Qualla: Greenwood County, South Carolina

Greenwood County, South Carolina: Introduction

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Upstateherd, CC BY-SA 4.0. The county is named for a cotton plantation. John McGehee planted his crop here in the 1820s, gave the place the name Greenwood, and a settlement grew up around the depot when the railroad finally arrived in the 1850s. But the county that took that name in 1897 sat on far older ground - the Cherokee Path, the trade route that traders from Charles Town followed into the back country to deal in deerskins. They counted creeks as they went, six south of the Saluda River and nine south of the Savannah, and somewhere in those counts, historians believe, lies the origin of the strangest place name in South Carolina: Ninety Six.

Image: Upstateherd | CC BY-SA 4.0

Greenwood County, South Carolina: The Cherokee Path

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Julia Wilkins, CC BY-SA 3.0. Before European traders came up from Charleston, this was Cherokee territory, with major towns along the upper Savannah River and its tributary the Keowee. The Cherokee Nation extended into modern western North Carolina, eastern Tennessee, and northeastern Georgia. English and Sc...

Image: Julia Wilkins | CC BY-SA 3.0

Greenwood County, South Carolina: Phoenix, 1898

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Julia Wilkins, CC BY-SA 3.0. Reconstruction-era Black voting in this part of South Carolina ended in a sustained campaign of violence. In November 1898, the Phoenix Election Riot broke out at a polling place near the village of Phoenix. The Republican Congressional candidate, Robert R. Tolbert, came from a p...

Image: Julia Wilkins | CC BY-SA 3.0

Greenwood County, South Carolina: Buzzard's Roost and the New Deal

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Upstateherd, CC BY-SA 4.0. The Great Depression collapsed what was left of the cotton economy. The boll weevil had already gutted production through the 1920s, and Black migration north and west had been steadily draining the rural workforce. New Deal programs reshaped the county. The largest project was B...

Image: Upstateherd | CC BY-SA 4.0

Greenwood County, South Carolina: Fujifilm and Fortified Industry

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Upstateherd, CC BY-SA 4.0. Since 1950, Greenwood County has built a surprisingly diversified industrial base. Fujifilm maintains a major manufacturing and distribution presence here - one of only two North American production sites - anchoring the county's economy with over 300 employees after selling and ...

Image: Upstateherd | CC BY-SA 4.0