was reorganized as the Chester & Lenoir Narrow-Gauge Railroad in 1873, and by 1884 the line had 

reached its terminus at Lenoir, North Carolina. In 1888 two new railroads came through York County: the Charleston, Cincinnati & 

Chicago (nicknamed the “Three C’s”) became the county’s first line running from east to west, and the Seaboard Air Line cut across 

the southeastern section from Chester into Lancaster County. These lines resulted in the organization of several new towns, including 

Smyrna, Hickory Grove, Sharon, Lesslie, and Roddey, on the Three C’s; Clover and Bowling Green on the Chester & Lenoir; and 


Harmony and Catawba on the Seaboard. The resurgence of cotton also spurred the growth of the textile industry as far-sighted businessmen 

realized that the South needed local industry if it was ever to recover from the devastation of the Civil War. The year 1880 

marked the beginning of the modern textile era in the Carolina Piedmont, and York County’s first cotton mills began production in 

1881 at Rock Hill on the Catawba River and Cherokee Falls on the Broad River. The railroads and the mills supported each other, 

making possible the transportation of raw goods and finished products and bringing in new capital and new jobs. York County entered 

the twentieth century with a growing economy and a thriving industrial base, but agriculture was still the dominant livelihood for 

much of the rural population. 

The first decade of the twentieth century witnessed the establishment of the India Hook dam and hydroelectric station on the 

Catawba River, which laid the foundation for the industrial giant Duke Power Company (now part of Duke Energy) and brought electrical 

power to the region. Rock Hill became the county’s industrial center, but York, Clover, and Fort Mill also became industrial cities, 

and the Fort Mill textile plants helped lay the foundations for a second industrial giant called Springs Industries (now Springs Global). 

The First World War sent many of York County’s sons overseas to fight in Europe, while at home the increased demands of war production 

boosted industrial and agricultural output. The recession of the 1920s and the Great Depression of the 1930s brought hard 

times to York County as it did elsewhere, but the farmers still produced their crops and the people still persevered as the country 

entered the Second World War. 

Through the end of World War II, agriculture still dominated York County. In 1945 there were 4,093 farms in the county, and they 

yielded a variety of products including cotton, peaches, turkeys, hay, grain, dairy products, and livestock. But of all these, cotton still 

predominated. The veterans who returned from World War II led the way to the increased diversification and modernization of York 

County in the form of paved highways, new industries, educational improvements, and economic revitalization. By 1947, there were 

some 7,000 persons employed in agriculture and over 10,000 employed in industry, most of whom worked in the county’s twentyone 

textile mills. 

It was during the 1950s and the 1960s that agriculture finally began to lose its once pervasive hold on rural York County. Worn 

out land and the decline of the family farm as a viable livelihood forced many families to either take jobs in the larger towns or leave 

the county and seek their fortunes elsewhere. The wars in Korea and Vietnam left their marks on the citizenry as well, but York County 

managed to avoid most of the social strife and civil unrest that characterized the Sixties in other parts of the country. 

The 1970s and 1980s saw the decline of the railroads and the dramatic downsizing of the once dominant textile industry. 

Paradoxically, this was also the beginning of a period of unprecedented population growth and economic expansion. This was particularly 

true in the Rock Hill and Fort Mill areas, where the completion of Interstate Highway 77 made York County a commuter base 

for employment in the nearby Charlotte-Mecklenburg region of North Carolina. In the early 1980s Duke Power completed the 

Catawba Nuclear Station, which guaranteed the continued availability of affordable electrical power for the county’s growing residential, 

commercial, and industrial needs. 

The rapid expansion of eastern York County brought its own problems of increased population, urban sprawl, and intense pressure 

on housing and educational resources. In the last decade of the twentieth century, the York County Council began working with 

property owners on “York County Forever,” a program dedicated to protecting large tracts of “green space” from further development. 

As the twenty-first century dawned, the York County Culture & Heritage Museums joined forces with Cherokee Investment Partners 

to create a unique environmental history museum and a 400-acre “green community” called Kanawha at the intersection of I-77 and 

the Catawba River, not far from the location of some of the earliest Catawba Indian villages. The development of this “environmental 

crossroads” brought the county history full circle, establishing a world-class facility for environmental awareness and stewardship at 

the site of one of the area’s oldest human settlements. Programs like these have helped to ensure York County’s position as one of South 

Carolina’s most progressive leaders, not only in economic and commercial growth but in cultural, historical, and environmental 

preservation as well. 

Introduction ✦ 7


CHAPTER I 

T HE C ATAWBA I NDIAN N ATION 

BY SANDRA REINHARDT 

The earliest contact between Europeans and the native inhabitants of the South Carolina Piedmont 

occurred in 1540, when Spanish explorers under Hernando De Soto traveled through the area on 

their way from Florida to the Mississippi River. That initial contact created the foundation of what 

would become an ongoing and, for the most part, amicable relationship between European settlers 

and the native peoples of the Catawba and Wateree Rivers. 

In the early eighteenth century the English settlers in Virginia and the Carolinas began referring 

to the Native Americans of the central Piedmont as “the Catawba.” The modern Catawba refer to 

themselves as ye iswa or “people of the river” in their native language. Linguistic clues have placed 

the Catawba within the larger family of Siouan tribes. Though Native American history goes back at 

least twelve thousand years in this region, the exact time that the Catawba entered the Carolinas is 

not known. Today, the Catawba still live along the river that carries their name. 

The first European settlers of the Catawba River in South Carolina settled along Waxhaw Creek, 

Rocky Creek, and Fishing Creek. When Carolina became a royal colony in 1729, the colonial 

government encouraged settlement of the interior by establishing townships based on land grants 

from the Crown. These Europeans also discovered an ancient Indian path, known today as the Nation 

Ford Road after the predominant crossing point on the upper Catawba River. This busy trading route 

passed near several Catawba villages and stretched from Virginia and the North Carolina Piedmont 

to the Lower Cherokee towns in western South Carolina and northern Georgia. European traders 

used it to transport weapons, tools, and trinkets to the Indians in return for animal skins, pottery, 

baskets, and slaves. 

Thus, by 1755 the Indians were crowded by incoming settlers who were attracted to the rich soil 

and moderate climate. European livestock ruined the Indians’ cornfields, and game became scarce as 

their habitat was cut and cleared for farms. In addition, European diseases, liquor, hunger, and 

warfare rapidly reduced the Indian population. One epidemic of smallpox in 1759 killed half of the 

Catawba Nation. With their population declining, the Catawba recruited other Indians to join them. 

When James Adair passed through the vicinity in the mid-eighteenth century, he heard more than 

twenty dialects spoken in Catawba territory. 

As the political environment of the Carolinas became more complex, the Catawba people were 

forced to make difficult political decisions. The Seven Years War in Europe, known in the colonies as 

the French and Indian War (1754-1763), pitted Indians against each other as they allied themselves 

with European powers. Catawba warriors sided with the English, while other powerful Southeastern 

tribes like the Cherokee and Shawnee supported the French. However, during the American 

Revolution, the Catawba Nation sided with the Whigs or “Patriots” against Great Britain. From then 

on the Catawba fought for the South Carolina government, served in the Confederate Army, the two 

World Wars, and the wars in Korea, Vietnam and the Persian Gulf. Currently, Catawbas serve in the 

National Guard and the Reserves, and on active duty in Iraq. 

Despite the early loyalty of the Catawba to England, they lost the rights to most of their land 

by way of the treaties of Pine Tree Hill in 1760 and Augusta in 1763. The tribe agreed to a reservation 

of fifteen square miles that included villages in Lancaster and York Counties. In 1782 the tribe 

had to reaffirm its agreements with the new American government. The Indian Trade and 

Intercourse Act of 1790 prohibited the conveyance of Indian land except by treaty with the United 

States. Following the Lease Act of 1808, South Carolinians leased nearly all of the remaining 

Catawba land. 

❖ 

Many of the stones that smooth the 

Catawba pottery surfaces have been 

used by several generations and are 

cherished family heirlooms. 

PHOTOGRAPH BY ANN KENION OVERTON. 

COURTESY OF THE CATAWBA CULTURAL 

PRESERVATION PROJECT ARCHIVES. 

Chapter I ✦ 9

❖ 

Above: This silver gorget was 

presented to Piney (Finey) George, a 

Catawba warrior, for Revolutionary 

War service under Brigadier General 

Thomas Sumter, 1780-1782. 

PHOTOGRAPH BY ANN EVANS. COURTESY OF 

THE CATAWBA CULTURAL PRESERVATION 

PROJECT ARCHIVES. 

Bottom, left: Fred Sanders served with 

the U.S. Military Border Security 

Forces on the Danube River in Europe 

in March 1948. 



As the Carolinians’ desire for arable land 

grew, the South Carolina government urged 

the Catawba to sell their land and move west. 

In the 1840 Treaty of Nation Ford, the tribe 

forfeited its entire homeland to the state in 

exchange for cash payments and new homes 

elsewhere. The United States Congress did not 

ratify this treaty, and the state did not honor it. 

The results were devastating: the Catawba were 

scattered, losing much of their language and 

culture in the process. 

Most of the surviving Catawba returned to 

York District after about eighteen months, and 

in 1842 the state purchased 630 acres for a new 

Catawba Reservation. The Reservation was 

enlarged again by the purchase of additional 

tracts of land in 1945. A large old barn that is 

currently visible from Dave Lyle Boulevard near 

Bottom, right: During the assimilation 

period, many Indian children such as 

Rosa Harris Wheelock attended 

Carlisle Industrial School in Carlisle, 

Pennsylvania. Shown in this 

photograph from circa 1895, Rosa 

later returned to the Catawba Nation 

and taught school on the Reservation. 




York Technical College was part of what became 

known as the “New Reservation.” Most of the 

Catawba stayed in their traditional homes and 

subsisted by sharecropping, the sale of 

cordwood and pottery, and the gifts of the 

woods and the river. The Catawba Indian 

Nation continues one of the oldest pottery 

traditions east of the Mississippi River. This 

traditional art form forms the foundation of the 

Catawba cultural identity. 

The traditional way of life was altered 

following the Civil War, when the Catawba were 

forced to seek employment away from the 

Reservation. Discrimination limited their 

options, as did their status as non-citizens. 

The state employed generations of 

Catawba Indians to run Ashe’s Ferry above 

the mouth of Twelve Mile Creek at Van 

Wyck in Lancaster County. When the ferry 

closed in 1959, it was the last stateoperated 

ferry in South Carolina. 

In 1924 the United States Congress 

passed the Indian Citizenship Act 

declaring that all American Indians 

were citizens. Although the Catawba 

paid federal taxes and served in the 

military, it was another twenty years 

before the South Carolina legislature 

passed an act providing state citizenship 

for the Catawba. 

The Catawba voted to end their federal 

status as an organized tribe in January 

1959 by the Catawba Termination Act, 

although they continued to have state 

recognition. The state government then 

put the New Reservation up for sale. As 

part of the termination program, 

individuals could choose between 

a five-acre tract of land from the 

New Reservation and a cash 

settlement. The majority chose 

the land, but some families 

remained on the Old Reservation, 

which is still the heart and home 

of the Catawba Nation. 

In 1980, the Catawba filed suit 

against the United States and 

South Carolina for a violation of 

the Non-Intercourse Act of 1790. 

The case was finally settled by 

the Catawba Land Claims 

Settlement Act of 1993, which provided 

compensation for the funds and land that were 

originally due the tribe as part of the unfulfilled 

Treaty of 1840. By virtue of this settlement, the 

nation was finally able to repurchase some of 

the land that was lost through the nineteenthcentury 

leases. 

Today the settlement provides funds for 

houses, healthcare, and education. The past few 

years have seen a renewed interest in the 

Catawba people’s past and a renaissance in their 

cultural heritage. 

❖ 

Above: The congregation of the 

Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day 

Saints at the Catawba Reservation is 

shown in this photograph, c. 1920. 

PHOTOGRAPH FROM THE THOMAS J. BLUMER 

COLLECTION OF THE CATAWBA NATION 

NATIVE AMERICAN STUDIES COLLECTION. 

COURTESY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH 

CAROLINA-LANCASTER. 

Below: A Catawba named Early 

Brown operated Ashe’s Ferry across 

the Catawba River until the late 

1950s. The ferry closed after the 

construction of the SC Highway 5 

bridge between Lancaster County and 

York County in 1959. 



Chapter I ✦ 11

CHAPTER II 

Y ORK 

❖ 

The Lowry family built this raised 

cottage style house at 109 East 

Jefferson Street during the 1830s. The 

basement was called “the Academy 

Room” and was used as an early 

school; it was also occupied by 

refugees from Charleston during the 

Civil War. From about 1930 until 

1963, the house was occupied by 

Charles and Edith Gillam (sometimes 

spelled Gilliam), and was known as 

“the Lilacs” because of its extensive 

flower gardens. This Colorama 

postcard photo of the Gillam house 

was produced during the 1950s. 

COURTESY OF THE CULTURE & 

HERITAGE MUSEUMS. 

The city of York is located in York Township in the center of York County, and it is the county 

seat. Geographically it lies on an elevated ridge that runs through the middle of York County in a 

general north-south direction from Chester County, South Carolina to Gaston County, North 

Carolina. The headwaters of Turkey Creek and Bullock’s Creek rise on the west side of York and flow 

into the Broad River, while the waters of Allison Creek and Fishing Creek begin east of York and flow 

into the Catawba. York had its origins as the intersection of two important colonial wagon roads, one 

running north-south and one running east-west. During the 1760s and 1770s, two brothers named 

James and William Fergus operated a tavern at this intersection, and the junction of the two roads 

became known locally as Fergus (or Fergus’s) Crossroads. 

York was one of twenty original counties created by the South Carolina General Assembly on 

March 24, 1785. This act also mandated the establishment of a county seat with a courthouse and 

jail in each county, and the appointment of justices of the peace and constables to administer the 

courts and enforce the law. The first public session of the York County Court was held on January 2, 

1786, with Colonel William Bratton, Colonel William Hill, Captain John Drennan, David Leech, and 

James Wilson (all Revolutionary War veterans) presiding as justices of the peace. Two days later, the 

court “chose the Cross roads formerly known as Fergus Crossroads” as the “proper & central place 

whereon a Court House for this county shall be erected.” The use of the phrase “formerly known as” 

indicates “Fergus Crossroads” had already been renamed “Yorkville,” probably at the same time that 

the county name was chosen, but “Yorkville” did not officially appear in the court records until 


January 15, 1788, when a “Deed of conveyance 

from William Hill Esq. to John Gee for a Lott of 

Land in Yorkville [was] acknowledged.” 

Although the official name was Yorkville, the 

town was often referred to even in the early 

days simply as “York,” and it was also listed by 

that name in some of the antebellum federal 

census records. 

On April 12, 1786, the county court 

appointed Captain Andrew Love, William 

Fergus, and John Currence as commissioners to 

erect the first courthouse and jail, but work on 

these structures proceeded slowly and 

erratically. As late as 1796, the construction of 

this first courthouse had still not been 

completed, and the court was forced to meet in 

other buildings for most of that period. The 

exact date at which “York Court House,” as it 

was known, was finally finished is not recorded, 

but the original wooden structure was 

reportedly replaced by a one-story brick 

building in the early 1800s. In 1825, a new twostory 

Classical Revival style courthouse was 

constructed of wood and brick with an elaborate 

double-curved wrought iron stairway leading to 

the front door. This building was based on a 

design by famed architect Robert Mills that was 

used for many other second-generation county 

courthouses in South Carolina. After a fire 

damaged the upper story in November 1892, 

the courthouse was remodeled and equipped 

with a bell tower, new front steps, and 

additional wings. This structure was demolished 

in 1913, and in February 1914 work began on 

the present (fourth) courthouse building. 

Designed by architect William Augustus 

Edwards, the new courthouse was completed in 

July 1915. 

The town of Yorkville grew slowly during the 

nineteenth century. The north-south road 

through Yorkville became Congress Street, 

although it was also known locally as Main 

Street, while the east-west road became Liberty 

Street. Most of the town’s businesses developed 

along these two streets. The first church in town 

was the Independent Presbyterian Church, 

established in 1813 on East Liberty Street where 

Rose Hill Cemetery now stands; it disbanded in 

1864. Trinity Methodist Episcopal Church was 

organized by Reverend William Gassaway in 

1824; known today as Trinity United Methodist 

Church, it is the oldest existing church in York. 

The First Presbyterian Church was organized in 

1842, followed ten years later by the Church of 

the Good Shepherd, the first Episcopal church 

in York County. The York Associate Reformed 

Presbyterian (ARP) Church was founded in 

1853, and the Yorkville Baptist Church, which 

later became the First Baptist Church of York, 

❖ 

Left: This colorized postcard shows the 

1825 York Court House building as it 

appeared circa 1895, after the 

addition of the clock, bell tower, and 

new steps. 



Below: The original depot for the 

Kings Mountain Railroad was located 

at the intersection of the Chester Road 

and the Pinckney’s Ferry Road, where 

South Congress Street meets SC 

Highway 49 today. William A. Latta 

donated five acres to the railroad 

company in February 1851 for the 

establishment of the depot, as shown 

in this original plat. 



Chapter II ✦ 13

❖ 

Above: The Rose Hotel (originally 

Rose’s Hotel) on South Congress Street 

was built in 1852 by Dr. J. Rufus 

Bratton and Dr. E. A. Crenshaw. 

When this photo was taken in the 

early 1950s, the old hotel had been 

purchased by the Cloniger Brothers 

and was the home of the Carolina 

Carpet Mills. Carl M. Green’s Esso 

Station was located adjacent to the 

mill at 25 South Congress Street. 

COURTESY OF JEANNE FERGUSON. 

Below: The first Yorkville Graded 

School on East Jefferson Street burned 

on November 16, 1900, and was 

replaced with this new building in 

1902. The main entrance faced west 

(on the right in this postcard photo), 

while the side entrance faced north. 

The building was expanded in 1922 

and served as a high school and later 

an elementary school, finally closing in 

1987. Now known as the McCelvey 

Center, it serves as a historical research 

facility, county archive, and community 

center, and is part of the Culture & 

Heritage Museums of York County. 



was organized in 1866. Wesley United 

Methodist Church on West Jefferson Street, 

established in 1863, has the distinction of being 

the oldest African-American church in York. 

The earliest post office in York operated in 

the courthouse, and mail going to an individual 

in Yorkville was addressed to that person care of 

“York Court House.” The name was generally 

abbreviated “York C. H.” on maps and in other 

period documents, and it commenced operation 

sometime before July 3, 1802, when the first 

returns were filed. The original postmaster was 

John McCaw, a Revolutionary War veteran who 

was also the first county clerk. Robert Mills, the 

architect and engineer who compiled South 

Carolina’s first state atlas, reported in his 

Statistics of South Carolina in 1826 that 

Yorkville had eight stores, five taverns, a male 

and female academy, a post office, a printing 

office, and about eighty houses. The population 

was 451, of whom 292 were white and 159 were 

black. Numbered among these residents were 

eight lawyers, two physicians, one minister, and 

fifty-two mechanics. 

The name of the post office was changed to 

“Yorkville Post Office” on September 6, 1833. 

On December 7, 1841, Yorkville was officially 

incorporated by the South Carolina legislature; 

the city limits were defined as a perfect circle 

one mile in radius with the courthouse at the 

center. The first intendant (mayor) was William 

Clawson, and the wardens were Stanhope 

Sadler, Francis Gailbraith, Francis Simril, and 

Barret Wheeler. By this time Yorkville boasted a 

population of about eight hundred residents. 

The first railroad to come through Yorkville 

was chartered by a group of local investors in 

December 1848 as the Kings Mountain Railroad 

(KMR). As originally planned, the KMR would 

begin at the existing Charlotte & South Carolina 

Railroad in Chesterville and proceed north 

through the center of York District into western 

North Carolina. The company completed the 

line to Yorkville in 1852 and constructed a 

depot on the south side of town, but it could not 

proceed any further due to lack of capital funds. 

Nonetheless, the railroad brought a measure of 

prosperity to the area, facilitating the export of 

cotton and other agricultural products and 

enabling the importation of manufactured 

products and dry goods not produced locally. 

The year 1852 also saw the establishment of 

the Yorkville Female College, a Presbyterian 

school for girls. It became a public school for 

boys and girls in 1889 and was renamed the 

Yorkville Graded School. In January 1855, two 

Citadel graduates from the lowcountry, Micah 

Jenkins and Asbury Coward, opened the Kings 

Mountain Military School for young men, 

which became the site of the Episcopal 

Church Home for Children (now York Place) in 

the early twentieth century. Five years later the 

town constructed a gas plant on West Liberty 

Street for lighting street lamps and became the 

first municipality in the South Carolina 

upcountry, and the second in the state, to have 

gas street lights. 

The conclusion of the War Between the States 

brought Reconstruction, economic depression, 

and political chaos to Yorkville and York 

County. The US government declared martial 


law in 1871, and Federal troops from the 18th 

Infantry Regiment and the 7th Cavalry 

Regiment were stationed at Rose’s Hotel on 

Congress Street to keep the peace. Railroad 

service between Chesterville and Yorkville was 

restored in 1867, and in 1873, the Kings 

Mountain Railroad was incorporated into the 

Chester & Lenoir Narrow-Gauge Railroad 

Company. The new line reached Gaston County, 

North Carolina, in 1876 and was completed to 

Lenoir in 1884; it helped substantially in 

rebuilding Yorkville’s postwar economy. In 

1888, the Charleston, Cincinnati & Chicago 

(Three C’s) Railroad came through Yorkville and 

connected western York County and the Broad 

River settlements with eastern York County, 

Rock Hill, and Lancaster, adding a further boost 

to the area’s quality of life. 

The 1880s were a relatively prosperous time 

for Yorkville, and the town acquired colorful 

nicknames like “the Crossroads of the 

Upcountry,” “the Queen City of the Hills,” and 

“the Charleston of the Upstate.” The 1890s 

brought electric street lights to town, driven by 

a small steam-powered direct-current 

generating plant. The year 1897 saw two new 

developments in Yorkville’s industrial 

expansion: the town’s first textile factory, the 

York Cotton Mill, was established on the 

northeastern edge of the city limits, and the 

Chester & Lenoir Railroad was reorganized as 

the Carolina & North-Western (C&N-W) 

Railroad. In 1899, York’s second textile mill, the 

Sutro Cotton Mill on South Congress Street, 

began manufacturing yarn, and the following 

year the Victor Cotton Oil Company began 

producing cottonseed oil at its plant on Raille 

Avenue. The C&N-W Railroad changed from 

narrow gauge track back to standard gauge track 

in 1902 and built a new depot in town, and 

both the Three C’s and the C&N-W operated 

busy platforms for loading and unloading 

cotton and manufactured goods as well as 

general passenger and freight service. 

These early mills were all steam powered, but 

after the Catawba Power Company dam and 

hydroelectric station went online in 1904, the 

city’s textile mills rapidly converted to electrical 

power. In 1905, Sutro Mill became Tavora Mill 

(occasionally misspelled Travora) and Neely 

Manufacturing Company was established on 

Blackburn Street, followed two years later by 

Lockmore Cotton Mill at the intersection of 

Madison and Blackburn Streets, where Hunter 

Street is located today. Both of these later mills 

produced yarn. The first telephone lines were 

also run from Yorkville to Chesterville and Rock 

Hill during this period. 

The first two decades of the twentieth 

century were a time of growth for Yorkville. The 

Cannon Mill Company purchased York Mill in 

1913, and under the new management it 

expanded into the largest textile mill in town. In 

1915, Yorkville changed its name to York and 

adopted the epithet “White Rose City,” from the 

symbol for the English House of York. For most 

of the twentieth century, the textile industry 

remained the single largest employer in York, 

while the development of paved roads and 

modern automobiles made possible the 

commuter economy that became increasingly 

important after 1950. But this same explosion in 

highway construction and automotive 

technology also contributed to the decline 

of the railroad industry, and by 1980 both 

of York’s railroad lines had been abandoned. 

The 1980s also saw the demise of the local 

textile industry and the closure of all of York’s 

textile mills. To replace the lost textile jobs, in 

the late twentieth and early twenty-first 

centuries the city successfully transitioned to 

high technology manufacturing, service 

industries, banking, large-scale retail outlets, 

and heritage tourism. 

❖ 

Downtown York and Congress Street 

looking north are the subjects of this 

color postcard from the early 1960s. 

COURTESY OF MARY R. LOWRY. 

Chapter II ✦ 15

CHAPTER III 

C LOVER 

❖ 

The Clover High School marching 

band participated in the Charlotte 

Carrousel Parade in 1956. The 

Clover High majorettes, from left to 

right, are Linda Craig, Francis 

Hambright, Sue Hogue, Margaret Ann 

McCall, and Sybil Nivens. 

COURTESY OF MARGARET MCCALL SMITH. 

Like most of the other municipalities in York County, Clover began as a rural agricultural 

settlement long before there was any thought to establishing a town there. Bethel Presbyterian 

Church, founded in 1764, was the first of the four original congregations in York County and it 

provided a focal point for much of the settlement across the northern section, with many widely 

scattered families listed among its early members. Among the original settlers in the Bethel area were 

the Neels, Barnetts, Spratts, Smarts, and Jacksons, and the cemetery at Bethel Church includes the 

graves of hundreds of these pioneers as well as several dozen Revolutionary War veterans. Bethel also 

organized the earliest school in northern York County. Known as the Bethel Academy, it was located 

in the present-day “Five Points” community at the intersection of SC Highways 49, 55, and 274 near 

Lake Wylie. One of its alumni was Andrew Jackson, the seventh president of the United States. 

Bethel Post Office was established on July 20, 1843, with John B. Hunter as postmaster. It was 

discontinued on January 25, 1860, re-established on March 1, 1871, permanently closed on July 31, 

1902, and its papers were moved to Yorkville. Samuel A. Glenn was the last postmaster at Bethel. 


During the 1820s, the Bethel congregation 

organized a “preaching point” about five miles 

to the west so that local residents could gather 

for worship without traveling all the way to the 

church. This rendezvous point became “New 

Centre,” and on June 11, 1851, the New Centre 

Post Office was established with Myles Smith as 

its postmaster. New Centre became a 

Confederate post office during the Civil War 

and was closed in September 1866. Reestablished 

on June 22, 1874, New Centre 

closed for good on October 13 that same year 

due to the growing importance of a new post 

office named “Clover” located a few miles to 

the north. 

The modern city of Clover, located nine miles 

north of York in the southeastern corner of 

Kings Mountain Township, owes its existence to 

the railroad. The Kings Mountain Railroad 

(KMR), chartered in 1849, was originally 

intended to extend from Chester County into 

North Carolina, but it stopped in Yorkville in 

1852 due to a shortage of funds. The line 

remained unfinished until after the end of the 

Civil War. Work resumed in 1873 when the 

KMR became part of the newly-formed Chester 

& Lenoir Narrow-Gauge Railroad, and work 

crews began replacing the old standard-gauge 

track with narrow-gauge track in early 1874. On 

March 19, 1874, a new post office was 

established north of the former New Centre Post 

Office. Zimri Carroll was appointed postmaster 

of this new facility which was named “Clover.” 

By December 1875 the railroad track had been 

completed from Yorkville as far north as 

Crowder’s Creek, and in early 1876 the railroad 

company set up a water tank near the Clover 

Post Office where the steam-powered 

locomotives could refill their boilers. This 

5,000-gallon tank stood fifteen feet in height, 

was supported by six legs, and had a diameter of 

some twelve feet. The water stop would 

eventually become the site for a railroad depot 

❖ 

Above: Bethel Presbyterian Church, 

organized in 1764, is shown in an 

early photograph from circa 1930. 

Bethel claims the oldest organized 

congregation in York County. 

COURTESY OF CARY GRANT. 

Below: The Riddle grist mill and dam 

on Crowder’s Creek in northern York 

County, as it appeared circa 1880. 

The grist mill was built by George 

Riddle in 1836, and in 1886 his 

grandson George L. Riddle established 

the first roller mill in York County at 

the site. In 1897 Riddle installed a 

Munger cotton gin that could process 

1,000 bales of cotton per season. The 

mill was closed in 1904 when the 

Catawba Power Company dam 

created Lake Wylie. 

COURTESY OF CARY GRANT. 

Chapter III ✦ 17

❖ 

Above: This survey plat documents 

the beginnings of Clover as a town. 

The text reads as follows: “South 

Carolina York County} & Town of 

Clover on the Chester & Lenoir N. G. 

R. R. The above represents Ten lots in 

the Town of Clover—Each Containing 

one half Acre, having such shape &c. 

as above described. The same 

belonging to W. B. Smith & surveyed 

at his request on the 30th of April 

1879. [signed] J. R. Wallace, 

Surveyor.” A space was reserved in 

the upper right corner for the site of a 

Presbyterian church. The “public 

road” became Kings Mountain Street. 


as well, and in 1896 the station became part of 

the newly organized Carolina & North-Western 

(C&N-W) Railroad. 

