Counties

With the arrival of the gin, short-staple cotton was grown extensively in Lancaster, which increased the demand of planters and farmers for slave labor. In 1800 slaves comprised only one-sixth of Lancaster’s population.

The courthouse and jail were designated as National Historic Landmarks by the U.S. Department of the Interior in 1973.

Although its students come from most states and many foreign countries, as its central mission Lander University continues to serve the South Carolina Piedmont.

Completed in 1823, Landsford Canal was twelve feet wide, ten feet deep, and two miles long. Five locks raised and lowered barges through the thirty-two-foot fall of the river.

Lane has always been a prolific writer, producing works in several different genres, including poetry, nonfiction, fiction, drama, and screenplay.

An ardent Democrat, Lathan was also an active affiliate in many professional associations, including the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the advisory board to the University of South Carolina School of Journalism.

Active on several Senate committees, Latimer supported the idea that the government was “in a practical working sense, the servant of the American people.”

Originally called Laurensville, the town became the county seat shortly after Laurens County was established in 1785.

Located in the Piedmont, Laurens is a county of forests and gently rolling hills.

When deposits of the mineral silica, important for glassmaking, were found a few miles north of Laurens, a group of local businessmen organized Laurens Glass Works in 1910.

Laurens has been frequently cited by historians as one of the few citizens in the lower South who expressed opposition to slavery in America as early as the 1770s.

After the British shifted military operations to the South, Laurens proposed that South Carolina arm slaves and grant them freedom in return for their military service.

By June 1858 Lebby’s suction pump had been used to remove some 145,000 cubic yards of material, an unprecedented dredging achievement.

During his years in Savannah, LeConte wrote several scholarly articles, and in 1846 the University of Georgia appointed him as professor of natural philosophy (chemistry and physics).

Pleased with his situation in Columbia, LeConte endeared himself to his students, took an active part in the cultural affairs of the city, and published articles on topics in geology, religion, art, and education.

Throughout its existence Lee County has been an agricultural community and sometimes is referred to as the “Garden Spot of the Carolinas.”

Lee’s ideas would eventually return home to South Carolina in the form of the fundamentalist movement that controlled the South Carolina Baptist Convention by the 1990s.

In 1907, in association with W. M. Riggs, Lee took on his first design project at Clemson, an expansion of one of the college barracks.

After relocating to Charleston, Lee began to practice law and went on to become one of the state’s most successful black lawyers.

Promoted to brigadier general, Lee was sent west to command artillery as the Confederacy attempted to stop the Federals from seizing control of the Mississippi River.