Horse Creek Valley

Located in northern Mississippi, the Chickasaw relied on South Carolina as a source of guns, and agreed to send a colony under the so-called Squirrel King.

The rapid expansion of cotton farming led to commercial growth, first in Augusta on the Georgia side of the Savannah River, then at a South Carolina competitor founded in 1821 by Henry Shultz under the name of Hamburg.

At the end of a growing season, farmers wagoned their bales of cotton overland to either of these towns, for sale into warehouses or onto boats for transport to Savannah or Charleston, and eventually textile mills in the northeastern U.S. and Europe.

In order to divert traffic going by river to the more accessible port at Savannah, the South Carolina Rail Road was completed from Hamburg to Charleston in 1833.

At 136 miles (219 km) in length, this was at the time the longest railroad in the world, and ran on published regular schedules with the exclusive use of steam power (Brown 1871 and Fetters 2008).

(US Department of the Interior 1885: 132-133) An 1883 South Carolina survey noted 1807 horsepower previously developed, and a capacity for perhaps one-third more (SC State Board of Agriculture 1883: 206).

In 1860, the Benjamin Franklin Landrum pottery works reportedly manufactured 40,000 gallons capacity of stoneware annually, with three employees and a 1 HP water turbine.

The Whitney Polo Field, established in 1882, and the Palmetto Golf Course, begun in 1892, characterize the vacation pursuits, and the horse culture still thrives in Aiken.

Pat Conroy's essay, Horses Don’t Eat Moon Pies, explored the juxtaposition of wealthy equestrians and the blue collar mill culture of the valley.

In 1903 the Hampton Terrace Hotel opened in North Augusta, South Carolina, near the lower end of the valley, connected to Aiken by means of the Augusta-Aiken Railway.

On 22 September 2011, a one-hour movie by Storyline Media titled Horse Creek Valley... A Tale Worth the Telling premiered on SCETV’s Southern Lens.