Local businessman William Beaty Smith, who 

was also Clover’s second postmaster, led the way in 

establishing several retail businesses near the rail 

stop, and in July 1881 the Clover Presbyterian 

Church was founded, giving area residents a closer 

focal point for their worship services. The last 

several decades of the nineteenth century also 

brought other denominations to the Clover area, 

including Green Pond Methodist (1870), Mt. 

Harmony Methodist (1876), the Center of 

Attraction AME Zion Church, better known as 

Clover AME Zion (1883), Clover Chapel Methodist 

Church (1890), First Baptist Church of Clover 

(1891), Clover ARP (1893), and the Methodist 

Church of Clover (1901), which later became the 

First United Methodist Church of Clover. 

The South Carolina General Assembly 

officially chartered the town of Clover on 

December 24, 1887, and the first election was 

held two days later, with E. F. Bell chosen as the 

town’s first intendant. In 1889 William Beaty 

Smith began raising the necessary capital to 

establish the town’s first textile mill, which 

began operation in 1890 as the Clover Spinning 

Company but was soon renamed the Clover 

Cotton Manufacturing Company. By this time 

the town’s population had increased to almost 

300 residents, mostly families from western 

York County attracted by the new industry. 

The Clover cotton mill expanded in 1899 

with the addition of a second floor. As the mill 

grew, so did its workforce, and these additional 

workers needed places to live. This demand for 

low-cost housing led to the construction of 

Clover’s first mill village on Railroad Avenue. 

Around this same time Clover built its first 

school house, a two-story frame structure 

located at the intersection of Kings Mountain 

Street and Church Street. In 1900 the Clover Oil 

Mill began operation, converting cottonseed 

into cottonseed oil. An additional two story 

building was added to the Clover cotton mill 

that year and the number of spindles was 

increased from 3,000 to 11,000. In 1916 a 

second cotton mill was organized and named 

Hawthorne Mill, after local Revolutionary War 

hero Colonel James Hawthorne. The Hawthorne 

Mill commenced operations in 1917, and was 

followed in 1923 by the four-story Hampshire 

Mill. Both the Hawthorne and Hampshire Mills 

were purchased by the American Thread 

Company about 1942. 

In 1902 the R. G. Dun Mercantile Agency 

Reference Book showed Clover with a population 

of 961 and eighteen businesses, including the 

Clover Cotton Manufacturing Company; Clover 

Drug Company; S. M. Fairies, livery; Lulu (Mrs. 


S. M.) Fairies, millinery; M. L. Ford, furniture, 

undertaker and wheelwright; J. D. Gwin, 

stationery and confectioner; H. P. Jackson, 

grocer and butcher; John Knox, blacksmith; J. F. 

Pursley and A. J. Quinn, grocers; J. J. Smith, 

general store and hotel; W. B. Stroup & Bro., 

general store and drugs; and S. V. Wallace & 

Company, drugs. 

The Bank of Clover opened in 1906, with 

Myles Linden Smith (son of William Beaty 

Smith) as president. Electrical power came to 

Clover that same year from the Catawba Power 

Company hydroelectric station. The town 

council agreed to furnish free electrical wire to 

connect all houses and buildings within 200 feet 

of Main Street to the power grid; for 

connections beyond 200 feet, special 

arrangements had to be made. The Piedmont 

Telephone & Telegraph Company established a 

telephone exchange in Clover in 1907; this was 

subsequently purchased by Southern Bell in 

January 1927. The first automobiles also came 

to Clover in 1907; they were Ford Model T’s 

purchased from Campbell-Matthews Garage, 

the Ford dealership, by Dr. Ike J. Campbell and 

J. Meek Smith. Buick and Chevrolet dealerships 

followed soon afterwards. 

The first brick schoolhouse was built in 1910 

on Pressley Street (later the site of Kinard 

Elementary School), with J. W. Shealy as the 

town’s first school superintendent. Clover’s 

second bank, the First National Bank of Clover, 

opened in 1919. By 1928 Clover was booming. 

In that year, R. G. Dun listed the population of 

Clover as 1,608 and carried fifty-nine 

businesses and utilities in its mercantile 

reference book. Although the Great Depression 

of the 1930s resulted in the closing of many 

banks in York County, both of Clover’s banks 

managed to remain open. The 1930 census 

showed Clover as the second largest 

municipality in York County, behind Rock 

Hill and ahead of York. This changed in the 

1940s as the population of York increased and 

Clover dropped to third in size. Clover’s 

population underwent a more drastic decline 

after the massive textile mill closings of the 

late twentieth century. As is true in most of 

York County’s municipalities, today many of 

Clover’s citizens are commuters who work 

elsewhere in the county or across the state line 

in North Carolina. 

❖ 

Opposite, bottom: Joshua D. Gwin, 

who became Clover’s postmaster in 

September 1878, constructed the 

town’s first dedicated post office 

building in 1884. Shown here as it 

appeared in 1992, the Clover Post 

Office was originally located on Main 

Street. It was subsequently moved to 

Guinn Street, then finally to Church 

Street in the early 1980s. 



Above: This image of the Clover 

Cotton Manufacturing Company 

appeared on an early postcard that 

was postmarked in July 1909. 



Below: The Clover railroad station 

and water tank are both shown to 

good effect in this photograph, 

c. 1900. 

COURTESY OF RICK OWENS. 

Chapter III ✦ 19

❖ 

Above: Another old postcard, 

postmarked March 1909, featured this 

photograph of Kings Mountain Street 

looking east. 



Below: Clover’s first brick high school 

was depicted in this postcard image 

from 1915. 



Between Clover and York on US Highway 321 

lies the farming community of Filbert. Both the 

Chester & Lenoir and the C&N-W Railroads 

operated a railroad station here, and the Filbert 

Post Office was established on December 15, 

1890, with Hugh G. Brown as postmaster. 

During the late nineteenth and early twentieth 

centuries, Filbert was a well-known stumping 

ground for state politicians campaigning for 

office. The annual Filbert picnic 

held in the early 1900s was 

justifiably famous throughout 

the Piedmont for “politicking, 

eating, singing and nipping at 

bootleg whiskey,” as the York 

Observer once put it. Filbert 

had a population of forty in 

1902, and two general stores: 

Miss M. J. Brown’s store and 

Hugh G. Brown’s store. By 

1928, the population was one 

hundred, and local businesses 

included the Farmers’ Gin 

Company and four general 

stores operated by the Brown Brothers, J. W. 

Crites, J. B. McCarter, and E. I. Wood. Today the 

Filbert area is a well-known center for peach 

cultivation and is famous for its extensive peach 

orchards and peach sales outlets. The Filbert 

Presbyterian Church is also a landmark for the 

community and its congregation includes 

members from York, Rock Hill, Clover, Smyrna, 

and Hickory Grove. 


❖ 

Above: Students from Clover’s first 

school pose for the camera circa 1900. 

Known as Thornwell’s Academy after 

schoolmaster Earle Thornwell 

(standing far left in this photograph), 

the school was operated by Clover 

Presbyterian Church and was 

located on the east side of Kings 

Mountain Street. 


Below: M. L. Ford & Sons operated a 

successful furniture and undertaking 

business in Clover for many years. By 

the 1920s, when this photograph was 

taken, the family owned business was 

also an authorized Ford service 

station and Standard Motor Oil 

distributor, and had its own Ford 

sedan delivery vehicle. 

COURTESY OF THE MUSEUM OF WESTERN 

YORK COUNTY. 

Chapter III ✦ 21

CHAPTER IV 

B OWLING 

G REEN 

❖ 

The present Bowling Green 

Presbyterian Church building was 

constructed by the congregation 

in 1924-1925 from granite 

quarried nearby. 

COURTESY OF J. R. CALDWELL. 

The community of Bowling Green is located within Kings Mountain Township at the very 

northernmost limits of York County, almost on the North Carolina state line. The origins of the name 

go back to 1874, when the Chester & Lenoir Narrow-Gauge Railroad was pushing a new line from 

Yorkville to Gastonia. According to local tradition, the mules and horses used for grading the railroad 

were brought across the mountains by a man from Bowling Green, Kentucky, and he suggested that 

the local railroad station be named “Bowling Green” in honor of his home town. 

As with many other historic towns in York County, long before it had a name Bowling Green was 

an agricultural crossroads community located at the intersection of two old wagon roads, which 

eventually became US Highway 321 and the Ridge Road. During the early days of the county, the area 

was simply considered a part of the widely scattered Bethel community that grew up around Bethel 

Presbyterian Church. The establishment of the railroad service gave the community an immediate 

focal point, and the Bowling Green Post Office was established on November 13, 1877, with Elias M. 

Adams as the first postmaster. 

An important milestone in the community’s development came in October 1895, when Bowling 

Green Presbyterian Church was organized by twenty-seven members of Bethel Presbyterian Church 

who wished to establish a place of worship in their own community. The present church building on 


Ridge Road dates to April 1924 and is unique in 

that it was constructed of native granite 

quarried less than a mile from the church on the 

farm of James Monroe Adams. The quarrying 

and construction were done mostly by church 

members, and the church held its first service 

on Easter Sunday, 1925. 

In order to raise money for the new building, 

the church members (most of whom were 

farmers) each planted an acre of cotton, which 

❖ 

Above: Bowling Green Presbyterian 

Church was organized in 1895. The 

members initially met in the old 

Chestnut Oak School, shown in this 

photograph, until the first church 

building was constructed. 

COURTESY OF J. R. CALDWELL. 

Below: The Bowling Green 

Elementary School was originally 

located adjacent to the Presbyterian 

church and instructed grades one 

through six. This photograph shows a 

group of Bowling Green school 

children in 1942. 

COURTESY OF SIS BENTLEY. 

Chapter IV ✦ 23

❖ 

The employees of Bowling Green 

Spinning Company pose in front of 

the textile mill in this photograph 

from the early 1930s. 

COURTESY OF ESTELLE WITHERS. 

they called “the Lord’s acre,” for the benefit of 

the church. The cotton from these dedicated 

plots was then brought to the church and sold at 

public auction, with the proceeds from the sale 

going toward resolving the church’s debt. 

Special worship services were held during these 

annual cotton sales, along with “shape note” 

hymn singing and all day “cotton picnics.” The 

church expanded in 1972 with the addition of a 

$120,000 brick educational building. 

The textile industry came to Bowling Green in 

1902, when a group of local citizens constructed 

a one-story brick building about a half mile 

south of town to manufacture light weight 

knitted undershirts. Known as Bowling Green 

Knitting Mill, it was powered by steam, as were 

almost all of York County’s early cotton mills. 

This enterprise lasted until 1907, when the 

company closed and sold all of its equipment. 

The building remained vacant until 1916, when 

Reynolds Cotton Mills purchased the facility and 

set up a new mill to manufacture carded cotton 

yarns. In 1921 the mill was renamed Bowling 

Green Cotton Mills, and the following year the 

factory building was expanded and new 

machinery for winding and spinning was 

installed, giving the plant a total of 5,040 

spindles. The mill was reorganized as Bowling 

Green Spinning Company and converted from 

steam power to electrical power. The size of the 

factory increased again in 1931, when the mill 

switched from carded yarn to combed knitting 

yarn for the underwear market. As did most 

Southern mills during this period, the company 

also operated a school and a church for its 

employees. The school is gone, but the church 

survives as Bowling Green First Baptist Church. 

In 1946, LaFar Industries took over 

management of the Bowling Green Spinning 

Company. The plant continued to expand over 

the next three decades, increasing the size of the 

factory, building a cotton warehouse, and 

adding more space for winding, spinning, and 

yarn storage. The plant was also modernized 

with automated equipment, filtration and waste 

removal systems, air conditioning, and fire 


prevention systems. By the 1980s, the company 

boasted 17,244 spindles and manufactured a 

variety of cotton yarns for the knitting industry, 

including not only underwear garments but also 

outerwear such as golf shirts, children’s 

clothing, and ladies’ wear. Like many other 

cotton mills in York County, however, Bowling 

Green Spinning Company closed in the 1990s, 

and the facility is now primarily a warehouse. 

Another important industry in Bowling Green 

was the Dulin mill and gin. Established as 

Flanagan & Company Millers and Ginners in 

1917, the operation was founded by George 

Flanagan and his brother-in-law, Robert M. 

Dulin, who also owned a local general store. The 

company began operations in 1890 with a flour 

mill, and in 1900 added a corn mill, a saw mill, 

and a cotton gin. Unlike most grist mills in York 

County, this mill was not powered by water, but 

was instead driven by its own power plant, 

originally steam, later diesel. In the 1940s Dulin’s 

son, N. B. Dulin, bought the company from his 

father and uncle and renamed it the Dulin Gin 

Company. During its heyday farmers from a fifty 

mile radius in North and South Carolina brought 

wheat, corn, and cotton to the Dulin mill and gin. 

The operation reached its peak in the 1920s, 

when the mill ran continuously and produced up 

to fifty barrels of wheat flour per day. In the 

1930s Dulin expanded his operation, adding a 

blacksmith shop, a peach shed, and a feed and 

fertilizer store. N. B. Dulin’s son, Blair Dulin, Jr., 

continued operating the family business until the 

1970s. The old mill and gin buildings still stand 

today on Ridge Road near Bowling Green 

Presbyterian Church, a silent testimonial to a 

vanished way of life. 

❖ 

Above: The employees of the winding 

department of Bowling Green 

Spinning Mills, shown here circa 

1937, were responsible for winding 

cotton thread onto cones. 

COURTESY OF ESTELLE WITHERS. 

Below: The Dulin Gin Company 

processed wheat flour, corn meal and 

cotton until well into the 1970s. 

COURTESY OF THE NANCY BIGGS THOMAS 

COLLECTION, CULTURE & HERITAGE MUSEUMS. 

Chapter IV ✦ 25

❖ 

In 1767 William McElwee received a 

land grant for 100 acres on Clark’s 

Fork of Bullock’s Creek below Kings 

Mountain, where he built this twostory 

log house circa 1770. McElwee 

served in the Revolution and was a 

veteran of the battles of Huck’s Defeat 

and Kings Mountain. Standing in 

front of the old McElwee home in this 

photograph taken circa 1898 are 

members of the William Butler Black 

family, who were living there at the 

time. From left to right, they are 

William Steele Black (third son of 

Black and his first wife Emma Steele); 

William Butler Black; Sarah Phifer 

Black (Black’s third wife); Clarence 

and Harley Black (sons of Black and 

second wife Sarah McCarter); 

Rebecca Fewell Black (Black’s 

mother); and Samuel Fewell Black 

(oldest son of Black and first wife 

Emma Steele). 

COURTESY OF ROBERT BLACK. 

CHAPTER V 

K INGS M OUNTAIN T OWNSHIP 

The northwestern section of York County forms Kings Mountain Township, bordered on the north 

by the state line and on the west by Cherokee County. The headwaters of several important creeks 

rise in this township. Clark’s Fork empties into Bullock’s Creek, which flows west to the Broad River, 

while Crowder’s Creek and Allison Creek both empty into the Catawba River to the east. Kings 

Mountain Township takes its name from one of the most famous landmarks of the American 

Revolution. Shaped like a human footprint, Kings Mountain (originally King’s Mountain) is actually 

a sixteen-mile-long mountain range that cuts across the border between North and South Carolina in 

a northeast-to-southwest orientation. The southern tip of this ridge extends about one and one-half 

miles into York County, and it was here in 1780 that several battalions of backcountry Whig 

militia attacked and defeated the left wing of Lord Cornwallis’ British army. Often referred to as “the 

turning point of the American Revolution,” the Battle of Kings Mountain has also been justifiably 

called “the Southern militia’s finest hour.” On October 7, 1780, an ad hoc coalition of Whig 

militiamen from northwestern South Carolina, western North Carolina, eastern Tennessee, and 

southwestern Virginia came together and annihilated a large, well organized force of British 

Provincial troops and Loyalist militia under the command of Major Patrick Ferguson, an officer of the 

British regular army. By an act of the U. S. Congress dated March 3, 1931, the Federal government 

officially created the Kings Mountain National Military Park which included the original battleground 

(in York County) and over ten thousand acres of surrounding forest and farm land in both York and 

Cherokee Counties. 


Today the Kings Mountain National Military 

Park also forms the terminus of the 

Overmountain Victory National Historic Trail, a 

330-mile trail system that marks the various 

routes taken by the militia battalions from 

southwestern Virginia, western North Carolina, 

and eastern Tennessee on their way to the battle. 

In 1934 the Federal government donated about 

6,000 acres from the national park to the state of 

South Carolina to form the Kings Mountain 

State Park. The state park includes facilities for 

camping and picnicking as well as a living 

history farm that represents life in the Carolina 

Piedmont during the early nineteenth century. 

❖ 

Above: This Yorkville Enquirer 

postcard shows two early monuments 

at Kings Mountain commemorating 

the historic battle. The “old 

monument” on the left was erected in 

1815 by Dr. William McLean of 

Lincolnton, North Carolina. The 

monument on the right was erected 

to preserve the inscription of the 

original monument. 



Left: Beersheba Presbyterian Church, 

organized in 1769, was one of the 

four original Presbyterian churches of 

York County. 



Chapter V ✦ 27

❖ 

Right: Also published and sold by the 

Yorkville Enquirer, this postcard 

shows the hundredth-anniversary 

monument erected at Kings Mountain 

on October 7, 1880. Included are 

portraits of two of the heroes of that 

battle, Colonel Joseph McDowell of 

North Carolina and Colonel John 

Sevier of Tennessee. 



Below: Bethany ARP Church was 

organized in York County in the late 

eighteenth century by members from 

Bethel and Beersheba. Bethany was 

instrumental in the organization of 

several early schools in the Kings 

Mountain Township. 



Much of the construction 

work that created these two 

parks was performed by the 

Civilian Conservation Corps 

in the 1930s. 

Just outside the southeastern 

edge of the township 

boundary lies one of York 

County’s four original 

Presbyterian churches. 

Organized in 1769, Beersheba 

Presbyterian Church is located 

about five miles northeast of 

York off SC Highway 161 on 

Beersheba Road. Beersheba’s 

congregation originally 

included members from King’s 

Creek, upper Bullock’s Creek, 

upper Turkey Creek, and 

Yorkville, until the religious 

explosion of the early 1800s 

brought other churches to the 

community. Beersheba has 

many veterans of the 

American Revolution, the 

Civil War, and later conflicts 

buried in its historic cemetery. 

In 1797 another important 

house of worship was 

organized on the Kings 

Mountain Road (modern SC 

Highway 161) about three 

and one-half miles west of 

Clover and about four miles southeast of the 

battleground. This was Bethany ARP Church, 

which rapidly became the focal point of its own 

community and led to the establishment of 

numerous schools, stores, and other churches in 

the area. Bethany Post Office was commissioned 

on June 11, 1851, with William McGill, Jr., as 

postmaster. It was discontinued on October 13, 

1859, re-established on December 18, 1867, 

and discontinued again on July 31, 1902, and 

its papers moved to Yorkville. James L. McGill 

was the final postmaster at Bethany. 

One of the most enduring landmarks in the 

Bethany community is McGill’s Store, a general 

store established in 1887 by James Leslie 

McGill. Located at the intersection of SC 

Highways 55 and 161, McGill’s Store is one of 

the oldest stores in York County today and may 

be the oldest in continuous operation under the 

ownership of its founding family. 

Following the establishment of Bethany ARP, 

a number of other churches grew up in the Kings 


Mountain Township during the late nineteenth 

and early twentieth centuries. These included 

Antioch Baptist (established 1813, now in 

Cherokee County), Enon Baptist (1855), Kings 

Mountain Chapel Methodist (1864), Ramah 

Presbyterian (1879), New Zion Methodist 

(1890), Zoar AME Zion (1898), and Mountain 

View Baptist (1920). A plethora of small rural 

schools once existed in this section, beginning 

with the Bethany Presbyterial School established 

at Bethany ARP Church. Other small schools that 

once served the white and black communities of 

this township included Center Hill, Clarks Fork, 

Crawford, Cross Roads, Fairview, Hero, 

Mountain View, New Zion, Santiago, and Zoar. 

Several of these schools, including Mountain 

View, New Zion, and Zoar, were associated with 

those churches of the same name. 

❖ 

Above: The Bethany Presbyterian 

High School, established in 1902, was 

a boarding school with separate 

dormitories for male and female 

students. This photograph shows the 

Bethany graduating class circa 1906. 

The lumber in the photo was probably 

being used for the construction of a 

new school building. 

COURTESY OF ELEANOR WHITESIDES JONES. 

Left: This photograph from circa 1915 

shows Emmett Pursley’s sawmill, 

located in the Bethany community a 

short distance southwest of the Kings 

Mountain battleground. 

COURTESY OF EDDIE D. PURSLEY. 

Chapter V ✦ 29

CHAPTER VI 

S MYRNA 

❖ 

The Piedmont Springs Hotel attracted 

visitors from all over the state to “take 

the cures” in the mineral springs 

north of Smyrna. Portions of the old 

“Natural Spring House” still remain 

at the site on Piedmont Springs Road. 


YORK COUNTY. 

Smyrna, located in Broad River Township, has the distinction of being the smallest incorporated 

town in South Carolina: the official town population in the 2000 census was fifty-nine. It takes its 

name from the Smyrna ARP Church, which in turn gets its name from the Greek city of Smyrna on 

the Aegean coast of Asia Minor, mentioned prominently in the Biblical Book of Revelation. Smyrna 

also has the distinction of being York County’s westernmost town; it is located almost on the border 

with Cherokee County. From 1772 until the creation of Cherokee County in 1897, the area to the 

north and west of Smyrna, bordered by the Broad River and the North Carolina state line, was 

successively part of the original New Acquisition District, York District, and York County. During the 

American Revolution, the nearby fords on the Broad River, including Smith’s Ford and Cherokee 

Ford, were important crossings for both the American and British armies, and men from the area 

served in both the Whig and Tory militias. In the summer of 1780 a prominent Loyalist officer from 

western York County, Colonel Matthew Floyd, commanded a battalion of local Tories known as the 

“Upper River Boys,” and these men built a fort on King’s Creek not far from the present town of 

Smyrna in an effort to help secure the area for the British Crown. Following the Battle of Kings 

Mountain in October 1780, a group of Whig militiamen from across the Broad River attacked Floyd’s 

Fort and defeated the Loyalists, and from then until the end of the war, the King’s Creek area 

remained firmly under the control of the Whigs. 

The region located between Smyrna and the upper Broad River is noted for being rich in mineral 

deposits, particularly iron and gold. One of York County’s earliest heavy industries was the iron 

industry, and after Hill’s Ironworks on Allison Creek closed down about 1815, iron manufacturing 

moved to the northwestern corner of the county. Among the companies that operated in the King’s 


Creek area between 1815 and 1865 were the 

King’s Creek Company, the Cherokee 

Ironworks, the South Carolina Iron 

Manufacturing Company, and the King’s 

Mountain Iron Company. The iron industry 

faded out following the end of the Civil War. 

Smyrna has also been called “the gold capital 

of York County” because of the large number of 

gold mines located in the area from the late 1820s 

and early 1830s. This was the period of America’s 

first “gold rush,” when northern Georgia and the 

western Carolinas were buzzing with “gold fever.” 

The first gold was mined here in 1829, and 

within a few years the area surrounding Smyrna 

was the site of numerous gold mines. Of the 

forty-eight gold mines listed in York County by 

the South Carolina Division of Geology, twentysix 

were in the Smyrna area and four were at 

nearby King’s Creek Station. However, these 

mines were generally small, private enterprises 

and they never attained the size and economic 

success of York County’s iron industry. There 

were three main periods of gold production in 

South Carolina: 1830-1861, 1880-1910; and 

1935-1942, but the gold industry in York County 

declined after the early 1940s due to a lack of 

large, easily recoverable deposits. 

These mineral riches also gave birth to 

another early commercial enterprise in the 

Smyrna area. Between 1810 and 1820, Hugh 

Cain built a small health spa around several 

mineral springs on his property. These mineral 

springs, part of the headwaters of Clark’s Fork 

Creek, were reputed to have significant healing 

properties for a variety of health problems. One 

spring, known as the Lithia Spring, was rich in 

lithium salts and its waters were reportedly 

beneficial for people suffering kidney or bladder 

problems. The waters of the other spring, 

known as the Arsenic or Beauty Spring, were 

supposed to enhance beauty and were used for 

washing and bathing. Cain’s Springs became 

widely known throughout the state for their 

curative properties, and around 1900 a group of 

investors led by Paul V. Gaffney purchased the 

site and built a large, two-story hotel which they 

called the Litha Springs Hotel. By 1910 the site 

was known as “Piedmont Springs,” and it was 

located about one and one-half miles due north 

of Smyrna on Piedmont Springs Road, off 

modern SC Highway 5. Also sometimes known 

as White Diamond Springs, the resort did not 

survive the Great Depression of the 1930s. 

❖ 

Above: A group of gold miners near 

Smyrna, c. 1940. Included in the 

photo are Banks Alexander, Marvin 

McDaniel, and Ed Castles. 


YORK COUNTY. 

Below: Smyrna ARP Church, 

established in 1843, is the oldest 

church in Smyrna. 



Chapter VI ✦ 31

❖ 

Above: Ureanus Meek Pursley 

(1873-1929) was the first mayor of 

Smyrna. He is shown in this 

photograph with his wife Alice Hope 

Pursley (1873-1936). 

COURTESY OF CARL F. HOPE. 

Below: The old Smyrna Post Office 

building was moved from its original 

location (where the 1970s brick post 

office stands today) and is now 

located beside the Smyrna Volunteer 

Fire Department. 


The actual town of Smyrna grew up in the 

early nineteenth century around Smyrna ARP 

Church, which was founded in 1834, when 

seven widely scattered families united to build a 

house of worship on land donated by John 

Darvin. Throughout most of its history, the 

fortunes of the town and the church have been 

closely linked, with the town taking its name 

and much of its character from the church. 

Smyrna ARP was officially organized in 1843, 

and, when the first communion service was held 

in 1844, there were forty-eight communicants. 

The original church was a small log building 

without heat or any other luxuries. A larger 

wooden frame building was erected about 1860 

and dedicated about three years later. The 

church building has been destroyed twice by 

fire, once in 1873 and again in 1942, but each 

time the members rebuilt it. 

In 1888, Hickory Grove ARP Church was 

organized with members transferred from Smyrna, 

and in 1891 the two congregations began a longstanding 

tradition of sharing the same pastor. 

Several other well established churches, including 

Canaan Methodist (organized 1812, now in 

Cherokee County), Smyrna Baptist (organized 

1912, also in Cherokee County), Broad River 

Baptist (organized 1946), and Ebenezer AME 

Zion, serve the Smyrna area as well. 

The second cotton mill founded in York 

County was established about eight miles 

northwest of Smyrna, where Doolittle Creek 

enters the Broad River. Known as the Cherokee 

Falls Manufacturing Company, it commenced 

operation in 1882 with 2,500 spindles, only a 

few months after the Rock Hill Cotton Factory 

became York County’s first textile mill. Unlike 

York County’s other first generation cotton 

mills, the Cherokee Falls factory was water 

powered instead of steam powered. The 

Cherokee Falls mill and community were part of 

the territory ceded to Cherokee County in 1897. 

The Charleston, Cincinnati & Chicago 

Railroad (Three C’s) came through Smyrna as it 

pushed its new rail line through western York 

County in 1888, and the company opened a 

railroad depot and telegraph office in the town. 

Junius L. Duncan was the first railroad agent 

and telegraph operator at the Smyrna Depot. 

Meanwhile, the opportunities afforded by the 

new railroad station prompted F.D. Horn to 

build the town’s first mercantile business not 

long after the depot opened. Around 1889, Dr. 

J.W. Allison established a grocery store and drug 

store, and in January 1891 Milton Wylie opened 

a dry goods store. These businesses were 

followed soon after by the first Smyrna School. 

On February 1, 1892, the Smyrna Post Office 

opened for business with Julius A. Hope as 

postmaster. A York County post office also 

operated at King’s Creek Station from June 1889 

until the area was absorbed into Cherokee 

County. Albert Whisonant and Miles M. Smith 

were the King’s Creek postmasters while the 

post office was in York County. 


Smyrna was officially chartered by the South 

Carolina legislature on January 5, 1895, and 

Uraneus Meek Pursley was elected the town’s 

first mayor. Smyrna is one of only two towns in 

York County (the other is McConnells) that still 

defines its town limits as a perfect circle, 

although part of the circle was cut off by the 

formation of Cherokee County. By 1910, the 

Three C’s Railroad had been incorporated into 

the much larger Southern Railway System and 

there were two large cotton gins operating in 

Smyrna, one in the center of town near the post 

office and the other a short distance to the south 

on the road to Hickory Grove. As a sign of the 

changing times, Dr. Ben Miller purchased 

Smyrna’s first automobile in April 1910; he also 

had one of the town’s first telephones. 

