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Welcome to our Richland County,
South Carolina site, where we will try to post as much data online as
possible in order to make it freely available to all. We gratefully accept
contributions of raw data such as census information, marriage/birth/death
records, obituaries, county histories, biographies, old newspaper items -
anything that would help someone build their family tree!!
Many
thanks to Dean Long for his contributions as host to this site. Until we
get a new volunteer host, please send any data contributions to our State
host, Dena and she'll make sure they get put online.
We regret that we
are unable to do personal research
Updated
Dec. 8, 2009 -
Biographies |
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Richland County was created in 1785
when the decision to move the state capitol from Charleston to a more
central location was made. The site chosen for the city of Columbia, the
state capital and county seat, was one the the plantations of Col. Thomas
Taylor, Richland. The new capitol city was located near the Congaree
River, which is formed from the confluence of the Saluda and Broad Rivers.
With the addition of the Columbia Canal between 1819 and 1824 made the
city more accessible. The city flourished and with the founding of South
Carolina College, now the University of South Carolina, in 1801, the city
became the largest inland city by 1860, population 8,000. Richland County
was now a central player in the economy of South Carolina and had become a
regional hub of commerce. The railroad followed in 1842, prompting further
growth and development.
The city of Columbia, named for
Christopher Columbus, was laid out in a grid pattern of 400 square blocks.
Houses had to be a minimum of 18 feet wide and 30 feet long. The two
through streets and the perimeter streets were laid out at 150 feet wide
as the belief of the time was that a mosquito couldn't fly more than 60
feet without dying of starvation. Most of those streets, although some of
the names have changed, are still intact. Her streets are named after
politicians, war heroes, and their Colonial contemporaries. The names
Sumter, Marion, Gervais, Laurens, Gregg, Pickens, Greene, to name a few
are all important names in South Carolina and United States
history.
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