Editor’s note: This is part of a continuing series of columns, stories and photos by Greenville County Historical Society examining the history of Greenville and the Upstate.
In a single generation, Greenville changed from a small courthouse town surrounded by struggling farms into one of the busiest textile centers in the South. At its height, people called Greenville County the Textile Capital of the World. The insurgence of the textile industry was the largest transformational moment in the county’s economic history. But why did it happen here?
It was not destiny. Greenville had water power and cotton nearby, but so did many other towns that never became textile powers. Greenville’s advantages were more practical than romantic. The timing was right. Railroads brought in cotton and took out cloth. Capital was raised. Labor was cheap. And a few local men kept pushing after the first mills struggled…