In 1924, the “West Road” running from 

Smyrna through Hickory Grove and Sharon to 

York was completed. The new road facilitated 

automobile travel to York and Rock Hill, and the 

lure of steady employment in the rapidly 

expanding textile industry prompted many rural 

families in the Smyrna area to relocate. The 1928 

edition of the R. G. Dun Mercantile Agency 

Reference Book gives the population of Smyrna 

as 101 and lists the following businesses: S. L. 

Caldwell’s general store, R. J. Castles & Company 

general store, Whitesides Company general store, 

and Whisonant Drug Store. In 1929, Southern 

Railway closed the railroad depot at Smyrna, and 

during the Great Depression many of Smyrna’s 

early businesses closed as well. 

New industry came to Smyrna in 1965 when 

Screen Prints, Inc. opened a plant specializing in 

flat bed screen printing for upholstery, 

draperies, and terry cloth towels. Originally 

serving the Carolinas and Georgia, by 1981 the 

plant employed seventy-six people and sold its 

products nationwide. Like many other firms in 

York County, Screen Prints fell victim to the 

decline of the textile industry, and closed its 

doors for the last time in 1999. Another blow to 

the community came in January 2007 when the 

Whitesides Company general store closed, 

marking the end of Smyrna’s longest continually 

operating mercantile business. However, the 

Smyrna Post Office remains open and it still 

delivers mail to much of rural western York 

County, as it has since 1892. In spite of its 

economic setbacks, the town of Smyrna remains 

proud of its history and heritage and continues 

to persevere. 

❖ 

Above: Dr. Ben Miller’s house, located 

on SC Highway 97, was built around 

the year 1900. Miller owned the first 

automobile in Smyrna and one of the 

first telephones. 



Below: The Whitesides Company 

general store was a Smyrna landmark 

and community center for most of the 

twentieth century. This photograph 

shows the store as it appeared in 1992. 



Chapter VI ✦ 33

CHAPTER VII 

H ICKORY 

G ROVE 

❖ 

The Irene Bridge was constructed on 

the Broad River in 1909 and was a 

major link between York County, 

Union County, and Cherokee County. 

It took its name from Irene Edwards, 

a young girl who was the first person 

to cross the bridge after its 

completion. In 1956 the bridge 

foundations were weakened by 

flooding and it collapsed after being 

traversed by heavy road equipment. 


YORK COUNTY. 

According to local tradition, Hickory Grove owes its name to an early stand of hickory trees that 

once stood where the town is now located. Situated in Broad River Township about halfway between 

Guyon Moore Creek and Clark’s Fork of Bullock’s Creek, Hickory Grove, like many other York 

County towns, began life as a crossroads community at the intersection of Quinn’s Road and the 

Smith’s Ford Road. Among the earliest settlers in the region were Guyon (or Guyan) Moore (for 

whom the creek was named), John McKinney, William Kerr, John McMillan, Matthew Floyd, and 

John and Robert Stephenson, all of whom settled on North Carolina land grants during the 1750s 

and 1760s. The future site of Hickory Grove became a hub connecting several other heavily traveled 

routes that linked important crossings on the Broad River, including the Howell’s Ferry Road and the 

Irene Bridge Road (now Irene Bridge Highway), as well as roads leading north and east. Gold was 

mined in the Hickory Grove area in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, although to a lesser 

extent than in neighboring Smyrna. The South Carolina Division of Geology lists eight gold mine 

locations in the Hickory Grove vicinity. 

Salem Presbyterian Church was organized about 1810 near Howell’s Ferry in what is now 

Cherokee County, but was then part of York District. Sometime around 1812, Unity Church was 

constructed on the River Road near Hickory Grove. Originally shared by Baptists, Methodists, and 

Presbyterians, it eventually became Unity Baptist Church when the other denominations formed 

separate churches. The first school in the Hickory Grove area, Unity Academy, was organized at Unity 


Church in 1826. The earliest Methodist church 

in the vicinity was Old Prospect, established in 

1841. After moving to the town of Hickory 

Grove, it became Mount Vernon Methodist 

Church in 1862. 

The Hickory Grove Post Office opened for 

business on February 10, 1831, with James 

McKinney (or McKenny) as postmaster. 

McKinney owned a store located at the 

intersection of Quinn’s Road and Smith’s Ford 

Road, and he reportedly suggested the name 

“Hickory Grove” for the post office. The post 

office closed on December 3, 1845, reopened on 

August 23, 1847, closed again on August 22, 

1866, and was re-established on December 18, 

1867. In July 1895 the post office name was 

changed to “Hickory,” but in September 1907 it 

was changed back to “Hickory Grove.” 

In 1846, McKinney sold his store to Thomas 

Grier Wylie, and McKinney’s Store became 

Thomas G. Wylie & Company. Wylie became 

Hickory Grove’s second postmaster in August 

1847. His store was the first of many mercantile 

establishments to spring up in the town over the 

next century. By the time the Charleston, 

Cincinnati & Chicago (Three C’s) Railroad came 

through Hickory Grove in 1888, J. N. McDill 

had purchased Thomas Wylie’s store. As in the 

case of Smyrna and Sharon, the railroad proved 

to be a boon for Hickory Grove. The town was 

officially incorporated that same year, and 

McDill became the first intendant. Another 

important landmark that year was the 

establishment of Hickory Grove ARP Church, 

which was organized on December 6, 1888, by 

members dismissed from Smyrna ARP. 

Following the establishment of the Three C’s 

line through Hickory Grove, Calvin W. 

❖ 

Left: The Stooping Pines Church and 

School, located on Irene Bridge Road, 

was an important meetinghouse for 

African Americans from both sides of 

the Broad River during the late 

nineteenth and early twentieth 

centuries. 



Below: Hickory Grove’s first town 

school, the Hickory Grove Academy, 

was established in 1848 and is shown 

here as it appeared around 1900. 


YORK COUNTY. 

Chapter VII ✦ 35

❖ 

Right: This old postcard shows 

Hickory Grove ARP Church as it 

appeared in the early twentieth 

century. 


YORK COUNTY. 

Below: Molasses mills, used for 

making molasses from sugar cane and 

sorghum, were very popular in rural 

York County during the early 

nineteenth century. This photograph 

shows a fixed sorghum mill operated 

at W. S. Wilkerson’s farm on Irene 

Bridge Road in the early 1900s. 

Wilkerson invented his own improved 

molasses mill and was known locally 

as “the Sorghum King.” 


YORK COUNTY. 

Whisonant started a general store, and Dr. 

Joseph W. Allison opened a combination general 

store and drugstore. In October 1891, James C. 

Chancellor established a legal practice in 

Hickory Grove. By 1910, the town included a 

railroad line crew shop, a telegraph operator for 

the Piedmont Telephone & Telegraph Company, 

a harness maker and several blacksmiths, a 

livery stable, and a brick maker. There were also 

no less than seven general stores and mercantile 

establishments, a pharmacy, and a livery stable. 

The town even had its own insurance company 

and its own bank, appropriately named the 

Bank of Hickory Grove. 

During the early twentieth century, Hickory 

Grove was noted for its excellent hotels. 

Railroad travelers who wished to stop for the 

night had their choice of the Central Hotel 

(known locally as the Slaughter House after 

owner W. T. Slaughter), the Joe Leech Hotel, or 

the Mitchell Hotel, all of which were within 

walking distance of the depot. These familyowned 

hotels were famous for their excellent 

home cooked meals and proved to be very 

popular with travelers passing through the area. 

In 1889 the Hickory Grove Academy became 

the town’s first public school. The school 

continued to meet in the old academy building 

until 1916, when a new brick building was 

constructed. In 1928, Hickory Grove High 

School was built; it served the community until 

1975, when high school students were 

transferred to York. The Hickory Grove-Sharon 

Elementary School was completed in 1988 and 

still educates younger students from Hickory 

Grove, Sharon, and Smyrna. 

Electricity came to Hickory Grove in 1925, 

thanks to Southern Power and the construction of 

hydroelectric power plants on both the Catawba 

and Broad Rivers. In 1928, the R. G. Dun 

Mercantile Agency Reference Book gave the 

population of Hickory Grove as 301, and listed 

the following businesses: R. A. Brown, general 

store; Farmer’s Supply Company; Hanna Garage; 

Hickory Supply Company, general store; Hood 

Drug Company; J. M. & C. R. McGill Company, 

general store; Smith & Smith, general store, gin, 

and grist mill; R. H. Westmoreland, blacksmith; S. 

H. Wilkerson, garage; T. W. Wilkerson, hardware; 

Wilkerson-Edwards Company, wholesale grocer; 

Wilkerson Supply Company, general store and 

furniture; and C. S. Wilkins, restaurant. The Great 

Depression of the 1930s caused many of these 

businesses to fail, and it also doomed the Bank of 

Hickory Grove, which closed in 1931. 

The first resident of Hickory Grove to own an 

automobile was Dr. W. A. Hood, who purchased 

a one cylinder chain-driven Brush vehicle in 

1915. Cars and trucks necessitated gasoline and 

mechanical service, and the town’s first service 

station was opened by J. T. Howe and Frank P. 

Ramsey on the corner of Peachtree Street and 

York Street. As a sign of further modernization, in 


❖ 

Above: Members of several different 

families, all of whom lived on the 

Irene Bridge Road between Hickory 

Grove and the Broad River, pose at 

the home of Captain John Whitley 

Mitchell in this 1903 photograph. 

From left to right, they are Jonathan 

Buice; Willie and Odette Mitchell, 

grandchildren of Captain Mitchell; 

Grover Robinson (with dog); Mary 

Robinson; Jemima Robinson; Samuel 

Robinson; Martha Mitchell Robinson; 

J. J. J. Robinson; and John Smith. 


YORK COUNTY. 

December 1938, Duke Power provided the town 

with electric lamps that illuminated the streets at 

night. During the 1950s, there were two stations 

in town, the Bratton & Rhodes Esso station and 

Scoggins’ Service Station. The advent of the 

automobile and the growth of the textile industry 

in York County brought many changes to western 

York County in the middle of the twentieth 

century. While agriculture still remained an 

important livelihood, the availability of better 

roads and cheap transportation made the 

prospect of commuting to York, Clover, and Rock 

Hill an increasingly viable option for employment 

after World War II. 

The textile industry came to town in 1956, 

when Hickory Grove Sportswear began 

manufacturing children’s underwear in one of 

the old brick buildings on Wylie Avenue. 

Oxford Manufacturing purchased the plant in 

1960 and it became Oxford of Hickory Grove, 

producing slacks and shirts. At its peak in the 

late 1980s, Oxford employed 126 workers and 

even set up a small airport behind its plant 

where visiting executives could land their 

aircraft. In 1987, Hickory Grove Industries 

established a chemical plant at the airport for 

manufacturing wood preservatives. Both of 

these industries have since closed down. 

Like other small towns in western York 

County, the population and the number of 

businesses in Hickory Grove declined in the late 

twentieth century. Gone are the old hotels and 

many of the other establishments that once 

thrived in town, but the town itself remains a 

strong and vibrant community. 

Bottom, left: Samuel Wright Mitchell 

built this Queen Anne styled house on 

the Three C’s Railroad in 1898 and 

operated it as a hotel. Local dry goods 

dealer James M. McGill purchased the 

property in 1908 and used it as a 

boarding house. Located on Peachtree 

Street, the Mitchell Hotel/McGill 

House enjoyed a considerable 

reputation for its fine cuisine. 



Below: The sixth-grade students of 

Hickory Grove Elementary School 

posed for this photograph in the 

early 1930s. 


Chapter VII ✦ 37

CHAPTER VIII 

B ULLOCK C REEK T OWNSHIP 

❖ 

This steam-powered cotton gin was 

located near Bullock’s Creek Church 

in the early twentieth century. 


YORK COUNTY. 

Bullock Creek Township (originally Bullock’s Creek or Bullocks Creek Township) comprises the 

southwestern corner of York County, with the Broad River as its western boundary and the Chester 

County line as its southern border. The township takes its name from Bullock’s Creek, a large water 

system that begins northwest of York and flows into the Broad River. Bullock’s Creek, in turn, was 

named for Zachariah Bullock, an early settler on the Broad River who received no less than fourteen 

colonial land grants totaling 5,953 acres between May 1766 and November 1771. These were all 

North Carolina grants issued for Mecklenburg and Tryon Counties during the period when North 

Carolina claimed much of upstate South Carolina. The vast majority of these grants were on the west 

side of the Broad River in present-day Union and Spartanburg Counties, but two of them were in 

York County. Bullock eventually sold these grants to other settlers, as he did with many of his other 

grants across the river. He also surveyed many of the early settlers’ land grants on both sides of the 

Broad River, including much of the land containing the creek that now bears his name. 

The early settlers on the Broad River were predominantly Scotch-Irish Presbyterians, and one of 

the earliest landmarks they established in the area was Bullock’s Creek Presbyterian Church. Bullock’s 

Creek Church was originally known as Dan, from the famous Biblical expression “from Dan even 

unto Beersheba,” because like its namesake it was located southwest of the Beersheba congregation. 

The Bullock’s Creek congregation was organized in 1769 by Reverend Joseph Alexander, a member 

of the wealthy and influential Alexander family of Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, and it was 


one of York County’s four original 

congregations. During the American Revolution, 

the Bullock’s Creek meetinghouse was a 

frequent rendezvous point for Whig militia from 

both sides of the Broad River. 

A colonial wagon road called Quinn’s Road, 

most of which is no longer extant in York County, 

once traversed the east side of the Broad River 

and crossed Bullock’s Creek on its way into North 

Carolina. Beginning in the 1760s, this road was 

one of the major highways running north-south 

through western York County. In June 1780, a 

skirmish took place at the ford where Quinn’s 

Road crossed Bullock’s Creek. British Legion 

cavalrymen and Loyalist militia under the 

command of Captain Christian Huck skirmished 

with Whig militia at the ford, and several of the 

Whigs were killed or captured. Huck also hanged 

an elderly citizen named Robert Fleming, who 

had four sons in the Whig militia. 

Quinn’s Road remained in service until the 

mid-1950s, when much of it was abandoned in 

favor of newer highways. However, portions of 

Quinn’s Road were incorporated into modern 

Blanton Road, Wilson Chapel Road, and SC 

Highway 97. Two other major roads that crossed 

the township from early times were the 

Pinckney’s Ferry Road and the Howell’s Ferry 

Road, which linked Yorkville with two major 

ferry locations on the Broad River. The 

Pinckney’s Ferry Road was especially important 

during the period when Pinckneyville, on the 

west bank of the Broad River, was the legal 

center of the Pinckney District. From 1791 until 

1799 the Pinckney District included York, 

Chester, Union, and Spartanburg Counties, and 

the district courthouse and jail were located 

there. Pinckneyville declined in importance 

after the district was abolished, but the 

Pinckney Ferry remained an important river 

crossing until well into the twentieth century. 

A post office was established at Bullock’s 

Creek on January 21, 1831, with Thompson 

McCluny as postmaster. It was discontinued on 

January 12, 1835, re-established on March 19, 

1850, as “Bullock Creek,” discontinued on 

❖ 

Above: This groundbreaking ceremony 

for the construction of a new building 

at Bullock’s Creek Presbyterian 

Church took place in 1950. The old 

building in the photograph was built 

in 1860. 


YORK COUNTY. 

Below: This fine example of a Folk 

Victorian-Style cottage was originally 

constructed about 1895 by Mason 

Blair of the Blairsville community. 



Chapter VIII ✦ 39

❖ 

Born in Ireland, Reverend Robert 

Young Russell (1800-1866) was 

pastor at Bullock’s Creek Presbyterian 

Church for many years during the 

nineteenth century. His home was in 

the Blairsville community. 


YORK COUNTY. 

October 4, 1866, re-established on December 3, 

1866, and finally discontinued for good on 

August 30, 1930. The last postmaster was 

Haskell D. Cranford. The 1902 R. G. Dun 

Mercantile Agency Reference Book reported that 

“Bullock Creek” had a population of twenty-five 

and three general stores: W. B. Good, Sherer & 

Inman, and Sam B. Pratt. In 1928, R. G. Dun 

put the population of “Bullock Creek” at ninety 

and in addition to Sherer & Inman, which Dun 

noted as a “trade name,” the report listed the 

following businesses: H. D. Cranford, general 

store; L. L. Dowdle, general store; P. P. Good, 

general store and cotton gin; and J. A. Purcell, 

garage and accessories. Although the creek, 

community, and township are all officially 

labeled “Bullock Creek” on modern county and 

state maps, many residents of York County still 

refer to the area as “Bullock’s Creek.” 

Unlike most of York County’s other townships, 

Bullock Creek Township has no incorporated 

towns or large organized communities, and it 

never developed the commercial and industrial 

activities that characterize York County’s more 

urbanized townships. Bypassed by the railroads 

in the late nineteenth century, the township could 

not become a transportation hub like some of the 

other communities of western York County, and 

no major highway bridges span the Broad River 

in Bullock Creek Township. Until the early 

twentieth century travelers who wished to cross 

into Union County from the Bullock’s Creek 

community (or vice versa) had the choice of 

using the Pinckney Ferry on the southern 

boundary of the township or Howell’s Ferry near 

the northern edge. These ferries were abandoned 

after the Lockhart and Irene Bridges were 

constructed across the Broad River, but both of 

these bridges are outside Bullock Creek 

Township. The lack of mass transportation 

facilities in the late nineteenth and early 

twentieth centuries undoubtedly also contributed 

to the fact that no major industries developed 

here as they did in eastern and northern York 

County. Even today the Bullock Creek Township 

retains the rural, agricultural lifestyle that has 

characterized it for 250 years. 

Northeast of Bullock’s Creek and about two 

and one-half miles south of Sharon on the old 

Pinckney’s Ferry Road (now SC Highway 49) 

lies the farming community of Blairsville. 

Taking its name from the Blair family who were 

once numerous in the area, Blairsville had a post 

office, church, and school for most of the 

nineteenth century. Other prominent families in 

the community included the Sherers, Raineys, 

Crosbys, and Russells. The Blairsville Post Office 

was established on January 1, 1815, with John 

Blair as postmaster, almost twenty years before 

the Bullock’s Creek Post Office began. 

Blairsville’s PO was discontinued and reestablished 

three times between March 1848 

and August 1867, before it was permanently 

closed on June 30, 1903, and its papers moved 

to Sharon. The final location of this post office 

was in the right front room of the Russell house 

in Blairsville, and the last postmaster was Sarah 

N. Russell. The Blairsville community was at its 

peak in 1902 when the R. G. Dun Mercantile 

Agency Reference Book gave its population as 

forty and listed the John L. Rainey cotton gin 

and grist mill as the primary businesses there. 

About three miles due north of Bullock’s 

Creek Church is Hoodtown, situated at the 

crossroads of SC Highway 97 and Hoodtown 

Road. Hoodtown is another small farming 

community that takes its name from a 

prominent local family. Hoodtown had its own 

post office from March 11, 1884, until March 

14, 1903, when its papers were moved to 

Sharon. Postmasters during this period were 


Samuel S. Plexico, William L. Hood, James S. 

Hood, and John J. Hood. 

Farther north, but still within the bounds of 

Bullock Creek Township, lies the Hopewell 

community. Hopewell, like Blairsville, was the 

site of one of the earliest post offices in western 

York County, and both offices are prominently 

indentified on Robert Mills’ 1820 map of York 

District. Located on the Howell’s Ferry Road 

near the Broad River, the Hopewell Post Office 

was established on March 24, 1816, with John 

S. Henderson as postmaster. The post office was 

discontinued and re-established three times 

between 1866 and 1867 before being closed for 

good on April 30, 1902, when its mail service 

was moved to Hickory Grove. The last 

postmaster was Joseph W. Smarr. The Hopewell 

community includes a prominent African- 

American church organized after the Civil War. 

Originally known as Zion Church, it is now 

identified as Mt. Zion No. 2 AME Zion Church. 

In the extreme southwestern corner of 

Bullock Creek Township, between SC Highway 

49 and the Broad River, lies the community of 

Thomson Quarter, which also extends into 

nearby Chester County. The area takes its name 

from the Thomson (or Thompson) family, who 

were very numerous in the region during the 

late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. 

Prominent among this family was Dr. William P. 

Thomson, who practiced medicine in Union 

County and owned land on both sides of the 

Broad River. Thomson had a large number of 

slaves, and following the end of the Civil War 

these ex-slaves became tenant farmers on his 

plantation, resulting in a large number of black 

Thomsons (or Thompsons) in the area as well. 

In the 1880s these former slaves established Mt. 

Pleasant Baptist Church on Quail Hollow Road. 

The church also operated a school at the site, 

and it served the blacks in Thomson Quarter for 

several generations. Mt. Hopewell Baptist 

Church on Highway 49 is a more recent African- 

American church that serves the Thomson 

Quarter community today. Another landmark in 

the Thomson Quarter community was William 

C. Thomson’s cotton gin, which until recently 

was the oldest standing cotton gin in York 

County. Established in the late nineteenth 

century, it was located off Thomson Quarter 

Road on the west side of Highway 49. It has 

since fallen into ruin. 

❖ 

Above: The Hugh Hicklin Sherer 

family posed for this photograph in 

front of Hugh Sherer’s home in 

Blairsville, circa 1937. 


YORK COUNTY. 

Below: The Hopewell School on 

Hopewell Road is an example of the 

Craftsman architectural style that 

was very popular in the South in the 

1920s and 1930s. Constructed in 

1925 to replace an earlier building 

that burned, the school was closed in 

1941 and now functions as a 

community center. The building has 

also been the site of “shape note” 

singing conventions in the past. 


YORK COUNTY. 

Chapter VIII ✦ 41

CHAPTER IX 

S HARON 

❖ 

This house was constructed in 1910 

by John Silas Rainey on Hickory 

Grove Road (SC Highway 211). The 

son of John L. Rainey of Raineytown, 

he owned a cotton gin and saw mill, 

and also established the Sharon 

Warehouse. The John S. Rainey House 

exemplifies the wealth and elegance 

that Sharon was noted for in the early 

twentieth century. 



The largest town in Broad River Township is Sharon, located six miles southwest of York on the 

east side of Bullock’s Creek. Sharon had its beginnings as a farming community situated about 

halfway between Beersheba Presbyterian Church to the north and Bullock’s Creek Presbyterian 

Church to the southwest—between Dan and Beersheba, to use the Biblical phrase. After the 

establishment of Pinckneyville as the seat of the Pinckney District in 1791, the road from Yorkville 

to Pinckney’s Ferry became an important highway running through the future site of Sharon. In 

1796, the Sharon ARP Church, which took its name from a fertile plain mentioned in the Old 

Testament, was established on the Pinckney’s Ferry Road (now SC Highway 49) near its intersection 

with several other local roads. Sharon Church became a focal point for this community, and the area 

around the church soon became known as “Sharon.” 

One of the earliest large scale landowners in the Sharon area was John L. Rainey. In 1887, Rainey 

was one of several individuals who granted rights-of-way for the Charleston, Cincinnati & Chicago 

Railroad, better known as the Three C’s. The Three C’s line through western York County was 


completed the following year and Rainey 

deeded land for a temporary railroad depot 

which became known as “Sharon Station.” The 

railroad promised to establish a permanent 

depot with passenger, freight, and telegraph 

services, but in early 1889 the railroad 

unexpectedly closed the temporary station and 

scrapped its plans for a permanent depot. 

Bewilderment turned to anger when local 

residents learned that the railroad had been paid 

off by wealthy merchants in Yorkville who did 

not want competition so close to their town. An 

investigation by the South Carolina Railroad 

Commission ruled in favor of Sharon, and the 

Three C’s was forced to re-establish the Sharon 

Station as originally promised. 

Within a short time after the depot was 

secured, new businesses sprang up in Sharon, 

including W. S. Wilkerson’s general store and a 

furniture store established by W. A. Robinson 

and Robert R. Plexico. In October 1889, 

William Lawrence Hill began moving his 

country store, formerly known as the Minter 

Store, from the now defunct community of 

Sandersville on Susy Bole Creek in 

southwestern York County. On December 24, 

1889, the South Carolina legislature granted a 

charter for the town of Sharon, and by 1910 the 

population of Sharon had grown to 374. 

The growth and prosperity made possible by 

the railroad led to the organization of the First 

National Bank of Sharon. Officially chartered on 

May 11, 1909, the officers were Dr. Joseph H. 

Saye, president; John L. Rainey, vice president; 

and A. M. Haddon, cashier. The building was 

erected over the course of the next year by 

contractor W. W. Blair and opened for business 

in 1910. From 1910 until 1929, the U.S. Bureau 

of Engraving and Printing produced national 

bank notes bearing the name of the bank and the 

signatures of Saye, Haddon, and J. S. Hartness, 

who served as bank cashier after Haddon. 

In 1912, William L. Hill began constructing a 

remarkable new brick building in Sharon for 

his thriving business, the Hill & Company 

Mercantile general store. The three-story “W. L. 

Hill Store,” as it was known locally, remains 

the tallest structure in western York County 

and is listed on the National Register of Historic 

❖ 

Above: Downtown Sharon as it 

appeared circa 1911 was the subject 

of this early photographic postcard. 

The building on the far right is the 

First National Bank of Sharon, 

founded in 1909. 


YORK COUNTY. 

Below: The W. L. Hill Store, built in 

1912 and 1913, is the tallest structure 

in western York County. It is shown 

here as it appeared in the 1970s, 

before the Southern Railway (formerly 

Three C’s Railroad) tracks were 

dismantled in 1988. 

COURTESY OF PHYLLIS MORGAN. 

Chapter IX ✦ 43

❖ 

Above: “We Honor All Major Credit 

Cards” proclaims the signs on the gas 

pumps at Wilson’s Sunoco Station in 

Sharon during the late 1960s. The 

Sharon Grill is now located on 

the site. 



Below: The Sharon Grammar School 

is shown here as it appeared in the 

late 1940s. 

COURTESY OF CARL F. HOPE. 

Opposite, Top: Turkey farms became 

a lucrative business in western York 

County following the end of World 

War II. In this 1950 photograph, 

Charles Pressly Whitesides drives his 

Ford 8N tractor through a field of 

turkeys at his farm on Whitesides 

Road near Sharon. Whitesides was a 

founding member of the South 

Carolina Turkey Federation and was 

one of the largest turkey farmers in 

the upstate. 


Opposite, Bottom: This photograph 

was taken from York Street in Sharon 

looking toward Woodlawn Street in 

the early 1970s. The buildings are, 

left to right, the Town Hall, Fred 

Youngblood’s Store, the Shannon 

Building, and Hartness’s Peach Shed. 



Places. Constructed of locally made brick, the 

building imitated the large urban department 

stores of its day. Surviving in almost unaltered 

condition, the Hill Store includes an immense 

central stairway linking all three floors, a 

manually operated freight elevator that rose 

from the basement to the third floor, and 

walk-in vaults in the basement and first 

floors. The first floor vault includes a 

Cannonball safe that held cash for the store 

and the Planters Bank, of which Hill was the 

president. From 1913 until Hill’s death in 

1953, the Hill Store sold household goods, 

hardware, clothing, farm tools, and even 

automobiles, and was famous throughout the 

Carolina Piedmont. 

In 1928, the R. G. Dun Mercantile Agency 

Reference Book put Sharon’s population at 419 


and listed 21 businesses in town. Included in 

that list were R. H. G. Caldwell & Sons, Inc., 

general store; The Cash Store (general store); 

R. A. Ferguson, grocery and meat; H. C. Floyd, 

drug store; Hill & Company, general store; 

R. W. Hope, contractor and builder; S. A. Hope, 

grocery and shoe repair; A. F. Plexico, harness, 

hardware and furniture; J. M. Plexico, drug 

store; Plexico’s Garage; J. S. Rainey, sawmill 

and gin; Sharon Garage; Sharon Warehouse 

Company, storage; J. L. Whitesides, general 

store; and G. W. Whitesides, general store 

and fertilizer. 

The stock market crash of 1929 and the Great 

Depression of the 1930s brought a sudden end to 

many banks in York County. The Bank of Hickory 

Grove and the Planters Bank in Sharon were both 

casualties of the economic collapse, but the First 

National Bank of Sharon managed to stay open, 

making it the only bank in western York County 

to do so. When the economy improved in the late 

1940s and early 1950s, the First National Bank 

prospered with it, and it became the bank of 

choice for many residents of Smyrna, Hickory 

Grove, Sharon, and the rural communities of 

western York County. However, it could not 

escape the large scale bank mergers of the 1980s. 

When First Citizens Bank purchased the First 

National Bank of Sharon in 1986, the Sharon 

bank was the oldest continuously operating bank 

in all of York County.. 

