"F" is for Fairfield County

"F" is for Fairfield County (687 square miles; 2010 population 23,838). Fairfield County, lying in the lower Piedmont, is a geologically diverse region with topography ranging from level plains to hilly terrain. The county lies primarily between the Broad and Wateree Rivers north of Richland County. Originally part of the 1769 court district of Camden, the area became Fairfield District in 1800 and then Fairfield County in 1868. Mississippian mound builders were active in the region from 1300 to 1400 C.E. The first European settlers arrived in the 1740s. Following the Revolution, Fairfield became a major producer of short-staple cotton. Well into the twentieth century, agriculture was a mainstay of the county’s economy. In the mid-1990s Parr Shoals on the Broad River in Fairfield County was the first nuclear facility in the southeastern United States.