The first European settlers came to York in the early 1750s, having migrated south from Pennsylvania and Virginia.

The county names of Lancashire, Cheshire and Yorkshire had been brought from England to Pennsylvania, and then on to South Carolina by the early settlers.

The town of York was originally known as Fergus's Crossroads for a tavern, owned by two brothers, William and John Fergus, that was located at the intersection of the road from Rutherfordton to Camden and the road from Charlottesburg (Charlotte) to Augusta.

W. I. Clawson was the first mayor, and Stanhope Sadler, F. M. Galbraith, T. H. Simril and B. T. Wheeler were wardens.

Over the next two decades, before the outbreak of the American Civil War, Yorkville's population swelled to 2,000.

In 1853, Lewis Grist bought his father's newspaper and changed the name to the Yorkville Enquirer, which was published weekly until 2006, when it was merged with the Clover Herald to form the Enquirer-Herald, a weekly newspaper covering western York County.

The next year, Micah Jenkins and Asbury Coward, young Citadel graduates, established the King's Mountain Military Academy.

It was closed during the Civil War, during which Jenkins was killed, but Coward returned to Yorkville and reopened the school.

The original buildings no longer stand, but it became the site of the Episcopal Church Home for Children, an orphanage located for many years in York, which is today a treatment center for emotionally disturbed children named York Place.

A gallery originally lined three sides of the sanctuary, part of it remains as a rear balcony, and the chancel originally featured a single uplifted pulpit that was converted in 1949 to a divided chancel and choir loft.

Most county court functions are conducted now at the Moss Justice Center, on the eastern edge of town.

[10] As of the 2020 United States census, there were 8,503 people, 3,376 households, and 2,177 families residing in the city.