Chapter IX ✦ 45

CHAPTER X 

M C C ONNELLS AND B RATTONVILLE 

❖ 

Bethesda Presbyterian Church on SC 

Highway 322 was the earliest 

congregation in the McConnells area. 

The present church building dates to 

about 1820 and is reported to be the 

oldest surviving church building in 

the county. 



McConnells, located in the heart of Bethesda Township, is situated on a natural elevated ridge that 

runs roughly north-south through the centers of York and Chester Counties between Turkey Creek 

and Fishing Creek. An early eighteenth century wagon road cut across these creeks in an east-west 

direction, following the approximate path of modern Chappell Road to the east of McConnells and 

U.S. Highway 322 to the west. Another early wagon road, following the modern route of U.S. 

Highway 321 and SC Highway 161, followed the ridge running through the middle of York and 

Chester Counties and connected Kings Mountain and western North Carolina with the Charleston 

and Saluda Roads, where the city of Chester now lies. The intersection of these two early wagon roads 

laid the groundwork for the future town of McConnells. A third colonial wagon road known as 

Quinn’s Road crossed Turkey Creek about six miles west of McConnells, providing a heavily traveled 

link along the east side of the Broad River western North Carolina and the Charleston Road where 

the city of Chester is now located. 

One of the earliest settlers in what would eventually become McConnells was William Moore, who 

received a 300-acre colonial land grant “on ye South fork of fishing Creek adjoining branches of 

turkie creek” on April 8, 1754. A trader and surveyor named John Wade built a store or trading post 

known as “Wade’s Store” nearby sometime prior to 1764. However, the bulk of the land covered by 

the present town of McConnells was originally owned by a Scotch-Irish settler named James Hannah. 

Between June 1765 and August 1767, Hannah obtained several large land grants totaling over 500 


❖ 

Above: This photograph shows the 

colonial home of Colonel William and 

Martha Bratton as it appeared in 

1992. The core of the house, on the 

left, is a single-pen log structure 

probably constructed in 1766 when 

the Brattons settled on the South Fork 

of Fishing Creek. The building 

was extensively remodeled by 

Dr. John Bratton in the 1830s and 

has been restored to its nineteenthcentury 

appearance. 



acres, and he also purchased some of John 

Wade’s earlier patents and William Moore’s 300- 

acre tract. 

Between the mid-1750s and the early 1770s, 

more settlers arrived whose names are familiar 

to modern McConnells residents: Ashe, Bratton, 

Burris, Love, Lowry, McKnight, Neely, Rainey, 

Sadler, Steele, Wallace, Williamson, and, finally, 

just before the outbreak of the Revolution, the 

McConnell family. Around 1769 these early 

settlers established Bethesda Presbyterian 

Church, one of York County’s four original 

congregations, which provided a focal point for 

further settlement. 

During the American Revolution, the 

predominantely Scotch-Irish settlers on Fishing 

Creek and Turkey Creek almost overwhelmingly 

supported independence. One of the most 

important battles in the Piedmont, the Battle of 

Huck’s Defeat, occurred on July 12, 1780, at 

James Williamson’s plantation near McConnells. 

This site of this Patriot victory soon became a 

part of Brattonsville, the agricultural community 

that grew up around the crossroads plantation 

of Colonel William Bratton, one of the area’s 

most active Whig militia officers. 

In the fall of 1780, the Patriot militia under 

Colonel Edward Lacey, who lived just south of 

McConnells on Susy Bole Creek, constructed a 

stockade fort where Quinn’s Road crossed 

Turkey Creek, about six miles west of 

McConnells. This fort, known as Lacey’s Fort or 

Fort Lacey, provided a base of operations for the 

Whigs in western York County and helped 

control the activities of the Loyalists. The British 

general Lord Cornwallis, with about 1,300 

British soldiers, camped near Lacey’s Fort for 

several days in January 1781 before marching 

into North Carolina. 

After 1790, families like the Brattons, 

Raineys, and McConnells began aggressively 

Below: On October 1, 1903, the 

King’s Mountain Chapter of the 

Daughters of the American Revolution 

erected this monument 

commemorating the Battle of Huck’s 

Defeat in front of the Colonel William 

Bratton house at Brattonsville. This 

1915 postcard also shows the old 

Armstrong Ford Road, an early 

colonial road that connected 

Armstrong Ford on the upper 

Catawba River with Brattonsville and 

the Charleston Road. 



Chapter X ✦ 47

❖ 

Above: The old Harshaw Cotton Gin 

on SC Highway 322 in McConnells 

was constructed about 1880 by 

William Newton Ashe from brick 

made on his father’s farm. 

COURTESY OF YC MAGAZINE. 

Below: The present Olivet 

Presbyterian Church building was 

constructed in 1886. The congregation 

posed for this photograph in front of 

Olivet Church in 1954. 

COURTESY OF AGNES AYCOCK LOVE. 

expanding their plantations and 

buying up large numbers of African 

slaves from Virginia and the South 

Carolina lowcountry to work these 

plantations, which were increasingly 

devoted to the cultivation of cotton. 

The 1820 York District survey, 

published in Robert Mills’ 1825 

South Carolina atlas, shows the old 

wagon road running from Kings 

Mountain through Yorkville and 

then due south past the plantations 

of “McConnel” and “M. Love” 

(probably Reuben McConnell and 

James M. Love) into Chester 

District, but the town of McConnells 

did not yet exist. The nearby 

community of Brattonsville actually 

predates McConnells as an 

organized settlement; the Bratton 

family operated a country store and tavern after 

the Revolution and had a post office at 

Brattonsville from May 1818 until December 

1852. In 1852, the Kings Mountain Railroad 

established a depot at the old crossroads near the 

McConnell plantation, located almost exactly 

halfway between Chesterville and Yorkville, and 

from that period on the development of 

McConnellsville (as it was originally known) 

increased as Brattonsville declined. 

Not long after the railroad came through, 

Joseph P. Moore and Hugh Burris opened a 

small store beside the depot selling dry goods 

and millinery, which they called Moore & 

Burris. Once the railroad was completed, a post 

office was not far behind. The McConnellsville 


❖ 

Above: The second, two-room 

McConnells School, c. 1910. 

COURTESY OF HUGH JOHN HARSHAW, JR. 

Post Office officially opened for business on 

April 1, 1854, and the first postmaster was 

Joseph P. Moore, who operated the post office 

out of the same building as his store. 

The 1870s saw two new country stores, 

Moore & Hemphill and Crawford & Lindsay, 

open in the town. Local businessman E. N. 

Crawford set up a repair center for wagons and 

buggies complete with a blacksmith shop. 

Another important early business was the Ashe 

Brick Company, founded by William Newton 

Ashe. Originally known as Ashe & Ashe, the 

company supplied material for many of the 

early brick buildings in McConnells. Around 

1880, Ashe built a six-course brick building to 

house his cotton gin, which he then sold to the 

Mutual Gin & Mining Company. After changing 

hands several more times, the gin was 

purchased by Hugh John Harshaw in 1947 and 

became known as the Harshaw Gin. 

Further growth came to the town when 

Olivet Presbyterian Church was officially 

organized in August 1868. Church history 

indicates that Olivet had its beginnings as far 

back as 1842, when members of the Bethesda, 

Bullock’s Creek, and Pleasant Grove 

Presbyterian churches in York County, along 

with Zion Presbyterian Church in Chester 

County, began organizing a new church near 

McConnellsville. Originally called the 

Independent Presbyterian Church, it was 

located about two miles southwest of 

Below: The Chappell Cotton Gin on 

Chappell Road, northeast of 

McConnells, was constructed by John 

Henry Chappell in 1947. It was 

rebuilt two years later after it was 

destroyed by fire. Shown here in a 

photograph from the late 1970s, the 

Chappell Gin was for many years the 

last functioning cotton gin in the 

upstate. The gin was completely 

destroyed by arson on July 11, 2004. 


Chapter X ✦ 49

❖ 

Above: The Carroll School was 

constructed in York County in the 

early 1920s for the education of 

African Americans. Area residents 

raised the funds to match a $1,000 

grant from the Julius Rosenwald Fund 

to build the school. 



Below: In the 1940s, John and Perry 

Aycock built this peach shed alongside 

the Carolina & North-Western 

railroad in McConnells. The shed 

made it possible for them to load 

peaches from their orchards onto 

C&N-W freight cars. By that time the 

old McConnells railroad depot, visible 

in the background, was being used as 

a tenant house. 


Opposite, top: Peaches were the 

subject of the McConnells town float 

in the Rock Hill Christmas parade of 

1952. From left to right, the 

McConnells girls are Patricia Aycock, 

Agnes Aycock, Lucette McCausland, 

Jo Love, Ann Love, Linda Harshaw, 

Jane McCausland, Ann Harshaw, and 

Sarah Love. The double feature at the 

Stevenson Movie Theater in Rock Hill 

included The Pace that Thrills and 

Leadville Gunslinger, both of which 

were released in 1952. 


McConnellsville on the road that is now SC 

Highway 322. The church was also known as 

Turkey Creek Presbyterian, but the name 

“Olivet” was in use by the congregation at least 

as early as 1860. In 1886, the congregation of 

Olivet decided to move the church closer to 

town, and a new building was constructed at the 

present location using bricks supplied by the 

Ashe Brick Company. 

Like most other churches in the South 

Carolina upcountry, Bethesda and Olivet had 

many African-American members in their 

congregations in the years before, during and 

immediately after the Civil War, and the records 

of Bethesda and Olivet show that both churches 

were still baptizing black infants and adults as 

late as the 1870s. But in the late 1860s, many 

black members began leaving these churches 

and forming their own houses of worship, one 

of which was Bethlehem Presbyterian Church, 

established in 1868 about one mile southwest of 

the town center. Other African-American 

families established Baptist and AME Zion 

churches in the area surrounding 

McConnellsville, including Mt. Zion Baptist 

Church (1867), Cedar Grove AME Zion Church, 

and Providence Baptist Church (now defunct). 

The first schoolhouse was built in 

Opposite, bottom: The Brick House 

and the Bratton Store building at 

Brattonsville are shown here as they 

appeared in the early 1980s. The 

Brick House was begun by Dr. John S. 

Bratton in 1840 and was the home of 

his youngest son, Napoleon Bonaparte 

Bratton, from the late 1860s until 

1915. Napoleon also ran the store, 

which was known locally as “the N. B. 

Bratton Store.” The store building was 

destroyed by fire in January 2001. 



McConnellsville sometime between 1880 and 

1890. The original McConnellsville School had 

one room and one teacher, Samuel B. Lathan, 

who boarded with the town’s first doctor, Dr. 

Robert L. Love. In those days Dr. Love visited 

his patients on horseback and carried all his 

medicines and equipment in his saddlebags. 

Love’s son, William Mitchell Love, carried on 

the medical tradition and actually opened a 

doctor’s office in McConnellsville in the 1880s. 

According to the R. G. Dun Mercantile Agency 

Reference Book, in 1902 the town’s population 

stood at 125, and local businesses included 

general stores operated by R. R. Clinton, E. B. 

Mendenhall & Company, S. D. Patrick, and O. 

Chapter X ✦ 51

❖ 

This horse-drawn International 

Harvester No. 9 mowing machine was 

photographed at the farm of Cecil and 

Mary Brakefield on Susy Bole Creek 

following a winter snowfall in January 

1970. It bears mute witness to the 

McConnells area’s once thriving 

agricultural lifestyle. 

COURTESY OF MICHAEL C. SCOGGINS. 

L. Sanders; J. N. & R. Conrad’s grocery store; 

and R. P. Sandsing, blacksmith. The growth of 

the town resulted in its incorporation as 

“McConnellsville” in September 1906. The town 

limits were established as a perfect circle 

encompassing an area of two square miles from 

the town center. 

By 1910 the one room McConnellsville 

School had expanded into a two room wooden 

building with two teachers. In 1921, the town 

erected a new brick school building across the 

road from the original school. Another country 

school in nearby Guthriesville was then 

incorporated into the McConnellsville School, 

making these two schools the first in rural York 

County to consolidate. The expanded school 

originally housed grades one through eleven, 

but in 1930 grades eight through eleven moved 

to York, followed by the seventh grade a few 

years later. The school continued to instruct 

grades one through six with three teachers until 

the 1955-1956 school year, after which all of the 

remaining grades transferred to York. The old 

brick school building was torn down in the 

early 1960s and a community center was built 

in its place, although the school’s ball field is 

still used by the community. 

Taking a cue from other surrounding towns, 

McConnellsville dropped the “ville” from its 

name and officially became “McConnells” in 

1915. In the early 1920s, a three-teacher school 

for African-American students was established 

at the intersection of Mobley Store Road and 

Williamson Road near McConnells. Known as 

the Carroll School, it was one of many so-called 

“Rosenwald schools” built in York County 

during the period, using funds provided by the 

famous Chicago philanthropist Julius 

Rosenwald. Several other small schools for 

blacks were also built in the community, but 

none within the town limits. 

In the 1920s the automobile became 

increasingly important as a mode of 

transportation, making it possible for 


McConnells residents to commute to towns like 

York and Rock Hill to work and shop. In the 

1928 R. G. Dun Mercantile Agency Reference Book, 

McConnells was still listed as “McConnellsville” 

and had a population of 247. By the early 1950s 

there were three country store/gas stations in 

McConnells: E. B. Bankhead’s General 

Merchandise, J. P. Williams & Company, and 

Harshaw’s Grocery. The McConnells Post Office 

operated out of Harshaw’s Grocery until the early 

1960s, when it relocated to Bankhead’s Store. 

In the late 1960s, the town erected a new 

brick building to house the McConnells Post 

Office and the McConnells Volunteer Fire 

Department. The McConnells community by 

this time had made the transition from a 

predominantly agricultural economy to a 

commuter-based economy, with many residents 

driving as much as 50 or 60 miles to work, and 

this trend continues to the present day. Under 

the management of the Culture & Heritage 

Museums of York County, the eighteenth and 

nineteenth century plantation at Brattonsville 

has since grown into a nationally famous 

heritage tourism site that brings thousands of 

visitors to the McConnells area each year. In 

1999, Historic Brattonsville was one of several 

area sites using in the filming of the 

Revolutionary War epic movie, The Patriot. 

Due north of McConnells on U.S. Highway 

321, but still within the bounds of Bethesda 

Township, are two small communities known as 

Guthriesville and Delphia. Both were originally 

farming communities, and both had early post 

offices and railroad depots. Guthriesville, now 

known as Guthries, took its name from the 

Guthries family who lived in the area. The 1928 

R. G. Dun Mercantile Agency Reference Book 

gave the population of Guthriesville as eightyfive, 

and listed the Guthriesville Mercantile 

Company and W. M. Sadler as general stores. 

Delphia, which has also been known as 

Delphos or Delphus, derived its name from 

Philadelphia Methodist Church. Organized in 

1837, Philadelphia Church has long been the 

focal point of this community. The Philadelphia 

School building, which dates to circa 1925, is 

still standing in its original location on Highway 

321. Since the 1980s, this building has housed 

a succession of small local churches. 

Seven miles due east of McConnells lies the 

farming community of Ogden, situated on Stony 

Fork of Fishing Creek and the Norfolk-Southern 

Railway. At the center of the Ogden community 

is Antioch Methodist Church, established in 

1878. In the early twentieth century, the 

community included the Ogden School, the 

Hebrew Negro School, a railroad passenger 

stop, and a grocery store. About three miles 

south of Ogden is Smith’s Turnout, the site of a 

railroad switch or “turnout” that allows trains to 

pass each other. 

❖ 

The old Philadelphia School building 

on Highway 321 was the home of the 

Delphia Pentecostal Church when this 

photograph was taken in 1992. 



Chapter X ✦ 53

CHAPTER XI 

F ORT 

M ILL 

❖ 

The core of the White Homestead, 

shown here in a winter scene from a 

recent Fort Mill post card, dates to 

1831. Construction was begun by 

William Elliott White, and the 

home has seen many additions over 

the years. 

COURTESY OF ANN EVANS AND THE 

WHITE HOMESTEAD. 

The township of Fort Mill forms the northeastern corner of York County and is bordered on the 

west and south by the Catawba River, on the east by Sugar Creek and Lancaster County, and on the 

north by Mecklenburg County, North Carolina. Another large tributary, Steel Creek (or Steele Creek 

as it is sometimes spelled), cuts across the northern third of the township on its way from North 

Carolina to Sugar Creek. The township owes its peculiar shape in part to Sugar Creek and in part to 

the boundaries of the Catawba Indian Nation as defined by the Treaty of Augusta in 1763. For most 

of York County’s history, the only incorporated body in the township was the city of Fort Mill. This 

changed when the residential community of Tega Cay, established on Lake Wylie in 1970, was 

chartered by the state in 1982. 

During the 1750s, European settlers began settling within the bounds of the traditional Catawba 

Indian territory on the northeast side of the Catawba River. Some had colonial land grants from 

North or South Carolina, while others did not. Following the Treaty of Pine Tree Hill (Camden) in 

1760, both colonial governments agreed to rescind their land grants in the Catawba territory and to 

bar further settlement, but this proved difficult to enforce. The Treaty of Augusta established the 

boundaries of the Catawba Nation as a square with sides 15 miles in length (144,000 acres), centered 

on the Catawba River and oriented at an oblique angle to the thirty-fifth parallel. 


Fort Mill derived its name from two historic 

sites originally situated near the spot where the 

town later grew. The first of these sites was a 

colonial fort located near Nation Ford, an 

important prehistoric river crossing named after 

the Catawba Nation. The North Carolina 

colonial government began construction of this 

fort in the spring of 1757 at the request of the 

Catawba Indians, who desired protection from 

the Cherokee tribe. Work on the fort stopped 

after four months, also at the request of the 

Catawbas, and the fort was never completed. 

The second part of Fort Mill’s name was derived 

from the first grist mill in the area. Known 

originally as Isaac Garrison’s mill, and later as 

Theodoric Webb’s mill, it was established on 

Steel Creek in the 1780s. 

Local tradition states that the first permanent 

white settler to homestead on the Catawba 

Nation with the permission of the Indians was 

Thomas “Kanawha” Spratt. Tradition also states 

that about 1761 the Catawbas awarded Spratt a 

large tract of land reportedly five miles square 

(16,000 acres). Spratt made his home on the 

Nation Ford Road just south of the present town 

of Fort Mill, and he was followed by other early 

settlers including William Ervin, William Elliott, 

and Isaac Garrison, many of whom obtained 

their land from Spratt. Following the end of the 

American Revolution, the Catawbas began 

leasing more of their territory to local planters. A 

tavern and a store soon followed, and in 1788 

the settlers built a log meetinghouse that became 

Unity Presbyterian Church. The meetinghouse 

burned in 1804, and the congregation built a 

new structure where the Nation Ford Road 

crossed the Camden Road. A Baptist church 

called Sugar Creek was constituted on the 

Catawba Indian land in 1792; it later became 

known as Flint Hill Baptist Church. 

For a brief period of time in the late 

eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, the 

village that grew up around these early 

settlements was known as Little York, but the 

name did not stick. The earliest post office in 

the community, known as Pine Hill, was 

established on April 21, 1811, with Hugh White 

❖ 

Above: The Sutton House on Sutton 

Road, west of Fort Mill, dates to circa 

1850 and is typical of the two-story 

farmhouses so prevalent in York 

County in the nineteenth century. 



Below: Fort Mill’s Main Street as it 

appeared in 1889. Laborers are 

unloading bricks used for the 

construction that followed the 

introduction of textile manufacturing 

to the town. 

ORIGINAL PHOTOGRAPH BY WALTER B. MEACHAM, 

SR,. OF FORT MILL. COURTESY OF THE NANCY 

BIGGS THOMAS COLLECTION, CULTURE & 


Chapter XI ✦ 55

❖ 

This view of Main Street in Fort Mill 

looking north shows the city as it 

appeared around 1910, complete with 

horse-drawn buggies and electric 

trolley cars but no automobiles. 


SR. OF FORT MILL.COURTESY OF THE NANCY 



as postmaster. The post office name was 

changed to White’s Store on April 12, 1827, 

when store owner William Elliott White took 

over as postmaster. In 1831, White began 

construction of the village’s most prominent 

landmark, the White Homestead, a Flemish 

Bond Georgian structure that was also one of 

York County’s earliest brick homes. This 

elaborate domicile would be home to several 

succeeding generations of the interrelated 

White, Springs, and Close families, who became 

one of South Carolina’s greatest industrial 

dynasties. 

The year 1832 brought the area’s first 

Methodist church, Philadelphia, located on 

what is now SC Highway 160 several miles 

northwest of Fort Mill. On August 10 of that 

year, the new postmaster, Thomas Dryden 

Spratt (son of “Kanawha” Spratt), changed the 

name of the local post office to Fort Hill. The 

presence of a preexisting “Fort Hill” in South 

Carolina prompted the final name change to 

Fort Mill on September 20, 1833, when Thomas 

Webb became postmaster. Another important 

milestone in the development of Fort Mill 

occurred in 1852, when the Charlotte & South 

Carolina Railroad came through the town on its 

way from Charlotte to Rock Hill. The railroad 

company built a trestle at the old Nation Ford 

and established a depot on the south side of 

town. On February 13, 1873, Fort Mill was 

granted a charter of incorporation by the South 

Carolina General Assembly, with B. F. Powell as 

intendant. The year 1875 brought a new 

church, St. John’s Methodist, to the town of Fort 

Mill. The 1880 census showed Fort Mill with a 

population of 290, but this figure was soon to 

change dramatically. 

In 1887 Fort Mill entered the industrial 

age—specifically, the textile age, which would 

dominate the town’s livelihood for the next one 

hundred years. On January 23 of that year the 

Fort Mill Manufacturing Company received its 

charter from the state with Captain Samuel 

Elliott White, the son of postmaster William 

Elliott White, as president. Built on White’s 

land, this steam-powered factory was originally 

equipped with 200 looms and was dedicated to 

weaving cloth. The mill produced its first yard 

of cloth on February 8, 1888, and within a short 

period of time it was producing 8,000 yards 

daily. The shareholders quickly decided to 

expand Fort Mill Manufacturing to include a 

separate facility for spinning yarn; work 

commenced on the Catawba Manufacturing 

Company in April 1888, and it began operation 

in February 1889 with 3,000 spindles. A third 

mill, Luna Manufacturing Company, was 

organized in February 1892; it proved to be less 

successful and in 1901 it was taken over by 

Leroy Springs, husband of Samuel Elliott 

White’s daughter Grace Allison White. 


Leroy Springs had founded the Lancaster 

Cotton Mills in Lancaster, South Carolina in 

1895, and in 1914 he took over the Fort Mill 

Manufacturing Company. This was the 

beginning of a textile empire. By 1919 Springs 

was operating five plants, each one as a separate 

company: the Fort Mill and White (formerly 

Luna) Plants in Fort Mill, the Lancaster and 

Kershaw Plants in Lancaster County, and the 

Eureka Plant in Chester. Following Springs’ 

death in 1931, his son Colonel Elliott White 

Springs, a World War I veteran and one of 

America’s first ace fighter pilots, inherited six 

cotton mills with 5,000 employees, 7,500 

looms, and 300,000 spindles valued at 

$7,250,000 (in 1930 dollars). Colonel Springs 

combined these separate mills to form Springs 

Cotton Mills, which in turn became the basis for 

Springs Mills, Inc., and later Springs Industries. 

For most of the twentieth century, Fort 

Mill’s growth mirrored that of the local textile 

industry. In 1890 the town’s population was 

689; in 1900 it was 1,394. This increase 

resulted in the town receiving a new charter 

from the South Carolina government on 

October 11, 1907. The 1928 R. G. Dun 

Mercantile Agency Reference Book lists forty-three 

separate businesses in Fort Mill, including the 

Fort Mill Manufacturing Company; the town 

population was at that time 1,946. By 1940, the 

population stood at 2,919, and in 1994 it was 

4,930. This only accounts for residents within 

the city limits, however, and does not begin to 

measure the explosive growth that the 

surrounding region experienced beginning in 

the 1980s. 

Part of this growth was sparked by another 

unique industry that took root in the Fort Mill 

area in the late 1970s: the PTL (“Praise the 

Lord”) religious broadcasting network, 

established in 1978 by television evangelists Jim 

and Tammy Faye Bakker. After becoming a 

highly successful multi-million dollar operation 

in the 1980s, the PTL Network collapsed in 

1987 in the wake of personal and financial 

scandals involving the Bakkers. More enduring 

and aggressive has been the growth in the Fort 

Mill area due to its close proximity to the 

Charlotte-Matthews-Pineville area of North 

Carolina and the lucrative job market there. 

Since the 1980s, the commercial and residential 

development in Fort Mill Township has dwarfed 

most of York County and, indeed, much of the 

rest of the state as well, and at present it shows 

no signs of slowing down. 

❖ 

Above: The Fort Mill Manufacturing 

Company was initially set up to 

weave cloth, but it soon added 

facilities for spinning yarn. This photo 

shows the factory in 1889 after the 

addition of the spinning section. The 

mill was constructed on cotton fields 

that belonged to Captain Samuel 

Elliott White. 


SR., OF FORT MILL.COURTESY OF THE NANCY 



Below: Fort Mill citizens gather on the 

east bank of the Catawba River on 

July 17, 1916, to observe the 

destruction of the Southern Railway 

trestle caused by the Great Flood 

of 1916. 


SR., OF FORT MILL.COURTESY OF THE NANCY 



Chapter XI ✦ 57

CHAPTER XII 

R OCK 

H ILL 

❖ 

Ebenezer Presbyterian Church is now 

in its fourth building on Ebenezer 

Road in Rock Hill. This 1940s 

photograph shows the third church 

building, which is no longer extant. 

COURTESY OF MILLARD STAFFORD. 

The city of Rock Hill is unique in several ways. It is York County’s largest and most urban 

community, and more so than any other location in the county, it owes its existence to the railroad. 

It also lies in two townships, Ebenezer and Catawba, both of which are situated along the Catawba 

River in eastern York County. In more recent times the Rock Hill city limits have even begun to 

extend southwest into Bethesda Township as well. 

Rock Hill’s history actually begins with the community of Ebenezer, from which Ebenezer 

Township takes its name. Ebenezer traces its origins to the establishment of Ebenezer Presbyterian 

Church circa 1785. Although situated along the main road from Yorkville to Nation Ford on the 

Catawba River, Ebenezer retained its rural, agricultural landscape until well into the twentieth 

century. An educational academy was organized at Ebenezer Church before 1819, and on April 11, 

1822 the Ebenezer Academy Post Office was established with Thomas P. Weathers as its first 

postmaster. The post office name was changed to “Ebenezerville” on March 14, 1837, and it was 

discontinued on September 29, 1866. As late as the 1840s, Ebenezerville was still a small agricultural 

village consisting of the church, the academy, the post office, eight houses, and one store. The town 

was incorporated in 1893 with Dr. William Barron Fewell as the first intendant. A later post office 

called Old Point operated in this community from April 19, 1890, until March 5, 1894, after which 

the mail service was transferred to Rock Hill. 

Between Ebenezer and York, but within the bounds of Ebenezer Township, are two small 

communities situated on the old Charleston, Cincinnati & Chicago (Three C’s) Railroad and modern SC 

Highway 161. One of these, Tirzah, grew up around Tirzah ARP Church, established some seven miles 


east of York in 1803. A post office, originally 

known as Tirza, was established here on 

September 27, 1853, with Philip Sandifer as 

postmaster. Discontinued in 1860, it was reestablished 

on October 18, 1877 as Tirzah Post 

Office. In 1902 Tirzah boasted a population of 

131 and local businesses included R. R. Allison & 

Company, general store; F. H. Brown & Company, 

general store; S. M. Carothers & Company, 

general store; W. T. Massey’s fruit stand; and C. J. 

Peterson & Son, blacksmiths. By 1928, the 

population was 160 and local businesses included 

two general stores owned by Campbell & Oates 

and Fred E. Smith. The Tirzah Post Office was 

discontinued on January 31, 1943, with Fred E. 

Smith serving as the final postmaster. 

Three miles east of Tirzah is the community 

of Newport. After completion of the Three C’s 

Railroad in 1888, the Newport Post Office was 

established on January 28, 1889, with William 

H. Taylor as postmaster. Newport’s post office 

remained in service until February 14, 1920, 

when its mail was transferred to Rock Hill. In 

1902, Newport had a population of twenty and 

the Neely Brothers general store was the center 

of the community. By 1928 the population stood 

at 100 and local businesses included T. W. 

Jackson’s general store and D. L. Sharp’s service 

station, which sold groceries, gasoline, and oil. 

