History
Though Florence was part of one of the original townships laid out by the Lords Proprieters in 1719, it was slowly and thinly settled until the coming of the railroads. Prior to then, the Pee Dee River was the route of most commerce. Early settlers practiced subsistence farming and produced indigo, cotton, naval stores and timber, which were shipped downriver to the port at Georgetown and exported.
In the mid-19th century two intersecting railroads were built, The Wilmington and Manchester, and the Northeastern. Gen. W. W. Harllee, the president of the W & M road built his home at the junction, and named the community Florence, after his daughter.
During the Civil War the town was an important supply and railroad repair center for the Confederacy, and the site of the Florence Stockade, a prison for Union prisoners of war. Many of the prisoners died during the latter years of the war, and the burial ground adjacent to the stockade was to become the Florence National Cemetery, which continues to be a national burial ground for veterans of all wars since.
The Civil War also brought to prominence Henry Timrod, nicknamed The Poet Laureate of the Confederacy, who taught at a schoolhouse on the Cannon Plantation nearby.
After the war, Florence grew and prospered, using the railroad to supply its cotton, timber, and by the turn of the century, tobacco.
During the 20th century Florence grew into a major medical center, of far greater importance than its size. Industry grew, especially after World War II, when Florence became increasingly known for textiles, pharmaceuticals, paper, manufacturing and in addition to agricultural products, which makes it the hub for business in the northeastern portion of South Carolina.
On March 11, 1958, an H-bomb was accidentally dropped on a small community, Mars Bluff, outside the city. Although the 200 pounds of TNT detonated causing some damage, the nuclear portion remained intact.
Read more about this topic: Florence, South Carolina
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“A poet’s object is not to tell what actually happened but what could or would happen either probably or inevitably.... For this reason poetry is something more scientific and serious than history, because poetry tends to give general truths while history gives particular facts.”
—Aristotle (384–323 B.C.)
“Every member of the family of the future will be a producer of some kind and in some degree. The only one who will have the right of exemption will be the mother ...”
—Ruth C. D. Havens, U.S. suffragist. As quoted in History of Woman Suffrage, vol. 4, ch. 13, by Susan B. Anthony and Ida Husted Harper (1902)
“History is more or less bunk. It’s tradition. We don’t want tradition. We want to live in the present and the only history that is worth a tinker’s damn is the history we make today.”
—Henry Ford (1863–1947)