"G" is for Greenville County [790 square miles; population 379,616]. Greenville County was created in 1786 out of former Cherokee lands. In 1788 the county, unlike most of the backcountry, supported ratification of the federal constitution. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, dozens of textile factories sprang up in Greenville County. By the early 1900s the Southern Railway and the Atlantic Coast Line linked the area's economy with the nation. World War II brought boom times to textiles and a number of new industries. In the 1960s, led by construction magnate Charles E. Daniel, Greenville began to diversify its economy--and soon became home to a number of foreign-based corporations. By the 21st century, as the most populous county in the State, Greenville had become a state leader politically as well as economically.
Dr. Walter Edgar has two programs on South Carolina Public Radio: Walter Edgar's Journal, and South Carolina from A to Z. Dr. Edgar received his B.A. degree from Davidson College in 1965 and his Ph.D. from the University of South Carolina in 1969. After two years in the army (including a tour of duty in Vietnam), he returned to USC as a post-doctoral fellow of the National Archives, assigned to the Papers of Henry Laurens.