The groundwork for the city of Rock Hill 

began in 1846 when the Charlotte & South 

Carolina Railroad was organized to link 

Charlotte, North Carolina with Columbia, South 

Carolina. As originally envisioned, this line 

would run from Charlotte through Fort Mill, 

across the Catawba River at the Nation Ford, 

through Ebenezerville and Chesterville and then 

south to Columbia. However, the inhabitants of 

Ebenezerville opposed the running of a railroad 

through their community, so the engineers 

moved the proposed line two miles to the east, 

where it crossed the property of planter 

Alexander Templeton Black. Black and other 

local landowners like George Pendleton White 

and James Lawrence Moore provided rights-ofway 

for the railroad, and from 1848 until 1851 

❖ 

Above: The Neely Brothers Store in 

Newport is shown in this 1914 

photograph. The car in the front is a 

1912 Studebaker. 



Below: “Uncle" Spencer, shown in this 

old postcard photograph, was typical 

of the many African-Americans in the 

Rock Hill area who still made their 

living picking cotton in the early 

twentieth century. The man is 

probably Spencer Holly of Bethesda 

Township, who was listed as a 

seventy-year-old tenant farmer in the 

1900 census. 

COURTESY OF ROBERT RATTERREE. 

Chapter XII ✦ 59

❖ 

York County’s first cotton mill was 

the steam-powered Rock Hill Cotton 

Factory, established at the intersection 

of Chatham Avenue and White 

Street in 1881. During the 1940s, 

when this photo was taken, the mill 

was owned by John Cutter of 

Charlotte and operated as the Cutter 

Manufacturing Company. 

COURTESY OF THE ROCK HILL EVENING HERALD. 

the line slowly advanced from Charlotte into 

York District and from Columbia into Chester 

District. In October 1851, Black granted the 

railroad a right-of-way to construct a depot near 

a “rocky hill” on his land, and the following 

month he surveyed a main street and twentythree 

lots for the new town that he envisioned 

would grow up around the depot. 

The new railroad depot was built in early 

1852 and named “Rock Hill” after the nearby 

flint knoll that was leveled to lay the tracks. The 

Rock Hill post office was officially established on 

April 17, 1852, with Henry T. Brouch as the first 

postmaster, and the first train pulled into Rock 

Hill Depot two months later. With the railroad as 

a catalyst and A. T. Black’s early lots as a starting 

point, the town of Rock Hill grew rapidly over 

the next two decades. Rock Hill’s first churches 

included Rock Hill Methodist Church (now St. 

John’s United Methodist Church), organized in 

1856; the Rock Hill Chapel of Ebenezer Church, 

which became the First Presbyterian Church of 

Rock Hill, organized in 1855; the Episcopal 

Church of Our Savior, established in 1869; and 

the First Baptist Church of Rock Hill, organized 

in 1878. Early African-American churches 

included Mt. Olivet AME Zion Church and 

Hermon (originally Mt. Hermon) Presbyterian 

Church, established in 1869. 

The city attracted a number of investors and 

businessmen following the end of the Civil War, 

including several cotton factors who acted as 

middle men between local planters and the 

textile mills of New England. In 1869 the 

Charlotte & South Carolina Railroad merged with 

the Columbia & Augusta Railroad to become the 

Charlotte, Columbia & Augusta (CC&A) 

Railroad, under which name it operated for the 

next fifteen years, bringing new business and new 

residents to the town. Rock Hill was incorporated 

by the South Carolina General Assembly on 

February 26, 1870 with an area of one square 

mile, centered at Gordon’s Hotel on East Main 

Street. John R. Allen was the first intendant, and 

the wardens were James M. Ivy, Dr. Thomas L. 

Johnston, John Ratterree, and M. W. Russell. 

In the late 1870s, James Ivy began advocating 

the construction of a cotton mill in Rock Hill. 

With investment capital from planters and 

businessmen like Adolphus Eugene Hutchison, 

Andrew Hutchison White, William Lyle Roddey, 

William Barron Fewell, and John Rutherford 

London, Ivy drew up plans for York County’s first 

textile mill. Construction began in early 1880, 

and the appropriately-named Rock Hill Cotton 

Factory began production in 1881. Unlike most 

earlier textile mills in the Carolina Piedmont, the 

Cotton Factory was driven by a steam engine 

instead of hydraulic power, making it perhaps the 

earliest steam-powered cotton mill in the state. 

The Cotton Factory went through a succession of 

owners and name changes before it finally closed 

in 1968, but it sparked a textile revolution in 

York County and particularly in Rock Hill. 

Between 1889 and 1896 four more mills— 

Standard, Globe, Arcade, and Manchester— 

began manufacturing textile products in Rock 

Hill. Several new textile mills were established in 

the early twentieth century, including a cotton 

mill at Red River east of Rock Hill built by textile 

magnate Hamilton Carhartt. 

Another important milestone in Rock Hill’s 

history came in 1886, when John Gary Anderson 

and his father-in-law, contractor Adley Holler 


(who built most of the city’s early cotton mills), 

established the Rock Hill Buggy Company. In 

1910 the company began producing automobiles, 

and in 1916 the owners changed the name to the 

Anderson Motor Company. The company 

prospered for several years, producing handmade 

cars noted for quality, luxury, and technical 

innovation. Unfortunately Anderson was unable 

to compete with the cheaper, mass-produced 

Fords and Chevrolets, and in 1926 the company 

was sold to pay back taxes. Approximately 6,300 

Anderson cars were produced from 1916 to 1925, 

of which only eleven are known to still exist. 

The Charleston, Cincinnati & Chicago (Three 

C’s) Railroad brought its east-west line through 

Rock Hill in August 1888. The Three C’s line 

crossed the CC&A line at Railroad Avenue, 

which later became Trade Street, and additional 

freight and passenger depots were established for 

both lines. The presence of two railroads and a 

thriving commercial and industrial base opened 

Rock Hill to further investment and 

development. The CC&A became part of 

Southern Railway in 1894, and the Three C’s 

followed suit in 1899. In 1912 Southern built a 

new two-story union depot for both lines, and 

this depot remained a feature of downtown Rock 

Hill until it was destroyed in the 1970s during 

the construction of Dave Lyle Boulevard. 

Higher education for African Americans 

began in Rock Hill with the establishment of the 

Baptist affiliated Friendship Junior College in 

1891 and the Clinton Normal and Industrial 

College (now Clinton Junior College) in 1894. 

When the state legislature approved the 

establishment of a public college for women in 

1891, Rock Hill won out over Anderson, 

Chester, and Spartanburg as the new home for 

the Winthrop Normal and Industrial College, 

named after philanthropist Robert C. Winthrop. 

With the support of South Carolina Governor 

Ben Tillman and school superintendent Dr. 

David Bancroft Johnson, and with donations 

from Rock Hill’s business and civic leaders, 

Winthrop College (now Winthrop University) 

opened its doors in 1896. Within a few years it 

became, in the words of Governor Tillman, “the 

largest woman’s college of its kind in the Union.” 

Rock Hill extended its city limits in 1890 and 

obtained a new charter on December 24, 1892. 

During the last decade of the nineteenth century 

and the first decade of the twentieth century, the 

❖ 

Above: The final “double-decker” 

Southern Railway depot stood on 

Trade Street in downtown Rock Hill 

from 1912 until 1973. It is shown 

here in a postcard photo taken during 

the 1930s. 


Below: The original India Hook dam 

on the Catawba River is shown here 

as it appeared around 1905. 


Chapter XII ✦ 61

❖ 

Above: During the Great Flood of July 

1916, the eastern portion of the India 

Hook dam was washed away. 


SR., COURTESY OF THE NANCY BIGGS THOMAS 

COLLECTION, CULTURE & HERITAGE MUSEUMS. 

Below: Lake Wylie has always been a 

source of recreation and 

entertainment for the people of York 

County. These Winthrop students 

were photographed in the 1950s after 

enjoying a boat ride on the lake. 

ORIGINAL PHOTOGRAPH BY JOE AZER, 

COURTESY OF THE LOUISE PETTUS ARCHIVES, 

WINTHROP UNIVERSITY. 

Opposite, top: Rock Hill’s first civil 

rights protest took place on February 

12, 1960. In this photograph, twenty 

Friendship College students are seated 

at the F. W. Woolworth’s Department 

Store lunch counter on that fateful 

February morning. 

COURTESY OF THE ROCK HILL EVENING HERALD. 

Opposite, bottom: This color 

photograph shows East Main Street in 

downtown Rock Hill in the early 

1960s. Buildings visible on the right 

are the Andrew Jackson Hotel, First 

Baptist Church, the U.S. Post Office 

and Courthouse, and the Citizens 

Bank & Trust Building. 


city underwent another transformation with the 

introduction of modern utilities. Telephones, 

electric lights, running water, and a city sewer 

system all came into usage during this period. In 

1900, engineer William Church Whitner, with 

investment capital from Dr. Walker Gill Wylie, 

formed the Catawba Power Company (later 

Southern Power Co.) and began construction of 

a dam and a hydroelectric power station on the 

Catawba River at India Hook Shoals. After 

several setbacks, the dam was finished in 1904 

with the backing of tobacco magnate James 

Buchanan Duke, who went on to form Duke 

Power Company (now part of Duke Energy). 

This power plant made cheap electrical power 

available to customers in Rock Hill, Fort Mill, 

Clover, Charlotte and, eventually, all of York 

County. The India Hook dam was the first in a 

series of dams on the Catawba and Broad Rivers 

that led to the total electrification of the 

Carolina Piedmont. 

The India Hook dam also created a manmade 

lake (later named Lake Wylie in honor of Dr. 

Wylie), but in July 1916 the dam and lake were 

both destroyed by massive flooding of the 

Catawba River. This flood, known locally as the 

Great Flood of 1916, was the result of an 

unprecedented deluge of hurricane-induced 

rainfall that fell across the entire Carolina 

Piedmont and much of the Blue Ridge 

Mountains. The Great Flood destroyed virtually 

every bridge, railroad trestle, and dam on the 

Tennessee, Broad, Catawba, and Yadkin Rivers, 

while also ruining thousands of acres of crops 

and destroying homes, towns, and the lives of 

many area residents. Southern Power Company 

replaced the old India Hook dam with a larger 

and more substantial dam that began operation 

in 1925; it continued to be the major source of 

local electrical power until Duke completed the 

Catawba Nuclear Station in the 1980s. 

In 1926, Rock Hill’s commercial leaders 

raised the funds to build the town’s first modern 

“grand hotel,” the Andrew Jackson Hotel (now 

the Guardian Building). Two years later the 

Lowenstein Company selected downtown Rock 

Hill as the site for a new operation that would 

eventually employ some 3,000 people. 

Although officially named the Rock Hill Printing 

and Finishing Company, it was better known 

locally as “the Bleachery,” and was dedicated to 

printing and dying cotton and rayon fabrics. In 

addition to new jobs and a substantial boost to 

the local economy, the Bleachery’s 

unprecedented demand for water forced the city 

to build a new waterworks to handle the 

volume. This expansion proved fortuitous, 

because in 1948 another major textile industry, 

the Celanese Corporation, constructed a 

massive plant on the Catawba River east of Rock 

Hill to manufacture synthetic acetate fibers. Ten 

years later the Bowater Corporation’s decision to 

put a paper mill on the Catawba River below 

Rock Hill forced the city to build a sewage 

treatment facility in order to guarantee the mill’s 

requirement for clean water. 

The World War II years brought several new 

institutions to Rock Hill, both headquartered in 


the old Citizens Bank & Trust building on East 

Main Street, which had closed in 1927. Rock 

Hill National Bank opened for business in 1941, 

and in 1944 Rock Hill’s first radio station, 

WRHI-AM, signed on the air. York County’s first 

museum began in 1950 as the Children’s Nature 

Museum in Rock Hill’s Fewell Park. Two years 

later the museum became the home for a worldclass 

collection of African animal trophies 

belonging to Maurice Stans, a big-game hunter 

who was also President Eisenhower’s budget 

director and later secretary of commerce under 

President Nixon. The museum relocated to 

Mount Gallant Road in 1965 and became the 

Museum of York County, while diversifying its 

collections to include the art, history, natural 

history, and culture of the Carolina Piedmont. 

Rock Hill became a focal point for the civil 

rights movement in the early 1960s when 

students from Friendship Junior College began 

staging “sit-down” demonstrations in the city’s 

segregated public places, particularly the lunch 

counters at McCrory’s 5-10-25¢ Variety Store, F. 

W. Woolworth’s Department Store, Good Drug 

Company, and Phillips Drug Company on East 

Main Street. One of these lunch counter 

demonstrations, held in McCrory’s on January 

31, 1961, garnered national attention. Ten 

Friendship students sat down at the McCrory’s 

lunch counter and refused to leave; they were 

arrested and set a national precedent when nine 

of the students chose to serve out their jail 

sentences rather than pay their bail and be 

released. This “jail-no bail” policy spread across 

the country, and the so-called “Friendship Nine” 

and the “Rock Hill movement” became symbols 

for the national civil rights campaign, which in 

turn resulted in the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the 

Voting Rights Act of 1965, and the Civil Rights 

Act of 1968. 

Technical education became a major theme for 

Rock Hill’s advancement into the twenty-first 

century with the establishment of the York 

Technical Education Center in 1962, which 

became York Technical College in 1974. “York 

Tech,” as it is known locally, has successfully 

provided thousands of area students with 

training in modern technology, as well as offering 

transfer courses to four-year colleges and 

universities. Winthrop College successfully 

transitioned itself into a co-educational 

institution in 1972 and became a fully accredited 

university in 1992. This emphasis on higher 

education helped Rock Hill and York County 

make the change to high-tech industry, business 

technology, and financial services in the late 

twentieth century, at the same time that the oncedominant 

textile industry died out due to cheap 

foreign imports and the “outsourcing” of 

American manufacturing. Rock Hill’s story has 

been admirably summed up by former South 

Carolina Governor Carroll Campbell, who stated, 

“Every city in this state should look to Rock Hill 

to see the formula for success in action.” 

Chapter XII ✦ 63

CHAPTER XIII 

C ATAWBA 

T OWNSHIP 

❖ 

William Samuel Leslie constructed 

this house in the Lesslie community 

circa 1880. It was originally a onestory 

cottage with a rear one-story 

kitchen attachment. The house was 

remodeled about 1900 and a second 

story was added at that time. 



The southeastern corner of York County comprises Catawba Township, which lies along the river 

of the same name. It includes part of Rock Hill, the Catawba Indian reservation, and the small 

communities of Neely’s Creek, Red River, Friendship, Lesslie, Roddey, Harmony, and Catawba. A 

historic and heavily traveled colonial road connected Nation Ford on the Catawba River (between 

present day Rock Hill and Fort Mill) with Lands Ford and Rocky Mount in Chester County; this 

wagon road became the basis for US Highway 21. Catawba Township is also crisscrossed by three of 

York County’s four historic railroad lines: the Charlotte, Columbia & Augusta (CC&A) and the 

Charleston, Cincinnati & Chicago (Three C’s), both of which became part of Southern Railway (now 

Norfolk Southern); and the Georgia, Carolina & Northern (GC&N), which became part of the 

Seaboard Air Line (later Seaboard Coast Line) and is now owned by CSX Transportation. The 

communities of Lesslie, Roddey, Harmony, and Catawba in particular owe much of their development 

to these early railroads. 

One of the most important landmarks in southeastern York County is Neely’s Creek ARP Church, 

located four miles southeast of Rock Hill on the creek for which it was named. This church was part 

of a post-Revolutionary War boom in York County that saw the establishment of several new 

Presbyterian and ARP churches by distant members of the original four congregations. Neely’s Creek 

was initially organized as a Presbyterian church in 1790, drawing members from Bethesda and 

Ebenezer in York County and upper Fishing Creek in Chester County. Reverend William Blackstock 

was the first pastor, ministering to the churches at Steel Creek, Ebenezer and Neely’s Creek. In 1847, 

Neely’s Creek Church was reorganized as an Associate Reformed Presbyterian church. A post office 


was established at Neely’s Creek on February 

22, 1841, with John Roddey as postmaster. It 

was discontinued on June 26, 1845. 

The Lesslie community (spelled Leslie on the 

1910 York County map) takes its name from the 

Leslie or Lesslie family who lived in the area. 

Lesslie lies on the historic Nation 

Ford-Lands Ford Road and the old 

Three C’s Railroad. One of the earliest 

landmarks in this community was 

Catawba Baptist Church, constituted 

in 1790. The church had its origins 

when a small group of Baptists in the 

area organized a meetinghouse called 

“Old Field.” In its early days the 

church was also known as Ellison’s 

Creek and Catawba River Church. 

Catawba is one of the oldest Baptist 

congregations in York County, and 

was the parent church of several 

other Baptist churches, including 

First Baptist in Rock Hill. The 

modern church complex is located 

on US Highway 21 about one and 

one-half miles north of Lesslie. The 

Three C’s Railroad came through 

Lesslie in 1888, and the first Lesslie 

Post Office was established on June 

6, 1889, with D. Preston Lesslie as 

postmaster. This post office 

continued in operation until June 30, 

1959, with four of the seven postmasters being 

members of the Lesslie family. In 1928, the R. G. 

Dun Mercantile Agency Reference Book put Lesslie’s 

population at fifty and listed two businesses there, 

Ray H. Carter’s grocery and the J. E. Glasscock 

Company general store. 

❖ 

Above: Thomas Wherry built this nine 

room log house near Neely’s Creek 

ARP prior to 1870. In 1878, Andrew 

Jackson Walker purchased the house 

from Wherry along with 1,000 acres 

of land. 

COURTESY OF HAROLD S. WALKER. 

Left: Andrew Jackson Walker’s three 

daughters, Minnie, Maggie, and 

Mattie, inherited the Walker home 

place on Neely’s Creek and lived there 

for the rest of their lives. None of the 

girls ever married. A 1949 article in 

the Rock Hill Evening Herald stated 

that the Walker sisters were “noted 

for being fine cooks” and had a 

“gleaming electric stove [and] a 

modern refrigerator” to help prepare 

their meals. 


Chapter XIII ✦ 65

The community of Roddey, like Lesslie, is 

traversed by Highway 21 and the old Three C’s 

Railroad line, and like Lesslie it bears the name 

of one of its prominent families. Long before it 

was called Roddey, however, the community 

was known as Coate’s (or Coat’s) Tavern. This 

tavern was a gathering place and voting station 

for area residents from the early 1800s, and was 

noted as “Coats Tavern” on the 1910 York 

County map. The Coate’s Tavern Post Office was 

established on November 19, 1823, with Jesse 

Simmons as postmaster, and continued in 

operation until February 5, 1861; Hugh 

Simpson was the last postmaster. The Roddey 

Post Office was established as “Roddey’s Post 

Office” on September 25, 1890, with John H. 

Hayes as postmaster. The name was changed to 

“Roddey” on February 1, 1896, and the name 

stuck. The Roddey Post Office was discontinued 

on November 29, 1919, and the mail was 

transferred to the Catawba Post Office. Because 

of the Three C’s railroad depot there, the 

community was also known locally as “Roddey 

Junction” or “Roddey Station.” 

The community of Catawba, located on the 

Catawba River in the extreme southeastern 

corner of York County, can trace its origins at 

least as far back as 1880, when it first appeared 

by name in the U.S. Census. Catawba became an 

important railroad junction in 1887, when the 

Georgia, Carolina & Northern Railway began 

constructing a railroad line from Monroe, North 

Carolina to Atlanta, Georgia. The GC&N 

crossed the Catawba River from Lancaster 


❖ 

Opposite, top: Neely’s Store on Neely 

Store Road dates to before 1910 and 

is shown here as it appeared in 1992. 

It was typical of the many small 

country stores that dotted York 

County’s landscape during the 

eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. 



Opposite, bottom: This old Lesslie 

school building dates to around 1900 

and is located on Cote Lane off Neely 

Store Road. It has been converted into 

a private residence. 



Left: Friendship United Methodist 

Church, located on Old Friendship 

Road, was established in 1861; this 

building dates to about 1900. The 

community of Friendship, located 

northeast of Lesslie, took its name 

from the church. 



Below: The family of W. E. Walker, 

Sr., poses in front of their horse-drawn 

buggy on the Walker farm located 

beside the Roddey Junction school, 

circa 1920. The family members are, 

back row (left to right): W. E. Walker, 

Sr., his wife Rosa Wherry Walker, 

Sloan Lesslie (son of Greer Lesslie and 

nephew of W. E. Walker); front row 

(left to right), Mary Walker (daughter 

of W. E. and Rosa), Alice Walker 

(daughter of W. E. and Rosa), Elloree 

Lesslie (wife of Sloan), Reese Lesslie 

(infant son of Sloan and Elloree), and 

Rosa Marion Walker (daughter of W. 

E. and Rosa). 


County and cut an arc across the southeastern 

corner of York County into Chester County. The 

following year, the Three C’s Railroad ran its line 

underneath the GC&N line, creating an 

overpass at what soon became known as 

“Catawba Junction.” On January 8, 1889, the 

Catawba Post Office opened its doors for 

business with Sallie P. Wylie as postmistress. 

Chapter XIII ✦ 67

❖ 

Right: The Roddey Junction school, 

located on the Southern Railway, is 

documented in this photograph from 

circa 1917. Among the children in the 

photograph are W. E. Walker, Jr., Rosa 

Marion Walker, Alice Walker, and 

Mary Walker. 


Below: Cotton sheds like this one, 

located at the old Wylie Roddey home 

place off US Highway 21, were once a 

common sight in York County. This 

shed was built around 1850. 



Opposite, Top: The Catawba railroad 

depot, located on College Road, dates 

to about 1930. 



Opposite, Bottom: This two-story 

farmhouse is one of several Roddey 

family homes constructed in the late 

nineteenth century. Located on Hall 

Spencer Road in the Harmony 

community, it dates to around 1885. 



Catawba Methodist Church, located nearby, was 

established in 1895. 

The GC&N line was completed to Atlanta 

in 1852 and became part of the Seaboard Air 

Line Railway in 1901. Meanwhile, the Southern 

Railway acquired the Three C’s in 1897. In 1967 

Seaboard Air Line united with Atlantic Coast 

Line to form Seaboard Coast Line. In 1986 

Seaboard became part of CSX Transportation, 

while Southern became part of Norfolk 

Southern in 1982. Both railroads still operate 

their lines through Catawba. 

In 1928, the R. G. Dun Mercantile Agency 

Reference Book gave the population of Catawba 

as seventy-five and listed eight businesses: E. C. 

Collius, a pottery maker; grocers J. I. Ingram, 

Patton Grocery Company, and Ed Smith; and 

general stores owned by J. C. Faris, C. T. Holder, 


W. B. Simpson, and G. W. Stroud. The Catawba 

community became the site of one of York 

County’s major industries in 1958, when 

Bowater Corporation constructed a pulp mill on 

the banks of the Catawba River about one mile 

southeast of the railroad junction. This plant, 

still one of the largest industrial facilities in the 

county, makes pulp out of pine wood and 

converts it into paper. 

Harmony, like Catawba, also lies on the old 

Seaboard Air Line Railroad. The exact origin of 

the name is unclear, but it is likely connected 

with Harmony Baptist Church, organized in 

September 1839, which is situated about two 

and one-half miles to the south in Chester 

County. The name is documented in York 

County at least as early as June 21, 1889, when 

the Harmony Post Office was established on the 

Seaboard Railroad with William T. Anderson as 

postmaster. The post office was ordered to be 

discontinued in June 1907, but the order was 

rescinded and the post office remained in 

operation until November 15, 1915, when its 

mail route was transferred to Catawba. 

The Harmony Gin Company was 

established on Harmony Road by William 

Joseph Cornwell around 1900. The complex 

included three structures, a gin, a warehouse, 

and an office, located on both sides of the road. 

Chapter XIII ✦ 69

CHAPTER XIV 

❖ 

Concord was one of many small 

farming communities formerly 

situated on the west bank of the 

Catawba River. The community was 

centered around Concord Methodist 

Church and the Concord School next 

door, both located on Concord Road 

north of Allison Creek. This photo 

shows the Concord School circa 1897. 

Among the students identified are 

Sarah “Sally” Cook (second girl from 

right), Martha Allene Steele (third girl 

from right), Earl Partlow Steele 

(second boy from right, seated on 

bottom step), and Sally’s brother 

George Cook (second from left, 

standing). The bearded gentleman on 

the far right is Ed Partlow Steele, 

father of the two Steele children. 


L AKE W YLIE AND T EGA C AY 

The shores and waterways of the upper Catawba River valley were the scene of some of York 

County’s earliest human settlements. Prehistoric Americans hunted and camped in these areas for 

thousands of years, and the Catawba Indian tribe had many of their villages on the east bank of the 

river. In the 1750s and 1760s, the tributaries of Allison Creek and Crowder’s Creek on the river’s west 

bank were heavily settled by Scotch-Irish immigrants, who formed much of the basis for the Bethel 

Presbyterian Church congregation and the later town of Clover. 

In the early nineteenth century, both sides of the river became thickly populated with plantations 

and grist mills. At the end of that century, however, much of this land was worn out from heavy 

cotton farming and its resultant soil erosion, and by 1900 many families had moved away from the 

upper Catawba River, leaving the shoreline sparsely populated and subject to reforestation. 

The modern communities of Lake Wylie and Tega Cay both owe their existence to far-reaching 

decisions made in 1899, when the Catawba Power Company was created to bring hydroelectric 

power to the central Piedmont. This enterprise was the brainchild of civil engineer William Church 

Whitner, a graduate of South Carolina College (now the University of South Carolina) who had 

already built several dams and power stations in western South Carolina and northern Georgia. With 

technical assistance from his brother Frank C. Whitner, also a civil engineer, Whitner obtained 

financial backing from Dr. Walker Gill Wylie and his brother Dr. Robert H. Wylie, two Chester 

County physicians who had offices in New York City. The immediate result of this collaboration was 


the Catawba Power Company, incorporated in 

1899 with Gill Wylie as president, Will Whitner 

as general manager and Frank Whitner as 

secretary-treasurer. 

The following year the Catawba Power 

Company began construction of a twenty-foot 

high concrete-and-earth dam at India Hook 

Shoals between Rock Hill and Fort Mill, about 

four and one-half miles above the historic 

Nation Ford. After the unfinished dam was 

partially destroyed by a flood in 1901, the 

Whitners left the project and William States Lee 

took over as chief engineer. By this time Gill 

Wylie was running seriously short of funds, so 

he enlisted one of his patients, wealthy tobacco 

capitalist James Buchanan Duke, to finance the 

dam’s completion. 

The Catawba Hydroelectric Station 

commenced operation on April 30, 1904, with 

eight 1,000-horsepower turbines, each turning 

a 10,000-volt AC generator. The total power 

output of the original station was 8,000 

kilowatts, an amazing feat for the time. The 

668-acre lake created by the India Hook dam 

was initially known simply as the Catawba Lake. 

This artificial reservoir inundated much of the 

upper Catawba River valley and its tributaries in 

York, Mecklenburg, and Gaston Counties. 

In 1905, Wylie and Duke formed the 

Southern Power Company to build additional 

dams on the Catawba and further electrify the 

Carolina Piedmont and the Blue Ridge 

Mountains. The Southern Power Company 

absorbed the original Catawba Power Company 

and began the decades-long acquisition of 

thousands of acres of cheap farm land along the 

Catawba, thus ensuring the river valley’s 

availability for future hydroelectric expansion. 

The eastern side of the India Hook dam was 

obliterated by the Great Flood of July 1916, the 

largest natural disaster in the history of the 

Piedmont. The dam’s collapse drained the new 

lake, and the flood waters buried the power 

house, turbines, and generators in a sea of mud. 

Both the dam and the powerhouse were quickly 

repaired, but the Great Flood demonstrated 

once and for all the inadequacies of the dam’s 

original design. The Southern Power Company 

undertook a complete renovation of the facility 

in 1924 to make it less susceptible to flood 

damage and to increase its power output. This 

second, more powerful dam was four times the 

height of the original and was completed in 

❖ 

Above: During 1924 and 1925, the 

Southern Power Company completely 

rebuilt the original India Hook dam, 

creating a much larger lake in the 

process. This Southern Power 

Company steam shovel was 

photographed while excavating earth 

for the new dam. 


Below: This 1992 photograph 

highlights the modern Wylie 

Hydroelectric Station and dam as 

seen from the east side of the lake. 



Chapter XIV ✦ 71

mid-1925. The resultant lake it impounded had 

a total surface area of 13,400 acres and boasted 

325 miles of coastline. The “new Catawba 

Station” went online in August 1925 with four 

15,000-kilowatt generators producing a total of 

60,000 kilowatts. In 1927 the Southern Power 

Company was reorganized as Duke Power 

Company, which became the pre-eminent 

power generating firm in the area. 

