[1] The first European settlers in the area were Scottish Highlanders, who traveled up the Cape Fear River valley to find farmland.

English settlers initially arrived in the northwestern section of the eventual county after traveling down the Pee Dee River and gradually became the dominant European-descent group in the area.

[3] Following the war, area farmers moved away from cattle switched to growing corn, oats, indigo, and cotton.

A growth in cotton production, concentrated in the western portion of the county, led the enslaved population to increase to the point where they made up half of local residents.

[3] Around 1850 the largely unused Sandhills region in the eastern section of the county began to be exploited by the naval stores industry, particularly for the harvest of turpentine from longleaf pines.

[5] During the American Civil War, Richmond County had troops serve in various units of the Confederate States Army, including the Pee Dee Guards, Scotch Boys, and the Harrington Light Artillery.

The railway created numerous jobs and, in conjunction with the establishment of Blewett Falls Dam and its hydroelectric power, facilitated the expansion of the textile industry.

[15] By the end of World War II, Richmond County hosted ten textile mills which employed as many as 15,000 people.

[16] Through the 1940s, most of the independent mills were acquired by larger outside corporations and many began producing non-cotton fabrics, facilitating a local decline in cotton production.

[17] Seaboard established an $11 million classification yard, the first one in the Southeastern United States, about one mile north of Hamlet in 1954.

[9] Hamlet's economic situation came under strain beginning in the 1960s, as the railroad faced increasing competition from growing road networks, trucking, and air travel.

[20] Foreign competition and increasing automation led the county textile industry to cut jobs, and by the 1970s mills in Richmond only retained about 5,000 workers.

[21] In 1986, the county's single largest manufacturing employer, Clark Equipment Company, closed its plant in Rockingham.

[9] The traditional railroad and manufacturing jobs were supplanted by menial service positions and work in food processing plants,[22] while local small businesses were displaced by national retail chains.

[24] In November 1989, Chem-Nuclear Systems, the contractor in charge of constructing the disposal facility, announced a prospective Richmond County site for the nuclear waste.

[25] The group attracted wide grassroots support across Richmond, including significant backing from both white and black communities and both of the county's major municipalities, Hamlet and Rockingham.

[26] FORRCE conducted an opposition petition drive and obtained 26,756 signatures, over 60 percent of the county's total population.

[25] Under significant political pressure, local officials denounced the site,[27] and 1,200 residents traveled to Raleigh to deliver the FORRCE petition to the governor.

[28] In 1993, a state panel voted to move the site to Wake County, but listed the Richmond location as its second choice.

Many exits at the plant were locked in violation of fire codes, and 24 workers and one visiting delivery driver died in the conflagration.

[30] State authorities imposed a record fine upon the company for the violations and the incident brought negative national attention to the town.

[43][44] Significant amounts of longleaf pine forest are preserved in the Sandhills Game Land, over half of which is in Richmond County.

[42] The Pee Dee National Wildlife Refuge, which covers part of the county and includes grassland and swamps, hosts numerous migratory waterfowl and white-tailed deer.

[66] Law enforcement is provided across the county by the sheriff's office, while the cities of Hamlet and Rockingham retain their own police departments.

He held wide influence in determining who served in local government and represented the county in the North Carolina General Assembly.

[69] In 2022 Republicans won a majority of local elections in the county and gained control of all of the seats on the board of commissioners.

[91] According to the 2021 American Community Survey, an estimated 17.5 percent of county residents have attained a bachelor's degree or higher level of education.

[94][95] The Raiders, the football team of Richmond Senior High School, has long been popular among county residents.