History

 

The County was founded in 1910 from a portion of Marion County.  The County and the City of Dillon are named for prosperous local citizen James W. Dillon (1826-1913), an Irishman who settled there and led a campaign to bring the railroad into the community. The result of this effort was the construction of the Wilson Short Cut Railroad, which later became part of the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad, and which brought greater prosperity to the area by directly linking Dillon County to the national network of railroads.

 

For many decades, residents of Dillon County were farmers growing cotton and tobacco. Timber harvesting remains a significant industry in the County.

 

Dillon County has seen a growth in manufacturing and distribution centers over the past twenty years, due in part to Interstate 95, which runs through the County north-south.

 

Harbor Freight Tools operates over 1 million square feet of distribution space in the County. Dillon is also home to the SC State Ports Authority Inland Port Dillon, which has led to the creation of hundreds of good-paying jobs for Dillon County residents and over $1 billion in new investment.

 

Excerpt from the writing of Durward T. Stokes, author of The History of Dillon County, South Carolina, published by University of South Carolina Press, 1978

 

Finally, the requirements for creating the new county were met after five elections, three surveys, and fifteen years of political maneuvering. In a December 14, 1909, referendum, voters supported a new county by an overwhelming margin, 1,615 to 272. Dillon was selected based on the name of its largest town.

 

(405 sq. miles; 2020 pop. 30,367). Dillon County, known as “The Golden Land,” was formed in 1910 from the upper portion of Marion County. Its triangular shape is bound east by North Carolina and the Lumber River and west by Marlboro County and the Great Pee Dee River. Its southern boundary was painstakingly drawn so that at least five hundred square miles remained in Marion County and at least four hundred miles were included in the new county, as required by the state constitution.

 

Settlers were slow to come to the area that became Dillon County. It was isolated and occupied by the Sara Indians, who were hostile toward the encroachments of European settlers. Roads were primitive and few. Most early settlers came to the northern part of the territory, near the Little Pee Dee River, which developed into Harleesville, later Little Rock. Upper Marion’s first post office opened there in 1807.

 

Although the fertile soil was highly productive, poor transportation made it difficult for residents to market surplus grains and staple crops. As a result, the earliest commercial venture was raising cattle driven overland to supply beef to the Lowcountry. As river and road transportation improved, residents of upper Marion intensified their farming efforts. As in much of antebellum South Carolina, cotton became the dominant crop. By 1860, planters and farmers along the upper Little Pee Dee Valley produced 4,564 bales of cotton. Agriculture would dominate the region’s economy throughout the nineteenth century.

 

The county’s struggle for political independence began in 1895 with the adoption of a state constitution that eased restrictions on creating new counties. The political leaders of Lower Marion did everything they could to prevent the separation. With the population concentrated in lower Marion, political control rested there. However, while the rich farmland of upper Marion produced hefty property taxes, government expenditures for road maintenance and services were kept low. As a result, Upper Marion’s leaders grew determined to have their county. The construction of the Florence Railroad Line through upper Marion, with stations at Dillon and Latta, added to the new county movement by improving transportation and shipping facilities, which spurred rapid population growth.

 

Finally, the requirements for creating the new county were met after five elections, three surveys, and fifteen years of political maneuvering. In a December 14, 1909, referendum, voters supported a new county by an overwhelming margin, 1,615 to 272. Dillon was selected based on the name of its largest town.

 

Agriculture continued as the backbone of Dillon County’s economy at the start of the twentieth century. Climate, water resources, and fertile terrain created excellent growing conditions. However, following the onslaught of the boll weevil and disastrously low prices during the Depression of the 1930s, cotton gradually fell out of favor, forcing farmers to seek an alternate crop. Tobacco was the answer. Income from the “golden weed” grew dramatically and quickly overtook cotton as the leading money crop.

 

By 1997, Dillon County’s tobacco yield had grown to $18.6 million, with cotton a distant second at $5.4 million. During the last half of the twentieth century, farm size and methodology changed dramatically, with machinery replacing manual labor to a large degree. Dillon County farms grew larger in size and fewer in number. In 1950, the county had 3,336 farms, averaging sixty-three acres. By 199,7, the number of farms had dropped to 199, while average acreage increased to 458 acres. Mechanized farming forced many families off the land.

 

As in many South Carolina counties, Dillon’s industry had primarily consisted of cotton mills, which became increasingly outdated as the twentieth century progressed—in 1954 Dillon County’s industrial base expanded significantly with the arrival of Dixiana Mills, a division of Mohawk Carpets, which created badly needed jobs for displaced farm workers and others.

 

In 1995, Dixiana stunned the county by closing its Dillon plant and moving to Calhoun, Georgia. Fortunately, in 1992 Perdue Farms, Inc., had established in Dillon a chicken processing plant, which helped to replace many of the lost jobs. In 2000, Perdue employed 1,250 workers. In addition, each week, local farmers raised 1.25 million chickens from Perdue’s hatchery in Dillon. As the new century began, there were twenty-one industries in Dillon County employing approximately 3,500 people. The balance between agriculture and industry worked to maintain a healthy economy.

 

The county is home to two other incorporated towns besides the county seat of Dillon. Latta was established in 1887 as a station for the Florence Railroad. Located seven miles south of Dillon, this community established its cultural and educational leadership long before the county was formed.

 

Hofwyl Academy, built in 1853 near the present town, was widely recognized as the foremost educational facility in upper Marion. It was the forerunner of Latta’s public school system, which proved its excellence in many ways over the years. From 1997 to 1999, the SAT scores of Latta students exceeded those of the county’s other two districts by more than one hundred points. The Latta Library, built with a tax levy and a $5,000 grant from the Carnegie Foundation, became the county’s first library in 1914 and became the nucleus of the Dillon County library system.

 

Lake View, called initially Ford’s Mill, is thirteen miles east of Dillon. It began as a pond and gristmill in 1792, which makes its origin the earliest of the county’s three incorporated towns. Lake View proudly claims Page’s Mill Pond, with its moss-draped cypress trees, black waters, and carefully preserved gristmill, to be the most picturesque spot in Dillon County. The town also has a reputation for excellence in athletics, with its teams earning eight state championships in football, six in baseball, and one in basketball. In 2001, Josh Cribb of Lake View became the first South Carolina high school pitcher to go an entire season without allowing an earned run. At the end of the twentieth century, life in Dillon County was aptly characterized by its motto: “Quietly Progressive.”

 

Stokes, Durward T. The History of Dillon County, South Carolina. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1978.