By the time the new Catawba Station began 

operation, travel across the river between the 

two Carolinas had been greatly facilitated by the 

construction of the Buster Boyd Bridge, named 

for local landowner W. M. “Buster” Boyd. This 

new steel bridge was constructed across the 

lake, about six miles northwest of the dam, in 

1923. The Buster Boyd Bridge replaced many of 

the old fords, ferries and wooden county 

bridges that formerly dotted the riverscape, and 

it created a heavily traveled route linking York 

and Charlotte that became SC Highway 49. The 

bridge was rebuilt in 1961 and subsequently 

widened into a modern four lane concrete and 

steel bridge in the 1990s. 

In October 1960, Duke Power changed the 

names of the lake and the power station to Lake 

Wylie and the Wylie Hydroelectric Station, in 

honor of their founder. Not much else changed 

along the lake during the 1960s; however; there 

was little development of the area, and 

recreational activities were mostly confined to 

local residents. This situation began to shift 

dramatically in the late 1970s and early 1980s, 

when some of the long established families, as 

well as Duke Power, began selling properties 

along the lake for development. Whereas 

previously the “Lake Wylie community” had 

included most of the lake shore area on both 

sides of the river, by the 1980s this term came 

to be applied more specifically to the 

unincorporated town of Lake Wylie, situated on 

the northwestern section of the lake between the 

North Carolina state line and the “Five Points” 

intersection of SC Highways 49, 55, and 274. At 

the time of the 2000 census, the town of Lake 

Wylie had a population of 3,061 persons, but 

the greater Lake Wylie area now includes over 

20,000 inhabitants living in York, Gaston, and 

Mecklenburg Counties. 

The Catawba Nuclear Generating Station, 

located on the southwestern side of the lake, 

was completed in the mid-1980s and brought 

industrial expansion and many new jobs to the 

region. Today, Lake Wylie is one of the most 

sought-after residential areas in the upstate, and 

its proximity to Rock Hill, Fort Mill, Clover, 

York, and Charlotte makes it a prime destination 

for residents of the greater Piedmont area. Lake 

Wylie now receives more recreational use than 

any other lake on the Catawba, and it also 

provides drinking water for the cities of Rock 

Hill and Belmont, North Carolina. 

Part of the development of the lakefront 

property in the early 1970s involved the 

construction of the Tega Cay residential and 

recreational community, located on a 1,600-acre 

peninsula that juts into the eastern side of the 

lake about one mile above the Wylie Dam. For 

much of the twentieth century this peninsula, 

with its thirteen miles of water frontage, was 

virtually uninhabited and was frequented 

primarily by hunters and fishermen. In the late 

1960s this property was acquired from Duke 

Power by a group of developers known as the 

Ervin Company. The developers chose the name 

“Tega Cay” for the community, a Polynesian 

phrase that means “beautiful peninsula.” 

Construction of Tega Cay began in 1970 with 

the access roads, clubhouse, pools, tennis 

courts, and golf courses being completed first. 

❖ 

With its modern lakefront homes and 

recreational facilities, Lake Wylie is 

today one of the most sought-after 

residential localities in the upstate. 

COURTESY OF THE YORK COUNTY REGIONAL 

CHAMBER OF COMMERCE. 


The design of the homes, clubhouse, and even 

the street names reflected the Polynesian theme 

of the community. 

The new residents quickly formed a property 

owners’ association to represent their interests 

with the Ervin Company. Development of the 

property and residential enclaves continued 

throughout the 1970s, but by the beginning of 

the 1980s, Ervin was experiencing financial 

problems, and in 1982 the company filed for 

bankruptcy. At that time, Tega Cay applied for a 

charter from the state and was incorporated on 

July 4, 1982, with a mayor-city council form of 

government. The bankruptcy court appointed 

Tony Tarulli as the city’s first mayor, and he 

represented the interests of the property owners 

during the proceedings. The court approved a 

bankruptcy plan in June 1983 and created a 

trust company to administer the clubhouse, 

recreational facilities, and the remaining 

undeveloped property. The following month a 

police department was established, and the first 

municipal court sessions were held. The city 

government assumed administrative duties over 

the public amenities as well as municipal 

services like security and trash collection. In 

October 1984, a permanent city hall and 

community room were dedicated at Tega Cay for 

the use of the city government and the public. 

For the next fifteen years Tega Cay continued 

to grow and develop into a modern lakefront 

community of 1,650 homes. The city annexed 

three new properties in the fall of 2000, one of 

which, Stonecrest, became Tega Cay’s first 

planned retail and commercial area. The other 

two properties include the Crescent town homes 

development and the Nivens Creek Boat 

Landing, which is owned by Duke Power and 

provides area residents with boat access to the 

lake. At the time of the 2000 census, Tega Cay 

had a population of 4,040, but the city expects 

that the planned expansion and future 

development of the community will add another 

1,400 homes and more than double its 

population by the year 2010.BIBLIOGRAPHY 

❖ 

Above: Each year thousands of 

residents and visitors take advantage 

of the opportunities that Lake Wylie 

provides for both pleasure boating 

and fishing. 



Below: The entrance to Tega Cay 

reflects the tranquil South Pacific 

theme of the entire community. 



Chapter XIV ✦ 73

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Lines.” James Cook, Charleston, SC. 

1775. “An Accurate Map of North and South Carolina with their Indian 

Frontiers….” Henry Mouzon, Charleston, SC. 

1787. “The Marches of Lord Cornwallis in the Southern Provinces Now 

States of North America Comprehending the Two Carolinas, with 

Virginia and Maryland, and the Delaware Counties.” William Faden, 

geographer to the King, London, England. 

1820. “York District, South Carolina, surveyed by Gordon Moore,” in 

Robert Mills, Mills’ Atlas of South Carolina, Columbia, SC, 1825. 

1865. “U.S. Coast Survey, 1865.” Corps of Engineers, US Army, 

Washington, DC. 

1879. “Catawba River, South Carolina.” Corps of Engineers, US Army, 

Washington, DC. 

1896. “Post Route Map of the States of North Carolina and South 

Carolina showing Post Offices with intermediate distances and mail 

routes as of the 1st of June, 1896.” Postmaster General William L. 

Wilson, Washington, DC. 

1910. “York County, South Carolina.” Jones & Walker, Rock Hill, SC. 

1961. “General Highway Map, York County, South Carolina.” South 

Carolina State Highway Department, Columbia, SC. 

1998. South Carolina Atlas and Gazetteer. DeLorme, Inc., Yarmouth, ME. 

MICROFILM COLLECTIONS 

Rock Hill Herald, Rock Hill Evening Herald, Rock Hill Record, and Yorkville 

Miscellany newspapers. Copies on file at York County Public Library, 

Rock Hill, SC. 

United States Census, 1790-1930. Washington, D.C.: National Archives 

and Records Administration. Copies on file at Historical Center of 

York County, Culture & Heritage Museums, York, SC. 

Yorkville Enquirer newspaper. Copies on file at Historical Center of York 

County, Culture & Heritage Museums, York, SC. 

Bibliography ✦ 75

❖ 

This old mule barn is located in the Bowling Green community of northern York County on U.S. Highway 321 near Ridge Road. 

PAINTING BY JOHN WINE. COURTESY OF THE CULTURE & HERITAGE MUSEUMS. 


SHARING THE HERITAGE 

Historic profiles of businesses, 

organizations, and families that have 

contributed to the development and 

economic base of York County 

SPECIAL 

THANKS TO 

Duke Energy and Catawba Nuclear Station .........................................78 

Piedmont Medical Center .................................................................82 

Mack & Mack.................................................................................86 

Rinehart Realty Corporation.............................................................90 

Norman Hege Jewelers .....................................................................92 

Rock Hill Coca-Cola Bottling Company...............................................94 

Comporium ® ...................................................................................96 

Founders Federal Credit Union .........................................................98 

MorningStar Fellowship Church.......................................................100 

Microtel Inn & Suites ....................................................................102 

The Herald ..................................................................................104 

AbitibiBowater Catawba Operations .................................................105 

Peoples First Insurance..................................................................106 

York Technical College ...................................................................107 

Clinton Junior College ...................................................................108 

York County Regional Chamber of Commerce .....................................109 

1st Patriots Federal Credit Union ....................................................110 

The Culture & Heritage 

Museums 

Sharing the Heritage ✦ 77

DUKE ENERGY 

AND CATAWBA 

NUCLEAR 

STATION 

❖ 

Right: Dr. Walker Gill Wylie (1848- 

1923). Dr. Wylie was born in Chester, 

South Carolina, and joined the 

Confederate army at sixteen and later 

became a doctor. In 1900, he founded 

the Catawba Power Company to build 

the Catawba Hydro Station at India 

Hook Shoals near Rock Hill, South 

Carolina. When Buck Duke and 

others formed the Southern Power 

Company in 1905, Dr. Wylie joined 

the venture and included his Catawba 

Power Company as part of Southern 

Power Company’s start-up capital. 

Below: James Buchanan "Buck" Duke 

(1856-1925). James Buchanan "Buck" 

Duke was born in Durham County, 

North Carolina. Having helped his 

father Washington Duke found a 

fledgling tobacco-retailing business in 

Durham during Reconstruction, Duke 

struck out for New York City, where 

he very briefly attended business 

school. He later founded the American 

Tobacco Company, which owned 

virtually all the cigarette and chewing 

tobacco companies in the United 

States. President Theodore Roosevelt 

broke up the American Tobacco 

Company under the terms of the 

Sherman Antitrust Act. 

Just a century ago, hunger and poverty were 

widespread across the south, including the 

Piedmont Carolinas. The average life expectancy 

was no more than forty-seven years, only six 

percent of all Americans had graduated from 

high school, and the average U.S. wage was a 

mere twenty-two cents per hour. 

The South, in particular, was still suffering 

from the terrible devastation of the Civil War 

and the region’s traditional reliance on 

agriculture was no longer sufficient to feed and 

clothe its citizens. 

It was in this atmosphere that Dr. Walker Gill 

Wylie and his brother, Robert, organized the 

Catawba Power Company in Rock Hill. Dr. 

Wylie hired engineer William States Lee to help 

design and build the Catawba Hydro Station at 

India Hook Shoals. That dam impounded what 

is now Lake Wylie. 

The first hydroelectric plant on the Catawba 

River was built at a cost of more than $1 million 

and, shortly before dawn on March 30, 1904, 

the control gates on the dam opened and tons of 

water crashed down onto the blades of a 

massive water turbine. As the blades turned, the 

water’s energy was transmitted to a generator 

and electric power came to the region for the 

first time. 

The 11,500-volt transmission line delivered 

power to the station’s first customer, Victoria 

Cotton Mill in Rock Hill. That eighteen-mile 

line is considered the beginning of the Duke 

Energy System. 

J. B. “Buck” Duke had invested $25,000 in 

Dr. Wylie’s Catawba Power Company, but that 

was just a small drop in the reservoir. Duke had 

a much bigger plan in mind. He had already 

formed the American Development Company in 

1899 to purchase land and water rights along 

the Catawba River for anticipated hydroelectric 

projects when a pain in the foot brought him 

together with Dr. Wylie. 

Duke suffered from erysipelas, also known as 

“St. Anthony’s Fire” and went to Dr. Wylie for 

treatment. During the appointment, Dr. Wylie 

told Duke about his brilliant young engineer, 

William States Lee. 

Duke invited Lee to his Fifth Avenue 

mansion in New York City to discuss the 

possibility of electricity production. Duke had 

already made a fortune in tobacco and textiles 

and was now turning his attention to 

hydroelectric power. 

Lee had prepared maps showing transmission 

lines that tied together prospective plants on the 

Catawba River at Great Falls and Wateree, South 

Carolina, and Mountain Island, North Carolina. 

Lee’s vision called for an integrated system of 

large hydroelectric stations up and down the 

Catawba, instead of small electric generating 

stations to serve only one or two mills. 

When Lee announced that the system would 

cost around $8 million, an incredible amount at 

the time, Duke did not even blink. 

On June 22, 1905, J.B. Duke, the Wylies, and 

Lee organized Southern Power Company, which 


later became Duke Power Company in 1924. 

Today, the company is known as Duke Energy. 

The company’s founders shared a passion and 

vision to electrify the Carolinas and strengthen 

the region. They remained visionaries 

throughout their careers and did not stop at 

building power plants to provide electricity to 

cities and factories. From the beginning, they 

were determined to build an interconnected 

system of power plants. This zeal to bring 

business and industry to the area improved the 

region tremendously—the textile industry 

❖ 

Above: Catawba Hydroelectric Dam 

and Power Plant (1904). The 

development of hydroelectric power 

on the Catwba River was initiated in 

1900 with the construction of the "Old 

Catwba Plant," which had a 

generation capacity of 6.6 megawatts. 

The plant is in Fort Mill, South 

Carolina, and was completed in 

March 1904. The power from this 

plant was delivered to the Victoria 

Cotton Mill at Rock Hill, South 

Carolina, over an 11,500-volt line. 

Old Catawba operated from 1904 

until 1925, when the New Catawba 

Hydro Station (re-named Wylie 

Hydro Station in 1960), was built on 

top of the existing plant. 

Left: Portable substation (1916). 

Southern Power Company (Duke 

Power’s predecessor company) used a 

railroad-flatcar-mounted portable 

substation to provide emergency 

voltage transmission when crews had 

to take substations off line. 


❖ 

Catawba Nuclear Station, located 

in York, South Carolina, began 

commercial operation in 1985 

and has a station capacity of 

2,258 megawatts. 

boomed, new jobs were created, transportation 

improved, and the overall economic health of 

the Piedmont area improved greatly. 

Electricity in the early twentieth century, 

however, was not the immediate hit you might 

expect. Many were frightened of the new 

technology and some of the fiercest opposition 

came from the mill owners who stood to benefit 

the most. When one of the engineers tried to sell 

a textile mill president on the idea of electric 

power, the executive replied, “You must be a 

damned fool if you think I will bring electricity 

into my plant to kill my people.” 

Gradually, however, residents began to see 

the benefits of lighting their homes with 

electricity and even added such appliances as 

ranges, refrigerators and irons. The mill owners 

finally concluded that electricity was safe, as 

well as much more economical. 

While hydroelectric stations such as Catawba 

brought industrialization to the Carolinas, they 

were equally important for environmental 

reasons. The eleven reservoirs associated with 

what became known as the Catawba-Wateree 

Project regulate the flow of the Catawba River 

for electric power generating, drinking and 

industrial water supplies, recreation, and other 

beneficial purposes. 

Once electricity was made widely available in 

the area, business and industry thrived. To 

facilitate industrialization, Duke built an 

interurban railway—the Piedmont and 

Northern—which ran from Anderson, South 

Carolina, to Charlotte and Gastonia, North 

Carolina. The line carried both passengers and 

freight and its slogan was “A Mill to the Mile.” 

With abundant, inexpensive electricity from 

the Catawba hydro and other generating 

stations, easy access to raw materials, and an 

abundant supply of labor, textile mills began to 

proliferate all across the Piedmont Carolinas. In 

1925, eighty percent of the nation’s cotton textile 

industry was located in New England; by 1954, 

the figure had dropped to twenty percent. The 

New England mills had relocated to the South. 

Duke Energy experienced tremendous 

growth from 1924 to 1960 and set a standard 

for the industry with low construction costs 

for its steam and hydroelectric plants. The 

company shifted its focus from hydro generating 

plants to large-scale steam stations during this 

period because demand for electricity was 

growing and sites for future hydro plants along 

the river became harder to find. Large steam 

stations also represented the latest in 

technology, were more efficient, and could 

generate more electricity. 

Demand for electricity increased greatly from 

1959 to 1971 and additional generation units 

were built to meet that need, including the 

Oconee Nuclear Station. Ironically, it was 

William States Lee, III, the grandson of Buck 

Duke’s chief architect, who ushered in the 

nuclear era at Duke Energy. 

Bill Lee joined the company in 1955, became 

vice president of engineering in 1965, president 

and chief operating officer in 1978, and 

chairman and chief executive officer in 1982. 

It was under Lee’s leadership that Oconee 

Nuclear Station was designed and built, and 

McGuire and Catawba nuclear stations began 

commercial operation. 

Lee’s leadership in the nuclear industry 

is legendary. He was instrumental in stabilizing 

the situation following the partial meltdown 

at Three-Mile Island in 1979 and, from 

that experience, realized the need for an 

industry-wide organization to ensure nuclear 

excellence. Lee was the catalyst for creation 

of the Institute of Nuclear Power Operations 

(INPO) and, after the Chernobyl accident 

in 1986, helped establish a similar organization 

on a global scale: the World Association of 

Nuclear Operators. 


Plans for the company’s third nuclear plant, 

the Catawba Nuclear Station, were announced 

in 1972. The Catawba Nuclear Station would be 

located on a peninsula in Lake Wylie, about 

three miles north of the rebuilt dam where the 

company had started in 1904. Construction 

began in May 1974 and, in June 1985, 

Catawba’s Unit 1 began commercial operation; 

followed by Unit 2 in August 1986. 

Unlike Oconee and McGuire Nuclear Stations 

owned and operated by Duke Energy, Catawba 

Nuclear Station is operated by Duke Energy, but is 

jointly owned by Duke Energy and four 

municipalities and cooperatives: North Carolina 

Municipal Power Agency Number One, North 

Carolina Electric Membership Corporation, 

Piedmont Municipal Power Agency and Saluda 

River Electric Cooperative, Inc. During construction 

of the plant, the country faced doubledigit 

inflation, economic recession, and unstable 

financial markets. As part of its strategy to improve 

its financial health while meeting the energy 

demands of its customers, Duke Energy sold a 

percentage of both units to assist with construction 

costs and reduce financial requirements. 

Duke Energy is proud to be a part of the York 

County community and it realizes being a good 

neighbor goes well beyond operating electricity. It 

means supporting the communities in which its 

employees work and live. Since 1985 the 

employees of Catawba Nuclear Station have 

contributed millions of dollars to charitable 

organizations that support the needs in York 

County. The company’s commitment goes beyond 

dollars; its team of more than one thousand 

employees spends many hours supporting its 

neighbors. Each year, employees donate hundreds 

of pints of blood and volunteer in schools, 

churches, community, and civic groups. 

The company also works hard to protect the 

environment, and its staff of scientists, 

technicians, and engineers carefully monitors 

its operations and the environment. Catawba’s 

site is certified by the South Carolina Wildlife 

Federation as a Wildlife and Industry Together 

site. This includes wildlife food plots, a 

butterfly garden, various wildlife habitats and a 

nature trail. 

For more than one hundred years, Duke 

Energy has continued its proud tradition of 

expansive vision, executive leadership, 

customer focus, and public/private partnerships 

to promote prosperity in the region. Just as 

Duke Energy has helped shape the Piedmont 

Carolinas over the past century, you can count 

on it to be part of building a bright future. Duke 

Energy continues to build upon its foundational 

values of operating excellence, business 

integrity, customer and community service, 

safety and environmental stewardship. 

The first few years of the twenty-first century 

have been challenging ones for the energy 

industry. Regulatory uncertainties, increasing 

energy demand, global climate change and 

power blackouts have made headlines and 

challenged even the best in the industry. But, 

they have also been character defining years for 

Duke Energy. We enter our second century with 

renewed determination to continue serving our 

customers with excellence and integrity. 

❖ 

Above: Catauba Nuclear Station today. 

Below: In 2005, Catawba Nuclear 

Station celebrated twenty years of safe 

and reliable operations in the 

Piedmont Carolinas. Pictured are 

station employees who had worked for 

twenty continuous years at Catawba 

Nuclear Station as of June 2005. 


PIEDMONT 

MEDICAL 

CENTER 

❖ 

The front of the main tower at 

Piedmont Medical Center. 

For quality medical care that is nationally 

recognized, residents of York County need 

travel no farther than Piedmont Medical Center. 

“For a community of our size, the services and 

first-class facilities offered by Piedmont far 

exceed what you’d expect to find,” comments 

Charlie Miller, president and CEO of Piedmont 

Medical Center. 

Once a small community hospital, Piedmont 

Medical Center has developed into the major 

medical center for the Tri-County area of York, 

Chester and Lancaster Counties. The 288-bed 

medical center includes more than 360 active, 

courtesy and consulting physicians in 37 

specialties, all supported by a staff of 1,600 

employees and nearly 200 volunteers. 

Among the specialized services offered by 

Piedmont Medical Center are the Heart and 

Vascular Center, the Women’s Center, and a 

Level III trauma center. 

The Heart and Vascular Center, opened in 

1997, includes the physicians, staff, technology 

and processes to tackle cardiovascular disease 

aggressively. The center includes three 

advanced cardiac catheterization labs, openheart 

surgery capabilities, a cardiovascular 

intensive care unit, a cardiovascular telemetry 

unit and a chest pain observation unit. In 

addition, a comprehensive cardiac rehabilitation 

program helps patients return to normal 

activities as quickly as possible. 

A nationally accredited Chest Pain Center, 

Piedmont is one of only four hospitals in South 

Carolina that has earned a special designation 

for its capabilities, not only to diagnose, but to 

treat chest pain patients as well. 

Piedmont Emergency Medical Services, as 

well as the medical center’s Emergency 

Department, play a crucial role in the Chest Pain 

Center. Piedmont EMS, staffed by paramedics 

and emergency medical technicians, provides 

critical transport and care through a fleet of 

advanced life support units. EMS responds to 

nearly 17,000 calls annually and includes new 

stations in Tega Cay, Clover and Riverview Road 

in Rock Hill. 

The 95,000 square foot Piedmont Women’s 

Center is a spacious, welcoming environment 

for families. It includes ten labor and delivery 

rooms complete with Jacuzzi tubs, sleeper sofas 

and glider rockers. In addition to its well baby 

nursery, Piedmont offers a special care nursery 

for newborns born ill or prematurely. Since 

opening in 2002, the Center has provided a 


❖ 

Left: Heart Center, 2005. 

Below: The Imaging Center at 

Baxter Village. 

warm welcome for more than thirteen thousand 

babies and offers a variety of classes on 

childbirth and infant care. 

In addition to labor and delivery services, 

Piedmont Women’s Center offers medical and 

surgical care for women of all ages and a 

pediatric unit. 

Staying at the forefront of medical technology 

is critical to Piedmont’s mission. For example, 

the Center’s 64-slice CT scanner is the state-ofthe-art 

for 3D, non-invasive viewing of hearts 

and arteries, providing physicians with a 

significant tool for diagnosing heart disease 

quickly and accurately. 

Other technologies available to Piedmont 

patients are MRI, PET-CT, an interventional 

radiology suites, radiation therapy, digital 

mammography, ultrasound, bone densitometry, 

and hyperbaric oxygen therapy. 

The Medical Center also provides intensive 

care, cancer care, surgical services, physical, 

occupational and speech therapy, orthopedics, a 

Digestive Disease Center, respiratory therapy, 

infusion services, Pain Care Center, Sleep 

Disorder Center, and Wound Care Center. 

Piedmont Medical Center celebrated its 

twenty-fifth anniversary in 2008, but the 

hospital’s history actually dates from 1941 when 

York County Hospital was established on 

Ebenezer Avenue in Rock Hill. 

The original hospital, owned by York County, 

opened with ninety-eight beds and was governed 

by a Board of Trustees appointed by the county’s 

legislative delegation. Dr. Bob Sims, a local 

pharmacist, was instrumental in establishment of 

the hospital. The medical staff was headed by Dr. 

Bob Patten, a family practitioner, and Dr. Alton 

Brown, a general surgeon. Hospital administrator 

was Mark Stanton, who was also a popular 

community leader. 


❖ 

Piedmont West Urgent Care Center. 

During the 1960s, the hospital’s name was 

changed to York General Hospital to better 

describe the institution’s growing role in 

meeting the community’s healthcare needs. 

Explosive growth in the region, including York 

County, accelerated the need for a larger and 

more comprehensive hospital and, in 1979, the 

hospital went to the public, seeking approval to 

issue bonds to build a new facility. 

Although the referendum did not pass, it 

actually became a turning point in the hospital’s 

history. Realizing the difficulty of maintaining 

York General as a community hospital, the 

County Council in 1980 decided to sell the 

facility to the predecessor of Piedmont’s current 

owner, Tenet Healthcare Corporation. 

More than a thousand residents turned out 

for a barbecue lunch and the groundbreaking 

for the new hospital in a kudzu-covered field on 

South Herlong Avenue. U.S. Senator Strom 

Thurmond was the keynote speaker for the 

groundbreaking and returned two years later to 

speak at the dedication of the new facility. 

Dr. Walter Tiedemann, who retired recently 

after nearly forty years as a general surgeon in 

private practice, recalls the difficulty in 

recruiting physicians for the old, outdated York 

General. “Piedmont Medical Center has allowed 

us to add new services and diagnostic equipment 

and attract top physicians,” he says. “This means 

the residents of York County don’t have to leave 

their community for excellent medical care.” 

The ever-expanding medical center has also 

been a major economic boost for York County, 

according to Carl Gullick, District 48 State 

Representative. “It really helps when industrial 

prospects see the caliber of medical care available 

through Piedmont,” he says. “Piedmont Medical 

Center has been responsible for millions of dollars 

worth of new investment in the community.” 

Piedmont’s economic impact on York County 

is significant. Its 1600 staff members rank it 

number two among the largest employers in the 

area, and the Center pays $1.8 million annually 

in taxes on its York County property. 

Piedmont makes financial contributions to a 

wide variety of local nonprofit organizations, 

including a $250,000 pledge for the Wayne T. 

Patrick Hospice House, designed to meet the 

specialized needs of terminally ill patients and 

their families. 

The quality of care provided by Piedmont has 

been recognized with significant awards, 

including the 2008 HealthGrades Pulmonary 

Care Excellence Award . For three years, 

HealthGrades has ranked Piedmont among the 

top ten percent of hospitals in the nation for 

pulmonary care. 

Piedmont has also received three-year approval 

with commendation from the Commission on 

Cancer of the American College of Surgeons. In 

addition to its Chest Pain Center recognition, 

Piedmont is a UnitedHealth Premium ® Cardiac 

Specialty Center for Cardiac Surgery, Cardiac 

Care, and Rhythm Management. 

Piedmont Medical Center continues to 

expand its services as York County continues to 

grow. Piedmont West Urgent Care Center is now 

open twenty-four hours, six days a week and 

until 1:00 p.m. on Sundays. Piedmont Internal 

Medicine at Baxter Village has opened in Fort 

Mill, alongside the Piedmont Urgent Care 


Center there. Two family medicine practices 

also are open: Piedmont Family Practice at Tega 

Cay and Piedmont Family Practice at Rock Hill. 

In late 2008, Piedmont Internal Medicine and 

Family Practice will open in the city of York. In 

addition, Piedmont East Urgent Care Center 

near Manchester Village serves Rock Hill. 

In 2008, Piedmont opened a state-of-the-art 

facility, The Imaging Center at Baxter Village, and 

is awaiting final approval for a new one-hundredbed 

hospital in Fort Mill. “The tremendous growth 

of York County is expected to continue and 

Piedmont Medical Center will continue to grow 

and expand as the community grows,” Miller says. 

Piedmont Medical Center has become a 

source of pride and a tremendous asset for the 

community and Miller believes the number of 

residents receiving quality medical care close to 

home will continue to increase as Piedmont 

continues to expand its presence across the 

three counties with physician’s offices and 

other services. 

❖ 

Above: Piedmont Women’s Center. 

Left: Strom Thurmond, keynote 

speaker at the dedication of a 

new facility. 


MACK & MACK 

❖ 

The library inside the first office of 

Mack & Mack, located at 217 Brooks 

Street, Fort Mills, South Carolina. 

Built in 1941 by William Bayles 

Mack, the library is still in use today 

by the firm. Shown in this photograph 

are the desk copies of CYC, Corpus 

Juris, and Corpus Juris Secundum. 

The Mack family ancestors have lived in the 

Fort Mill area since first arriving in 1879. The 

family has produced a long line of Presbyterian 

ministers and, starting with William Mack, four 

generations of distinguished attorneys. Today, 

the law office of Mack & Mack is Fort Mill’s 

oldest legal services provider. 

The Mack Family has lived in South Carolina 

since the early 1860s when the Reverend Joseph 

Bingham Mack, a Presbyterian minister and a 

native of New York, became a chaplain in the 

Confederate Army. The Mack family has lived in 

the Fort Mill area ever since. 

William Mack was born in Mayesville, South 

Carolina in 1865 and, after practicing law for 

several years, became owner and editor-in-chief 

of American Law Book Company in New York. 

He was also editor-in-chief of CYC, Corpus Juris, 

and volumes one through twenty-one of Corpus 

Juris Secundum. 

William Bayles Mack began his practice in 

Fort Mill in 1931 after graduation from 

Cumberland Law School in Lebanon, 

Tennessee, and Washington and Lee University 

in Lexington, Virginia. 

