Graniteville, SC

Graniteville is an Aiken County community built around one of the South’s earliest large cotton mills. William Gregg started the Graniteville Mill in 1845, then laid out a mill village with worker housing, stores, churches, and a school. The town took its name from the blue granite used in its buildings, and the Blue Row houses still mark that company-town layout. The Graniteville Historic District preserves the original mill, canal, housing, and church. Graniteville is the Horse Creek Valley in one glance: waterpower, textile work, and a town planned around the mill.