Horse Creek Valley

To the left are all of the places listed in Aiken County gen web archives. I will be updating this list as information and time allows. If you would like to contribute to this page please contact me. I welcome your assistance.

Use the Aiken County Government Index to locate county offices, libraries, and other departments to help with your research.

Click here to read about the award winning documentary film of the area

"The Valley", as it is called by those who live here, is a string of mostly unincorporated mill towns that sprung up in the mid 1800's. The people who settled in these little villages were those looking for prosperity and a means to feed their children that wasn't reliant on farm life. The long days and steady work for low wages was a means to an end for most. By the late 1880's mill owners felt mill workers were becoming too demanding and mill workers felt mill owners were too greedy. What had always been a social class struggle developed into an even larger struggle for power. The mill strikes of 1886 in Augusta, Georgia stretched its fingers across the Savannah River to the area mills of Aiken County. Rumors and threats of unionization became aggressive and violent encounters. The owners of the mills knew they could hold out longer than the workers in this fight for power. Mill owners shut down the mills, hired armed guards to keep people off the property, and some even went so far as to stop providing credit at the company stores. Mill owners knew when food ran short tempers would run short. When families had no buying power, the workers would drop their ideas about unionizing and would return to work. Just as predicted, that is exactly what happened. Newspapers of the time are filled accounts of the events and the people most affected.