In 1960, after twenty-eight years as a solo 

practitioner, William Bayles Mack was joined in 

practice by his son, Barron Bayles Mack, to form 

the general practice firm of Mack & Mack 

Attorneys. In 1985, Barron B. Mack, Jr. joined 

the firm as the third generation of Mack 

attorneys serving Fort Mill. 

Although the founder, William Bayles 

Mack, died in 1986, his son and grandson 

continue the family tradition of serving 

their client’s needs in a professional and 

efficient manner. 

The professional services provided by the 

law firm of Mack & Mack include 

administrative, corporate and business, personal 

injury claims, general trial work, wills and 

estate planning, estate administration, and real 

estate transactions. 

Mack & Mack serve clients in the fastgrowing 

area of York County, including 

Rock Hill, Tega Cay, York, Clover and Lake 

Wylie; as well as Indian Land in Lancaster 

County. The firm maintains two locations 

in Fort Mill: 101 Allison Street and 217 

Banks Street. 

Among the clients of Mack & Mack are the 

Town of Fort Mill, Paramounts Carowinds, 

Catawba Indian Nation and Clear Springs 

Development Corporation, Crescent Resources, 

Gold Hill Enterprises, Jennings Enterprises, and 

Knights Baseball. 


In recent years, Mack & Mack have 

specialized in meeting the need for qualified, 

experienced real estate attorneys in the fastgrowing 

area of South Carolina near Charlotte. 

Mack & Mack’s qualifications as real estate 

attorneys are enhanced by an in-depth 

knowledge of the geographic area and the 

community of residents and small businesses. 

The real estate growth has also created 

opportunities for the formation of small 

businesses that range from car washes to banks 

and dry cleaners. 

A native of Fort Mill, B. Bayles Mack received 

his undergraduate degree from Davidson 

College and earned his law degree from the 

Washington and Lee University School of Law 

in Lexington, Virginia. He served as 

administrative assistant to U.S. Representative 

Tom Gettys and as York County magistrate 

in the 1960s. Mack became city attorney 

for the City of Fort Mill in 1969, a post he 

still holds. 

Barron B. “Barry” Mack, Jr., received a B.S. 

degree from Davidson College and his J.D. 

degree from the University of South Carolina 

School of Law. Barry is the primary estate 

planning attorney and business lawyer for 

the firm. 

Over the years, the Mack family has found 

time to be deeply involved in state and 

community affairs in many ways. As partial 

recognition of this contribution, B. Bayles Mack 

was honored as Fort Mill Citizen of the Year in 

1999. In 2008, he was honored with the 

Lifetime Business Achievement Award, 

sponsored by Wachovia Bank. This award is 

presented to an individual who has shown a 

sustained commitment to working for the 

betterment of the business community. 

B. Bayles Mack was a member of the York 

County Council for several years and served two 

terms as Chairman. He also is the longest 

serving Highway Commissioner in South 

Carolina, and made a huge contribution in 

bringing I-77 through Rock Hill. He is a former 

President of the Fort Mill Chamber of 

Commerce and Chairman of the Rock Hill 

Area Chamber of Commerce. Mack served as a 

captain in the Army’s Judge Advocates General 

Corps and currently is a colonel in the Joint 

Services Detachment of the South Carolina 

National Guard. He is active in Fort Mill’s Unity 

Presbyterian Church where he has served as an 

elder, deacon, president of the men of the 

church and a Sunday School teacher. 

In recognition of his many years service on 

the Highway Commission, the South Carolina 

General Assembly named a section of I-77 “B. 

Bayles Mack Highway.” The section runs from 

the North Carolina state line to Highway 9 in 

York and Chester Counties. 

Bayles is also renowned for his smooth skill 

in performing the famous South Carolina state 

dance, The Shag. This resulted in his induction 

into the “Living Legends of Shag” in 2008. 

Bayles began going to Myrtle Beach at an early 

age and reveals that he learned to shag from 

❖ 

Senior Partner B. Bayles Mack. 


❖ 

Above: The main office of Mack & 

Mack, Attorneys at Law, at 

101 Allison Street, Fort Mill, 

South Carolina. 

Below: Bayles Mack. Longest serving 

SCDOT Highway Commissioner. He 

had an integral part of the building of 

I-77. The Highway Commission 

named a section which runs from the 

North Carolina state line to Highway 

9 in York and Chester Counties as 

B. Bayles Mack Highway. 

older teenaged girls when he was only 

twelve. He has taught both his children to 

shag and is now teaching the state dance to his 

seven grandchildren. 

“I hope my family and friends remember me 

as the man who had more fun shagging than 

walking or running,” he commented upon 

receiving the plaque signifying his induction 

into the Living Legends of Shag. 

Barron B. “Barry” Mack has served on a 

variety of boards and committees and is 

currently a member of the Board of the Nations 

Ford Land Trust and the Fort Mill Historic 

Review Board. He is also very active with St. 

Paul’s Episcopal Church of Fort Mill, where he 

has served several terms as senior warden for 

the Parish. 

In addition to the practice of law, Bayles is a 

partner of Rugs and Antiques, a wholesale and 

retail antique business. Bayles has a love for old 

furniture and tries to preserve the downtown 

historic area where his store is located. 

The law firm of Mack & Mack has served 

clients in Fort Mill and the surrounding area for 

more than seventy-five years and would be 

pleased to serve you as well. You may call or 

contact the law office at 803-548-7200 to 

schedule an appointment. 

For more information about Mack & Mack, 

please visit www.mackandmacklaw.com. 


❖ 

Top: A 1946 Buddy “day coach” train 

car before it was remodeled by the 

L&C Railroad for B. Bayles Mack’s 

personal office in April 2006. The car 

is named “The Elizabeth Mills Mack” 

after Mack’s mother who worked in a 

similar train car office in for the late 

Colonel Elliott Springs, owner of 

Springs Cotton Mills. 

Middle: Bayles Mack reviewing 

interior of the train car being 

remodeled, April 2006. 

Bottom: Bayles Mack and Barry 

Mack, along with local elected 

officials, cut the ribbon at the 

opening of the Elizabeth Mills Mack 

Office Car. 


RINEHART 

REALTY 

CORPORATION 

❖ 

Above: John and Geri pose with John’s 

real estate car; it was equipped with a 

mobile phone in 1977. 

Below: Jay and his sister, Jennifer, in 

front of Rinehart Realty’s first sign. 

Making “Home” a reality for 

families in York County has 

been the fabric of the Rinehart 

Family for more than thirtythree 

years. Rinehart Realty is a 

success story with deep roots in 

the community. 

Begin every day with work 

that you love, add innovative 

ideas and a drive for success 

and you have the foundation 

on which John and Geri 

Rinehart began Rinehart Realty. 

With a “good name” and space 

in the back of a small grocery 

store, Rinehart Realty’s success 

story began in 1973. John and Geri returned to 

Rock Hill after John graduated from 

Appalachian State University and purchased 

Bill’s Foodway, a small grocery store on Cherry 

Road owned by Geri’s parents, who financed 

the purchase. 

The couple soon realized the store was not 

generating enough income to make the 

payments. “We had a big building, a little 

business, and lots of inventory,” recalls Geri. 

Fueled with the enthusiasm of youth, John 

and Geri turned the building’s second floor into 

their home and worked to turn the store around. 

Thanks to some memorable promotions, such as 

selling watermelons “three for $1”, the business 

slowly improved and the Rineharts began to earn 

enough to make their payments. 

Although business was improving, John and 

Geri saw an opportunity in the real estate 

business to take advantage of the region’s 

tremendous growth. John’s real estate major 

provided him with the tools and desire to 

succeed. It was 1976 and after two banks turned 

down their request for a business loan, they 

used their $3,000 savings to fund the new 

company. John, now a broker, opened the real 

estate office in an eight by ten foot room in the 

back of the store. Taking a huge risk, they 

replaced a dairy cooler with the office and 

Rinehart Realty was in business. 

John’s first listing was a store customer whose 

house had been for sale for a year. Rinehart sold 

the home in twenty-four hours to another store 

customer. Needing more listings, John ran a 

newspaper ad showing a picture of that first 

house. The next week, he ran the same picture 

with the word “SOLD” across—marketing 

innovation at work. 

Rinehart Realty’s second house, listed for 

$5,500, had been for sale for two years and 

was literally falling down. Despite its condition, 

Rinehart ran a picture of the home in their 

newspaper ad and sold the home a day later to 

a handyman who refurbished the home. The 

same week, a customer came into the store one 

night for a loaf of bread and left with the bread 

and a new home. Three transactions and the real 

estate business was taking off. “We never knew 

how much that store would help us in the real 

estate business,” comments Geri. 

With both businesses growing, the Rinehart’s 

were stretched thin. They made a decision to 


sell the grocery store and concentrate on the real 

estate business. 

The Rinehart’s bought a house on Ebenezer 

Road and converted it into an office. John 

comments, “We actually bought an office before 

buying a home.” 

Rinehart Realty now includes more than 

eighty real estate agents, a property 

management staff of five, and other support staff 

who work from offices in Rock Hill, Tega 

Cay/Fort Mill and Lake Wylie. The firm is 

involved in residential real estate brokerage, 

property management, and commercial real 

estate sales and development. Rinehart Realty 

serves clients in York, Chester, and Lancaster 

Counties in South Carolina, and the Charlotte, 

North Carolina, metro area. 

John and Geri’s son, Jay, has been an 

integral part of the business since 1988. Jay 

was a handyman/painter, a sales agent, 

executive vice president and legal counsel 

before being named president and CEO in 

2005. Jay, a visionary leader, believes that “a 

local business has wonderful benefits including 

truly knowing your customers and clients and 

their individual needs. With the tradition of 

superior service, Rinehart Realty will continue 

to be successful.” 

Rinehart Realty and its employees are 

deeply involved in community activities, 

including more than two dozen local churches, 

the York Regional Chamber of Commerce, 

local area Chambers, Winthrop University, 

Eagle Club, Winthrop Foundations, Habitat 

for Humanity, Safe Passage, Children’s Attention 

Home, Rotary, Kiwanis, Salvation Army, 

Come-See-Me, Christmasville, over fifteen PTAs 

and school support organizations—just to name 

a few. 

Jay’s vision for the company is: “Rinehart 

Realty will serve our community through 

Superior Service to our customers and clients, 

through giving back to those less fortunate, 

through building strong homes and 

communities, and through helping people 

enjoy the American Dream of home ownership.” 

Jay and Rinehart Realty’s reputation as the 

leader in the real estate industry has been 

built on character, honesty, loyalty, fairness, 

trust and results. These are characteristics 

Jay focuses on each day in leading Rinehart 

Realty. As is evident from the association of 

fine people with the Rineharts—they take care 

of and listen to their customers, clients, agents, 

and employees. 

Rinehart Realty helps welcome visitors, 

newcomers, and citizens to York County—our 

home—and desires to help each person make it 

Their Home. 

Rinehart Realty is located at 1339 Ebenezer 

Road in Rock Hill and on the Internet at 

www.rinehartrealty.com. 

❖ 

John and Jay celebrating Jay’s 

promotion to CEO/president. 


NORMAN HEGE 

JEWELERS 

❖ 

Norman and Kathern Hege. 

When it comes to something as personal as 

jewelry, there is nothing better than the personal 

touch you get from a hometown jeweler. For 

more than a half-century, Norman Hege 

Jewelers, in Rock Hill, South Carolina has 

provided that hometown touch with class, style, 

and no small degree of innovation. 

A true family business, Norman Hege 

Jewelers was founded in 1951 by Norman 

and Kathern Hege, who were childhood 

sweethearts since grammar school in West 

Jefferson, North Carolina. 

As a young man just out of the navy, Norman 

married Kathern and decided to enroll in a 

watch and jewelry repair school in Winston 

Salem, North Carolina. His first job was with a 

jewelry store in Marion, Virginia. After three 

years and three children (Stephen, Mike and 

Linda) Norman, who had an entrepreneurial 

spirit, decided to open his own business. 

In 1951 the young couple moved to Rock 

Hill, South Carolina, where Kathern’s father, 

E.O.Woodie, owned the City Bus Company 

at the corner of Hampton and Black Street. 

Norman set up shop in the back of the 

bus station with his watch repair bench and 

one showcase. He repaired and sold watches 

and watchbands. 

The small watch business grew and the 

couple opened their first real jewelry store at 

that location, later moving to Main Street in 

Rock Hill. But as retail business shifted to the 

suburbs, the business moved in 1988 to Village 

Square Shopping Center, now known as Food 

Lion Plaza. 

Leaving downtown after thirty-seven years 

was a difficult decision, but a well-earned 

reputation for quality merchandise, fair prices 

and superb personal service followed them to 

their new location and the business continued 

to grow. 

“We’re very pleased with Rock Hill and the 

progress we have made here,” Norman says. 

“We really appreciate the people who have 

done business with us over the years.” 

Norman Hege Jewelers offers a wide selection 

of fine jewelry, watches, diamonds, silver gifts, 

14K chains and bracelets, and previously owned 

Rolex watches, as well as watch and jewelry 

repair and custom made jewelry. 

Both Norman and Kathern feel the business’ 

emphasis on serving customers has been the key 

to their success. “I think our services and efforts 

to serve the needs of the customers have helped 

us survive,” Norman says. 

The Hege’s possess a dedication to personal 

service that is unsurpassed, and realize that 

being able to service their products to the 

satisfaction of their customers is vital to success. 

Services provided by Norman Hege Jewelers 

include diamond mounting, custom-made 

jewelry, engraving, appraisals, watch repair and 

restoration of antique clocks, watches and 

pocket watches. 

Two of Norman and Kathern’s three children, 

Mike Hege and Linda Gordon, now direct most 


of the day-to-day operations of the business. 

Stephen worked in the business while in high 

school. The Hege’s grandchildren have also been 

active over the years making the store a threegeneration 

family business. 

Mike came to work for his Dad in 1973 after 

graduating from watchmaker school and jewelry 

repair and now serves as general manager. In 

addition to his sister, the diamond buyer who 

has been with the company nineteen years, he is 

assisted by a number of valuable long-time 

employees. Jerry Dixon, head of the watch 

repair department, has been with the company 

for twenty years. 

The Hege children have no intention of 

changing the formula of quality merchandise 

and superior service that has made the business 

so successful. “It has worked for all these years, 

why would we come in thinking we know 

better”, Mike comments. “If it ain’t broke, don’t 

fix it,” he adds. 

Both Mike and Linda agree that the store’s 

longevity is due to their parents’ ability to be 

real and true to their customers, adding that all 

services are provided in the store. “If there is 

something we can’t do, we will let the customer 

know up front,” adds Mike. 

Linda says her parents’ honesty set a strong 

example. “People know that they are going to do 

right by themselves and everyone else. Because 

it’s a smaller store people like the personal touch 

we can give. Norman’s honesty is something 

people have always appreciated,” adds Kathern. 

“We’ve always wanted to do for the customer 

what is best for them.” 

Kathern notes that in their marriage of sixtyone 

years the business has never intefered with 

their personal happiness. “To me, it was his 

store,” she explains. “I would work and help 

him any way I could. We’ve never had any 

confrontations about the business.” “It really is 

a family business and many of our customers are 

like family too,” observes Norman. “They have 

come into our store for years and now we’re 

serving their children and even their 

grandchildren. We’ve been here so long we 

almost feel like landmarks.” 


ROCK HILL 

COCA-COLA 

BOTTLING 

COMPANY 

❖ 

Above Rock Hill Coca-Cola on 

Cherry Road. 

Below: Mark Mauldin with Coca-Cola 

cart used to sell drinks and 

sandwiches in the mills in 1939. 

Few companies in history have 

been as successful—or as popular— 

as Coca-Cola. The refreshing 

soft drink has become a favorite 

with consumers throughout the 

world and an icon of refreshment 

and conviviality. 

The Rock Hill Coca-Cola Bottling 

Company, founded in 1906, was 

one of the earliest to bottle and sell 

Coca-Cola under the firm’s unique 

territory agreement, and its success 

has mirrored that of its parent firm 

for more than a century. 

Around the turn of the twentieth century, 

Coca-Cola President Asa Candler, whose flair 

for merchandising transformed the company 

into worldwide domination, offered exclusive 

rights to bottle and sell Coca-Cola to local 

entrepreneurs. The Charlotte, North Carolina, 

territory, which included York and Chester 

Counties in South Carolina, was purchased by 

Luther Snyder. 

Rock Hill Coca-Cola Bottling Company 

began operations on Elm Street in downtown 

Rock Hill in 1906. The building was destroyed 

by fire in 1908 and, since there was no 

insurance on the structure, Snyder decided to 

sell the South Carolina rights to bottle and 

distribute Coca-Cola to Mark Mauldin. 

William Mark Mauldin grew up on a Georgia 

farm but detested farm work and vowed to leave 

for the city as soon as he could. He became a 

bookkeeper for a mill in Gainesville, Georgia, 

where he noticed that the workers eagerly 

anticipated the daily visit of a horse-drawn wagon 

filled with a delicious, refreshing drink called 

Coca-Cola. Mauldin was intrigued by the popular 

new product and began to ask questions about the 

company. His investigation revealed that two 

territories were for sale; one in Dade County, 

Florida, the other in Rock Hill, South Carolina. 

Mauldin had dreamed of becoming his own 

boss and responsible for his own destiny and he 

scrimped and saved and persuaded others to 

invest in his dream. Mauldin approached his 

brother-in-law Fred Williams, who later became 

president of Cannon Mills, and convinced him 

to become an investor in the Coca-Cola 

territory. Mauldin purchased the territory for 

$4,750 and arrived in Rock Hill in 1908, ready 

to begin his long career with Coca-Cola. 

Mauldin began in a building on West Main 

Street on January 1, 1909. The facility was 

crude by modern standards; the production 

equipment was all manually operated, bottles 

washed by hand, and large blocks of ice cooled 

the water. The bottles were filled and capped by 

a machine operated by foot power. The plant 

initially employed five people and production of 

fifty cases was considered a good day’s output. 

As business improved, a second delivery 

wagon was acquired to take Coca-Cola to rural 

areas, which was served by a branch in York, 

South Carolina. Deliveries to Lancaster County 

were made by ferry. The firm’s first motor truck 

was purchased in 1917. 

Mauldin’s dream of becoming a success in 

business came true as Coca-Cola grew in 


popularity. Coca-Cola leaped to unrivaled 

heights of worldwide success during the 1920s 

and the growth continued on into the 1930s 

and beyond. In addition to his business 

leadership, Mauldin became an influential 

leader in community and church affairs, 

establishing a tradition that continues 

throughout the family today. He died in 1958 

and was succeeded as president by his son, 

William Mark “Billy” Mauldin, Jr. 

Billy had graduated from the University of 

Virginia and was working on Wall Street in New 

York in the late 1930s. Undecided about his 

future, Billy approached his uncle, Fred. His 

uncle reminded Billy that his father had a very 

successful business in Rock Hill and advised 

him that he could “stay in New York and be a 

small fish in a big pond, or return home to the 

family business and become a big fish in a small 

pond.” Billy returned to Rock Hill in 1937 to 

work for his father. 

Billy’s career was interrupted by distinguished 

service in the Army Air Corps during World War 

II, but he returned to the company in 1947 and 

succeeded his father as president in 1958, 

serving in that capacity until his death in 2002. 

The company continued to grow under Billy’s 

leadership and he continued the family emphasis 

on community involvement. 

Rock Hill Coca-Cola Bottling Company is 

now led by Fred Faircloth, III, a grandson of 

William Mark Mauldin whose uncle and mentor 

was Billy Mauldin. He began his career in 1968 

by working in the plant, graduated from 

Clemson University, and returned to the 

company in 1972. He served as general 

manager for several years before becoming 

president in 2002. 

The bottling company had outgrown its 

facilities by the twenty-first century and more 

room was needed for the company’s thirty-five 

employees. In 2001 plans were finalized to 

build a new plant on a nine-acre site in the 

Aspen Commerce Park and the company moved 

into its modern new facilities at 2211 Mauldin 

Drive on June 1, 2002. 

Fred Faircloth’s vision for the future of Rock 

Hill Coca-Cola Bottling Company is to continue 

to be a successful, growing beverage company 

and to use the same tenets that got it through its 

first hundred years: a dedication to satisfying 

customers’ needs and being good to the 

community. “The future is limitless if we use 

those principles to guide our efforts,” he says. 

❖ 

Above A Coca-Cola truck parked 

outside St. John’s United 

Methodist Church. 

Below: Rock Hill Bottling Company is 

located at 2211 Mauldin Drive. 


COMPORIUM ® 

❖ 

Above: Two of Comporium’s 

employees volunteer their free time to 

help with the City of Rock Hill’s 

“Rolling in Rock Hill” program that 

spruces up qualified area residences. 

Below: Representatives from six area 

charities gather to accept the keys for 

half a dozen surplus vehicles that 

Comporium donated for these 

organizations’ use. 

The Comporium ® group of companies have 

provided communications services to customers 

in York and Lancaster Counties for more than 

a century. 

In 2001, Rock Hill Telephone and its 

affiliates became known as “Comporium,” a 

word created from “Communications” and 

“Emporium”—a one-stop shop for a variety of 

products and services. Comporium is the 

nation’s eighteenth largest independent local 

exchange carrier. 

By working more closely together, 

Comporium Group makes it easier for its more 

than ninety-five thousand residential and 

commercial customers to access a broad range of 

communication services. These include local 

telephone, long distance, wireless, cable 

television, Internet, security, data services, and 

directory publishing. 

Comporium is one of the major backers of 

Immedion, LLC, a newly formed data center 

and managed services company headquartered 

in Greenville, South Carolina. Immedion 

opened the Upstate’s first dedicated technology 

hosting and co-location facility in Greenville in 

the summer of 2007. 

The fourteen-thousand-square-foot facility is 

specially equipped with redundant power and 

network systems to provide businesses highly 

reliable, scalable, and secure managed 

technology services. The facility also includes a 

five-thousand-square-foot data center, office 

space and room for future expansion. 

Continuing the tradition of Rock Hill 

Telephone, Comporium is deeply involved in 

community affairs in Rock Hill and York County. 

The firm recently donated six work vehicles 

that it was retiring from its fleet to five local 

charitable organizations, as well as to the South 

Carolina School for the Deaf and Blind. 

Although the vehicles were used, they had been 

well maintained and will provide many 

hundreds of thousands of miles of additional 

service. The local nonprofit agencies receiving 

the vehicles were Keystone, the Upper Palmetto 

YMCA, the International Center of York County, 

the Palmetto Council Boy Scouts of America, 

and the York County Board of Disabilities and 

Special Needs. 

Comporium also partnered with the 

Mecklenburg County Air Quality’s “Clean 

Air Works” program and conducted free gas 

cap checks to the public at the Rock Hill 

Municipal Parking lot. The inspection 

prevented one ton of air-polluting emissions by 

checking 260 vehicles and finding ten that 

needed to be replaced. The gas cap check was 

free, and, if the cap leaked, it was replaced free 

of charge. 


Comporium’s local cable television Channel 

18 partnered with CN2 to televise area high 

school graduation ceremonies. Live coverage 

and replays were provided for the ceremonies at 

Rock Hill High School, York Comprehensive 

High School, Northwestern High School, and 

Fort Mill High School. 

Comporium was named a winner of the 

American Psychological Association’s 2006 

National Psychologically Healthy Workplace 

Award. The award is given to organizations that 

implement a comprehensive array of workplace 

practices that foster employee health and wellbeing 

while enhancing organizational performance. 

The company also operates the Comporium 

Telephone Museum, which offers a hands-on 

tour through one hundred years of providing 

communications to the area’s residential and 

business customers. 

Visitors to the Telephone Museum learn how 

telephone poles were erected in the 1930s, tour 

a late 1800s telephone office, and use an 

original magneto telephone. There is also a 

replica of a typical 1930s hotel lobby where 

visitors can use a coin-operated telephone booth 

to call anyone in Rock Hill, then become an 

operator and use the hotel switchboard. 

Another section of the Telephone Museum 

features a display of local telephone directories 

and shows a cable splicer working to connect 

the many wires in a cable. Visitors also see how 

a telephone switch station works when a rotary 

dial telephone is used to place a call. 

The modern section of the museum displays 

how communications developed from transistors 

to fiber optics. 

For additional information about Comporium, 

please visit www.comporium.com. 

❖ 

Above: Comporium’s Paul Kutz and 

Glenn McFadden present the “key” for 

a donated vehicle to Barbara Guidry, 

executive director of the International 

Center of York County. 

Below: Comporium executives Glenn 

McFadden (left) and Nancy O’Neal 

accept the national recognition from 

the president of the American 

Psychological Association to honor 

the company for its employee 

benefits programs and overall 

work environment. 


FOUNDERS 

FEDERAL 

CREDIT UNION 

❖ 

The Founders Anderson Road Office 

in Rock Hill. 

COURTESY OF THE FOUNDERS FEDERAL 

CREDIT UNION. 

The legendary head of Springs Mills, Colonel 

Elliott White Springs, established Founders 

Federal Credit Union, one of the largest and 

most innovative credit unions in the nation. 

Springs became aware that many of the 

Springs Mills employees in Fort Mill were 

borrowing from local finance companies at very 

high interest rates. At that time, banks had not 

become as active in consumer lending, and 

finance companies were very prevalent and 

unregulated. 

The Colonel appointed a three-person team— 

James Bradley, Bill Close and William Medford— 

to find a means for Springs’ employees to borrow 

money at affordable rates and maintain a 

systematic savings program. Their 

recommendation was to organize a companysponsored 

credit union, and in September 1950, 

the Springs Employees Federal Credit Union was 

established and began operation with 

approximately 900 charter members. 

The Fort Mill-based credit union was an 

immediate success and a similar operation was 

organized in 1951 to serve the Springs employees 

in Chester, South Carolina. In the spring of 1961, 

the Kershaw, Grace and Lancaster Springmaid 

Credit Associations were organized. During the 

first thirty years, the credit unions operated as 

separate and independent operations. 

In 1980 the five offices were consolidated 

to form one organization guided by a single 

Board of Directors. At the end of 1983, 

the credit union changed to a federal charter 

and became Springmaid Federal Credit Union, 

and other companies were added to the field 

of membership. 

The name Founders Federal Credit Union 

was adopted in 1993 to reflect a more diversified 

field of membership. 

Leading these changes was former President 

and CEO Laura M. Fleming. Fleming retired 

in 2002 after helping build one of the state’s largest 

credit unions during her forty-two years of service. 

Current President and CEO Bruce Brumfield 

oversees more than 1,200 business partners, 26 

offices, and 2 service centers in North and South 

Carolina. Founders has more than 550 

employees, more than 170,000 members and 

more than $1.5 billion in assets. 

As a credit union, Founders is owned 

and operated by its members under a volunteer 

Board of Directors. The members—not 

stockholders—reap the benefits of Founders’ 

success. Founders is able to pay higher rates on 

savings, charge less for loans and offer free or 

low-cost financial services. 

Founders Federal Credit Union helps 

make the dreams of new homes, automobiles 

and college educations a reality by working 

with the members and preparing them for 

the future. Daily financial transactions are made 

easy and convenient with technological 

advancements and cutting edge efficiency. 

Founders grows by serving its members 

better and is strong enough to take advantage of 

new opportunities in its service area. The 

growth over the past fifty-seven years has 

allowed the credit union to focus more 

resources on providing members with the 

products and services they truly want. 

Founders works to strengthen families and 

communities through significant financial 


support, employee involvement, and the 

promotion of economic opportunity and 

development. Founders focuses its contributions 

on programs inspiring education and learning 

and improving the overall well-being of the 

communities it serves. 

The senior management team and Board of 

Directors of Founders work closely together to 

achieve a balanced regard for both short- and 

long-term strength. This means continuously 

monitoring market rates to ensure its position 

and occasionally expanding its reach to embrace 

new communities that match the credit union’s 

core demographics. At other times it means 

pulling back to maintain the ever important 

bottom line. 

At Founders, ongoing success relies greatly 

upon the ability to demand more. This results in 

continued improvement, efficiency, reliability, 

innovation, and more focus than ever on giving 

members the financial essentials they need 

and want. 

The Mission Statement of Founders states the 

organization’s purpose: We work to create 

financial opportunities to improve the quality of 

life for all our members/owners. 

The credit union’s vision is to meet members’ 

changing financial needs through responsible 

growth and expansion of products and services. 

Founders puts the individual member first, 

while achieving sound strategy and maintaining 

a solid financial position. This allows members 

to continue enjoying the benefits and services of 

the credit union as well as sharing in its success. 

Founders Federal Credit Union’s philosophy 

of serving people is simple—they earn member 

loyalty and build lifetime relationships by 

consistently offering the best products and 

services and most efficient delivery methods 

possible. Founders Federal Credit Union is 

committed to maintaining the highest standards 

of excellence as they expand into the future. 

❖ 

Above: A member services 

representative explains certificate 

options to a member. 

Below: The Founders Ebenezer 

Road office. 


MORNINGSTAR 

FELLOWSHIP 

CHURCH 

MorningStar Fellowship Church (MFC) is a 

multifaceted international ministry 

headquartered at the former Heritage Grand 

Hotel and Conference Center in Fort Mill, South 

Carolina. 

MorningStar’s operations include the 

publishing and distribution of Christian books 

and other written materials to more than one 

hundred nations, recording and distribution of 

contemporary Christian music, two weekly 

television programs that are broadcast 

internationally, a school of Christian ministry, a 

kindergarten through twelfth grade school, a 

fellowship of churches, a fellowship of 

ministries, a Christian retreat center in the North 

Carolina mountains, and the hosting of Christian 

conferences and special study seminars. 

MorningStar was founded by Rick and Julie 

Joyner as a part-time publishing ministry in 

1985. At the time, their main occupation was an 

aircraft charter business they owned in Jackson, 

Mississippi. The first book published by 

MorningStar, There Were Two Trees in the Garden, 

by Rick Joyner, attracted national attention and 

within two years Joyner’s books and articles were 

being distributed around the world. 

The Joyners closed their aviation business in 

1987 to devote themselves full-time to the 

ministry. They also moved to Pineville, North 

Carolina with their two young daughters, Anna 

and Aaryn. 

Steve Thompson became the first to join the 

staff of MorningStar after the move and Steve’s 

wife, Angie, became MorningStar’s first IT 

specialist. During these formative years, the 

Thompsons helped build and manage the 

ministry while Rick spent much of his time 

speaking at churches and conferences across 

America and Europe. Steve is now executive 

vice president of the ministry and has also 

become a successful author who travels 

extensively as a conference speaker. 

Leonard Jones joined the ministry staff in 

1990 and developed the first MorningStar music 

projects. While speaking in Nashville, Rick met 

Don Potter, a renowned musician and producer 

who had been the lead singer and guitarist for 

Chuck Mangione. Don, assisted by country 

music star Ricky Skaggs, produced an album of 

Christian music for Julie Joyner. John G. Elliott 

also wrote some of the music and conducted the 

strings used on the project. The album project, 

Morning Light, was a success and began to bring 

together the world-class music talent that gave 

birth to what has become known around the 

world as “MorningStar Music” and helped thrust 

contemporary Christian music to a new level. 

In 1992, MorningStar hosted its first 

conference at the facilities of Lifespring Church 

in Pineville, North Carolina. The conference 

ministry began to grow nearly as fast as the 

publishing, drawing thousands from many 

nations, as well as from virtually every Christian 

denomination. 


In the early 1990s, Rick began speaking 

at the chapels held for NFL football teams 

before most games. This led to friendship 

with many players, including All-Pro defensive 

lineman Reggie White, who asked him to 

serve on the board of The Nehemiah Project, 

which helps churches, businesses and 

governments work together to rebuild the 

economies of inner cities. The program also 

helped launch a venture called UrbanHope, 

which helped start hundreds of microbusinesses 

with a success rate of over ninetyeight 

percent. This program was so successful it 

was used as part of the Bush administration’s 

model for its “Faith Based Initiative.” 

MorningStar began its School of Ministry in 

1995, a two-year school that offers Associate 

Degrees in Christian ministry. Thompson now 

serves as director of the school, which has over 

two hundred students from six continents. 

In 1996, Rick released his all-time bestseller, 

The Final Quest, which almost immediately 

overwhelmed MorningStar’s ability to handle 

the publishing. Publishing of the book was 

given to another publisher, which began good 

working relationships with several other 

publishers. The Final Quest is under contract for 

development into a major motion picture under 

a new venture headed by Frank Yablans, a 

former head of MGM/UA and Paramount. 

This relationship has led to a whole new 

genre of Biblically-themed movies using stateof-the-art 

animation, which began hitting 

theaters in 2007. 

In 1998, MorningStar began its Kindergarten 

through twelfth grade school named the 

Comenius School for Creative Leadership. The 

school was begun with an innovative vision to 

revolutionize basic education and was led for 

the first few years by Bobby and Ginger Hussey, 

who now oversee children’s and youth 

ministries at MorningStar. The Comenius 

School is now directed by Al Wood, a former 

All-American basketball player at the University 

of North Carolina, who also played in the NBA. 

In 2003, MorningStar purchased the former 

Heritage USA Grand Hotel and Conference 

Center, along with fifty-two acres in Fort Mill. 

This property has been restored for use as a 

ministry base and to host Christian conferences 

and retreats. The name has been changed to 

Heritage International Ministries to reflect the 

more international emphasis of MorningStar. 

The property was formerly home to Jim 

Bakker’s PTL Club before it was brought down 

in one of the biggest scandals in modern 

Christianity, and Bakker was sent to prison. 

However, believing that the basis of Christianity 

is redemption and restoration, MorningStar 

hopes to turn the discredited property into a 

positive Christian experience. The ministry 

celebrated the grand opening of the restored 

Heritage Grand Hotel and Conference Center in 

September of 2007, exactly three years after its 

purchase by the ministry, and it is again drawing 

thousands of Christians from around the world 

to its events, beginning a new chapter for this 

property that was once called “the second most 

famous address in the world.” 


MICROTEL 

INN & SUITES 

Microtel Inn & Suites of Rock Hill, South 

Carolina is an award winning property 

conveniently located off I-77, Exit 82B. After a 

long days drive or work you can relax and get a 

great night’s sleep on our new Dream Well 

Bedding. If you like to work out, you may use our 

local fitness center, absolutely free. And, if you 

require the use of a computer, you can use our 

Business Center to connect to the Internet or print 

out your boarding pass. Should you need to wash 

clothes, you may use our Guest Laundry Room. 

Once you settle comfortably in your room 

you can choose from more than sixty-three 

channels, including HBO, ESPN, Telemundo, 

and News Channels. Other amenities include 

local and long distance calls, high-speed wired 

and wireless Internet and deluxe continental 

breakfast—all free! Microtel rooms include a 

clock radio, hairdryer, microwave, refrigerator, 

voice mail, and curved shower rod. 

For your peace of mind, Microtel provides a 

twenty-four hour front desk, interior corridors, and 

an elevator. It provides these features, not because 

we have to, but because its guests are worth it. 

Guests often tell us they have never stayed in 

a Microtel Inn before, but plan to stay with us 

from now on. Give us a chance, and you will see 

why we keep winning awards and why guests 

keep coming. 

The Microtel Inn & Suites is only a short drive 

from award winning Winthrop University’s 125- 

acre campus and 325-acre recreational complex. 

Carowinds Theme/Waterpark is only a short drive 

away, as is Historic Brattonville, a 775-acre living 

history plantation where the movie The Patriot 

starring Mel Gibson was filmed. Other nearby 

attractions include the Museum of York County, 

Anne Springs Close Greenway’s 2,300 acres filled 

with 32 miles of trails and open spaces for 

horseback riding, mountain biking, jogging, 

picnicking and a nature center. Nearby Lake 

Wylie, with 325 miles of shore line, is host to 

many fishing tournaments, and Kings Mountain 

State and National Park consists of 11,000 acres of 

protected green space. 

Rock Hill’s Cherry Park, a eighty-eight acre 

recreational complex, hosts many softball/baseball 

tournaments; the Tennis Center has eight 

regulation courts and a championship court with 

stadium seating; Manchester Meadows, a seventy 

acre park, offers six regulation soccer fields and 

two championship courts; and the Aquatic Center 

is a 41,000-square-foot facility with 10 lanes, a 25- 

yard by 25-meter competition pool (cool water), 

and eight lane, 25-yard pool (warm water). 

York County is proud of its small towns with 

traditional downtowns, each with its own 

unique flavor. Towns like Clover, Fort Mill, 


Hickory Grove, Rock Hill, Sharon and York have 

been beautifully restored and offer refurbished 

buildings with a mix of quaint retail shops, 

specialty stores and local restaurants. 

Charlotte Douglas International Airport, 

one of the nation’s largest, is only twentyfive 

minutes away. Several professional sports 

teams perform in the area, including the 

NFL’s Carolina Panthers, the NBA’s Charlotte 

Bobcats, Charlotte Knights AAA baseball team, 

and the Charlotte Checkers minor league Hockey 

Team. Charlotte Motor Speedway, host to two 

NASCAR races each year, is thirty minutes away. 

More than thirty golf courses are located 

nearby and a major PGA event is held each May 

at Quail Hollow Country Club. 

More than sixty restaurants are located within 

easy driving distance of the Microtel Inn & Suites, 

which includes local and chain restaurants, fast 

food, and twenty-four- hour restaurants. 

Microtel is the recipient of many awards 

and accolades. For an unprecedented 

seventh consecutive year, Microtel Inn & 

Suites has been ranked highest in guest 

satisfaction among Economy/Budget Hotel 

chains. This recognition is only one testament 

to its long-standing dedication of offering 

quality service and unmatched conveniences to 

its guests. 

Microtel Inn & Suites at 1047 Riverview 

Road in Rock Hill is part of the fastest-growing 

budget hotel chain in the United States. 

Microtel began with twenty-two hotels in 

upper New York State in the late 1980s. 

Currently, there are more than 325 hotels open or 

under construction worldwide. Microtel 

hotels are located in forty-five states in the U.S 

and in Argentina, Canada, Honduras, Mexico, 

and the Philippines. 

For additional information on Microtel Inn & 

Suites or to make reservations, please visit 

www.microtelinn.com. 


THE HERALD 

The Herald, Rock Hill’s daily newspaper, 

traces its origins to a weekly newspaper 

called The Lantern, which began publication in 

1872. The Lantern was owned by local 

businessman J. M. Ivy, who changed the name of 

the newspaper to The Herald, in 1874. It was 

known as The Evening Herald until 1986, when 

a Sunday edition was added. The publication 

switched from evening publication to mornings 

in 1989. 

The Herald was privately held by several 

owners until 1985 when The News & Observer 

Company of Raleigh, North Carolina, purchased 

the newspaper from the Patrick family. The last 

publisher under family ownership was Wayne 

Patrick, whose family still lives in Rock Hill. 

In 1990, The Herald and its three community 

publications—the Yorkville Enquirer, the Clover 

Herald, and Lake Wylie Magazine—were 

purchased by The McClatchy Company. The 

Herald bought the Fort Mill Times in 1998. 

The Herald serves the greater Rock Hill area, 

which includes York, Chester, and parts of 

Lancaster counties, with a daily circulation of 

nearly 32,000 and Sunday circulation of more 

than 33,000. 

The Herald building is centrally located on 

a five-acre site at 132 West Main Street, one 

of Rock Hill’s main thoroughfares. The Herald 

also operates bureaus in Fort Mill, York, and 

Lake Wylie, where the community publications 

are produced. 

The Herald and its weeklies employ about 

130 people full-time and 38 part-time. 

The Herald, its community publications, and 

its website—Heraldonline.com—have all won 

top South Carolina Press Association (SCPA) 

awards for journalism and advertising 

excellence. Both The Herald and the Fort Mill 

Times have won the press association’s coveted 

General Excellence Award. The Herald most 

recently won first place for Public Service in the 

SCPA awards competition for daily newspapers 

in its circulation size. 

The newspaper generously supports a 

number of charitable and civic campaigns, and 

Herald employees are represented on many 

community boards. The Herald also sponsors an 

annual holiday giving campaign called Empty 

Stocking Fund. 

The marketing department at The Herald 

offers full-service advertising agency services, 

from targeted direct mail and databases to media 

placement, creative services, printing, web 

development, and marketing consultations. The 

group also coordinates six annual events in 

upstate South Carolina: the Spring Home and 

Living Show, World’s Largest Yard Sale, Area 

Parade of Homes, Bridal Expo, Women’s Expo, 

and the Cooking and Lifestyles show. 

Special publications include Ride in Style 

high-end automotive guide, York County 

Magazine, Buzzie Awards Winner’s Section, 

Focus on Fort Mill newcomer’s guide, emergency 

services guide, and Herald Homes & Real Estate 

section. 

For additional information about The Herald, 

please visit www.Heraldonline.com. 


William Vansittart Bowater, a descendent of a 

distinguished British family, started Bowater, 

Inc., now known as AbitibiBowater, as a oneman 

operation in 1881. Bowater’s three sons 

joined the business in 1910 and the firm 

became W. V. Bowater & Sons Limited. 

Bowater entered the newsprint manufacturing 

business in the United Kingdom as 

newspapers were beginning to reach mass 

markets. Sir Eric Bowater, a grandson of 

Vansittart Bowater, had the foresight to see that 

Britain had insufficient natural resources to 

meet the demand for newsprint. 

Sir Eric, who led the company from 1926 

until 1962, took the firm from a small paper 

merchant, buying and selling paper made by 

others, to a worldwide corporation. 

Planning for the mill at Catawba, Bowaters 

Carolina Corporation, began in late 1956 and 

the first market pulp was produced in 1959. 

As a corporation, Bowater, Inc., enjoyed 

being a leading producer of coated and specialty 

papers and newsprint as well as bleached 

market pulp and lumber products. The 

company employed about 7,000 people at 

twelve pulp and paper mills in the United 

States, Canada and South Korea. The firm 

operated six recycling plants and was one of the 

world’s largest consumers of recycled 

newspapers and magazines. 

The Catawba Operation employs nearly 1,000 

people, primarily residents of York, Lancaster, 

and Chester counties. The Catawba Operation 

employees are committed to making the best 

lightweight coated paper in the world. Since 

2001 the Catawba Operation has spent nearly 

$400 million on capital projects, which has 

contributed to the vitality of the local economy. 

In recent years, the facility earned both the 

South Carolina “Manufacturer of the Year” Award 

and IndustryWeek magazine’s “Best Plants in 

North America” award. The honors were based 

not only on production results, but on safety, 

quality, environmental stewardship, human 

resources practices and community partnerships. 

The Catawba Operation budgets a quarter of 

a million dollars each year for philanthropic 

causes in the community and is a major 

contributor to local United Way campaigns. 

Scholarships awarded annually help an average 

of twenty students attend college each year. 

ABITIBIBOWATER CATAWBA OPERATIONS 

The Catawba Operation also is deeply 

committed to leaving the smallest 

environmental footprint possible. Many of the 

resources at the facility are reused, including 

water and steam. Each year, nurseries grow 

more than six million seedlings for Bowater to 

distribute to local landowners for planting. 

When foresters noticed that bluebirds were 

declining in population, the company arranged 

to have several hundred bluebird nesting boxes 

constructed and distributed to the public. 

Bowater recently merged with Abitibi- 

Consolidated, forming a stronger, more globally 

competitive forest products business. 

AbitibiBowater produces a broad range of forest 

products marketed in more than eighty countries 

around the world. Customers include many of 

the world’s largest publishers, commercial 

printers, retailers, consumer product companies 

and building supply outlets. 

❖ 

Below: The Rocky Shoals Spider 

Lily thrives six miles down the 

Catawba River. 


PEOPLES FIRST 

INSURANCE 

❖ 

Local and family owned, Peoples 

First Insurance is located at 

466 Hood Center Drive in Rock 

Hill and on the Internet at 

www.peoplesfirstinsurance.com. 

The Peoples Trust Company, dba Peoples 

First Insurance and Realty, began as the 

Insurance and Real Estate Departments of the 

old Peoples Bank & Trust Company of Rock Hill 

in 1906. When the bank received its national 

charter, Peoples Trust Company was organized 

as a separate corporation, chartered by the state 

of South Carolina. 

The first president of Peoples Trust Company 

was Dr. J. B. Johnson, who served until 1932. 

T. L. Johnston succeeded Dr. Johnson and 

served until 1938, when he was succeeded by 

C. L. Cobb. 

In 1967 the Peoples Trust Company moved 

its offices from the Peoples National Bank 

building on Main Street to new offices at 151 

Oakland Avenue. The property was the former 

site of the old city water and light plant. 

In 1986 the Peoples Trust Company 

purchased the First Insurance Agency, a local 

independent insurance agency that had been in 

existence since 1902. The purchase made 

Peoples Trust one of the largest independent 

insurance agencies in South Carolina. 

First Insurance Agency had been founded 

as the Insurance Department of Central Union 

Bank of Rock Hill. W. Ben Dunlap bought 

the agency from the bank in 1933 and when 

Dunlap became president of Rock Hill National 

Bank, Jennings Neely and Jimmy Galloway 

assumed leadership of First Insurance Agency 

as partners. Neely sold his interest to Galloway 

in 1983. 

Peoples First Insurance purchased a local 

independent agency, the Insurance Centre, in 

2006, the same year the agency celebrated its 

one hundredth anniversary. 

Peoples First now has thirty-five employees 

serving the community from two locations. 

The main office is located at 466 Hood 

Center Drive in Rock Hill and a branch office 

is located at 818 Dave Gibson Boulevard in 

Fort Mill. The president of Peoples First is 

Jimmy Galloway. 

Peoples First sells and services all lines of 

insurance, including personal (home, auto, and 

personal property), commercial (commercial 

property, general liability, workers’ compensation, 

and business auto), as well as group and 

individual life and health insurance. 

The company also develops residential 

property and its developments include Seven 

Oaks, Hidden Forest, Gallant Meadows, Rolling 

Woods, The Plantation, and Greenfield Acres. 

The mission of the Peoples Trust Company is 

to instill and maintain confidence in the clients 

it serves. From this perspective, the company’s 

mission statement is: “We Put People First.” 


York Technical College has provided 

educational opportunities for the residents 

of Chester, Lancaster, and York Counties 

since 1964. 

The institution began as the York 

County Technical Education Center with 

one building located on a twenty-four-acre 

site. Seven programs were offered to a 

total of 60 students. The Center was part 

of a statewide technical education initiative 

launched by Governor Ernest 

Hollings and key legislative leaders in 

1961 to enhance the economic development 

of South Carolina by providing industry 

with a technically-skilled and educated 

workforce, as well as educational opportunities 

for area residents. 

The Technical Education Center expanded 

rapidly and after its first decade, approximately 

1,200 students were enrolled in a variety of 

academic programs, including engineering 

technology, data processing, and medicalrelated 

programs. 

To accommodate the growing student 

population, a 6,000-square-foot student center 

and a combination library/administration 

building were added to the campus, which more 

than doubled in size to 58 acres. 

The Center also received accreditation 

from the Commission on Colleges of the 

Southern Association of Colleges and Schools 

and changed its name to York Technical College 

in 1974. 

Growth continued during the 1980s and 

1990s and enrollment increased to more than 

3,600 credit students in more than 50 academic 

programs. New facilities, including a continuing 

education center, child development center, 

student services center, library, state-of-the-art 

medical laboratories, and computer facilities 

were constructed on a campus that had grown 

to nearly 120 acres. 

At publication, more than 7,250 credit 

students were enrolled annually in more than 85 

credit programs of study. An additional nine 

thousand students are served annually in noncredit 

continuing education programs. The 

campus consists of fifteen buildings, including 

the Institute for Manufacturing Productivity and 

the Science and Technology Building. Facilities 

in Rock Hill also include a building 

construction trades training laboratory on 

Wilson Street and a rapid manufacturing 

training center in the Waterford Business Park, 

called 3D Systems University. 

York Technical College operates off-campus 

centers in Chester and Kershaw that offer 

various credit and continuing education classes 

through traditional delivery methods and 

distance learning. 

York Technical College significantly benefits 

the economy of its three-county service area. The 

cumulative economic impact of the College is 

estimated to be more than $200 million annually. 

The College serves as an engine for job creation, 

secures numerous grants from federal and state 

governments and other revenue sources, and 

provides high quality post-secondary educational 

opportunities to area residents. 

For additional information about York 

Technical College, please visit www.yorktech.com. 

YORK 

TECHNICAL 

COLLEGE 

❖ 

Above: Science and Technology 

Building. 

Below: 3D Systems University. 


CLINTON 

JUNIOR 

COLLEGE 

❖ 

Clinton Junior College is located at 

1029 Crawford Road in Rock Hill, 


Clinton Junior College, founded 

by the African Methodist Episcopal 

Zion Church in 1894, is a historically 

black two-year liberal arts college. 

The college, located on twenty acres 

on Crawford Road in Rock Hill, was 

founded to eradicate illiteracy among 

the freedmen of South Carolina. In 

1909 the college was incorporated as 

Clinton Normal and Industrial 

College and, in 1956, the name was 

changed to Clinton Junior College. 

Clinton College offers associate 

degrees in liberal arts, business, 

religious studies, early childhood education, 

and science. The liberal arts emphasis is 

designed to allow students to explore a wide 

variety of courses, many of which may be 

transferred to four-year colleges or universities. 

A liberal arts degree from Clinton provides the 

flexibility to move into any major career area. 

The mission of Clinton Junior College is to 

offer an educational program that will help all 

students lead moral, spiritual, and productive 

lives. Believing that education is a continuing 

process, the institution will admit all qualified 

applicants who are interested in improving their 

lives, and will provide them with the 

educational experiences, counseling, placement, 

and other services necessary to encourage and 

foster success. 

The curriculum at Clinton Junior College is 

designed to offer educational opportunities to a 

wide range of students who show academic 

promise. Clinton has an open admissions 

policy, but in order to be accepted, a student 

must have a high school diploma or GED 

certificate. All students are welcome, regardless 

of race, religion, creed, handicap, nationality, or 

ethnic origin. 

To make college tuition more affordable, 

Clinton helps many students with their 

expenses through financial aid programs. These 

programs are supported by federal funds, gifts 

from friends, and The A.M.E. Zion Church. 

Students may be eligible for Pell grants, student 

loans, work-study jobs, scholarships, and 

institutional awards. 

In-state tuition averages about $3,000 per 

academic year and the institution has a current 

coed enrollment of 130 students. The total cost 

for an academic year is approximately $9,000 

for residential students. 

Clinton’s Beacon of Light Scholars Program is 

a federally funded program designed to meet the 

needs of students and help brighten their paths 

to success. The goal is to provide academic 

assistance and support to students as they work 

toward fulfilling their educational requirements. 

The program aims to increase student retention 

and graduation rates and increase the transfer 

rate to four-year institutions. 

Clinton Junior College is a participant in the 

Curriculum Improvement Partnership Award, 

which funds innovative advances in the 

instructional areas of Science, Technology, 

Engineering, and Mathematics. 

Clinton Junior College is accredited by the 

Transnational Association of Christian Colleges 

and Schools and is authorized to offer 

appropriate associate degrees. 


On August 10, 2004, the York County 

Regional Chamber of Commerce dedicated its 

new headquarters facility at 116 East Main 

Street in downtown Rock Hill. It is fitting that 

the property has a rich history of 

entrepreneurship and business success. 

Originally built in the early 1880s, the 

building opened as a restaurant, owned by J.N. 

McElwee, and was later changed to McElwee’s 

Cash Grocery. Records indicate that, beginning 

in 1908, the building also housed motion 

picture shows, thus the impetus for replicating 

the look of a movie theatre at the Chamber’s 

Main Street entrance. 

The building was extensively renovated, 

including the addition of a new façade, and was 

fully occupied in 1936 by Efird’s Department 

Store. In 1974 the building became the O.K. 

Boy’s-Men’s Wear & Pawn Shop. 

The building was purchased in June 2001 when 

Chamber leaders realized that the organization 

needed a new facility to more effectively deliver its 

services to members and the region. The diversity 

of the Chamber’s membership base was magnified 

by the merger of the Fort Mill, Rock Hill and Tega 

Cay chambers in the year 2000. The collective 

history of the three merging organizations totals 

nearly 150 years. 

Today, the Regional Chamber is a recognized 

partner in the progress that has taken place in 

the York County region. One dynamic 

partnership that was recently revitalized is the 

Council of Chambers, which also includes the 

Greater Clover, Greater York and Lake Wylie 

chambers. All four chambers work well together 

to advocate the county’s business interests. 

The newly renovated facility, along with the 

partnerships and programs of the Regional 

Chamber, support the mission of fostering a 

business environment that results in economic 

prosperity for Chamber members and the 

community. Continued diligence in pursuit of 

this mission will indeed allow the organization 

to realize its vision of leading the county to 

become the premier place to live, work and 

conduct business in the Carolinas. 

Additional information is available on the 

Internet at www.yorkcountychamber.com. 

YORK COUNTY 

REGIONAL 

CHAMBER OF 

COMMERCE 


1ST PATRIOTS 

FEDERAL 

CREDIT UNION 

❖ 

Above: The main gate at the Celriver 

Plant of the Hoechst Celanese 

Corporation. 

Below: 1st Patriots Federal Credit 

Union building located at 2760 Home 

Depot Boulevard in Rock Hill, 


1st Patriots Federal Credit Union is a member-owned 

financial institution whose purpose 

is to promote the financial well being of its 

members by providing comprehensive and progressive 

financial services. The credit union was 

established in 1954 as the Celriver Federal 

Credit Union, which was chartered to serve 

employees of the Celanese Corporation. 

The Celriver Federal Credit Union was located 

in the Rock Hill Celanese plant until 1966 

when it relocated to a building across the street 

on Cherry Road. Continued growth resulted in 

construction of a spacious two-story building at 

2760 Home Depot Boulevard in Rock Hill in 

1998. Services such as ATMs, IRAs and CDs 

were added to provide a full array of financial 

services for the benefit of the members. 

In January 2000 the credit union was granted 

a community charter which allowed Celriver 

Credit Union to offer membership to all who 

live, work, and worship or attend school in York 

County, South Carolina. 

The community charter attracted new members 

and the Board of Directors voted to change 

the name to 1st Patriots Federal Credit Union in 

the spring of 2003. The name change was an 

ideal solution to better position the organization 

as a loyal, devoted, community-based financial 

institution. The name change also marked the 

beginning of a new tradition and commitment 

to serving the new members and their families 

who work or reside in York County. 

Services offered by 1st Patriots Federal Credit 

Union include checking and savings accounts, 

money market, IRAs and CDs, as well as mortgage, 

auto, personal and home equity loans. 

Other services include debit and credit card 

services, direct deposit, wire transfers, safe 

deposit boxes and insurance protection. 

1st Patriots sponsors a variety of events and 

is active in the York area Chamber of 

Commerce. Employees are also active in a number 

of community projects. 

Since its name change, 1st Patriots has continued 

to grow and meet member needs through 

first class products, services and dedicated 

employees. The credit union is managed and 

operated by professional staff members who 

work under the guidance of a member-elected 

board of directors. 


SPONSORS 

1st Patriots Federal Credit Union . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .110 

AbitibiBowater Catawba Operations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .105 

Clinton Junior College . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .108 

Comporium ® . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .96 

The Culture & Heritage Museums . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .77 

Duke Energy and Catawba Nuclear Station . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .78 

Founders Federal Credit Union . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .98 

The Herald . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .104 

Mack & Mack . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .86 

Microtel Inn & Suites . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .102 

MorningStar Fellowship Church . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .100 

Norman Hege Jewelers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .92 

Piedmont Medical Center . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .82 

Rinehart Realty Corporation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .90 

Rock Hill Coca-Cola Bottling Company . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .94 

Peoples First Insurance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .106 

York County Regional Chamber of Commerce . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .109 

York Technical College . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .107 

Sponsors ✦ 111

ABOUT THE AUTHOR 

M ICHAEL 

C. SCOGGINS 

Michael C. Scoggins is the historian for the Culture & Heritage Museums (CHM) and the research director of the Southern 

Revolutionary War Institute in York, South Carolina. Michael has degrees in science, engineering technology and history from the 

University of South Carolina, York Technical College and Winthrop University, and was employed as an electronics engineer for twenty 

years before changing careers to pursue his life-long interest in history. He is the author of The Day It Rained Militia: Huck’s Defeat and 

the Revolution in the South Carolina Backcountry, May-July 1780 (History Press, 2005) and Relentless Fury: The Revolutionary War in the 

Southern Piedmont (CHM, 2006), two groundbreaking studies of the American Revolution in the Carolina Piedmont, and he edited the 

republication of Benson Lossing’s 1889 classic, Reflections of Rebellion: Hours with the Living Men and Women of the Revolution (History 

Press, 2005). Along with Dr. Bobby G. Moss, he wrote the highly acclaimed African-American Patriots in the Southern Campaign of the 

American Revolution (Scotia-Hibernia Press, 2004) and African-American Loyalists in the Southern Campaign of the American Revolution 

(Scotia-Hibernia Press, 2005). He has contributed articles to numerous historical publications and journals, including War, Literature 

and the Arts; Military Collector and Historian; The South Carolina Encyclopedia; Southern Campaigns of the American Revolution; Carologue; 

and American Revolution Magazine. In addition, he writes a monthly history column for YC Magazine, edits the York County Genealogical 

and Historical Society Quarterly, and is a frequent lecturer on topics of local and regional history. Michael lives near McConnells, South 

Carolina, only a few miles from the site of the historic Battle of Huck’s Defeat. 


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ISBN: 9781893619944

Historic York County

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