MCCORMICK COUNTY, SOUTH CAROLINA · HISTORY
The History of McCormick, South Carolina
From a hunting-dog gold strike to a reaper fortune to a courthouse square — the story behind the name.
How did McCormick, SC get its name?
The town is named for Cyrus McCormick, the Virginia-born inventor of the mechanical reaper, whose machine had already made him one of the wealthiest industrialists in the country by the time he ever set foot here. In 1871, he bought a struggling gold-mining operation on this site for $20,000 and had the surrounding land surveyed into forty acres of squares — laying out the streets, lots, and public square that still define downtown McCormick today. He put his name on the town he'd platted, and it stuck.
What is the Dorn Gold Mine?
Gold came first. In 1857, a local man named William Dorn — remembered in county lore as "Fool Billy" for reasons no one fully agrees on — found gold on this ground, with local legend crediting his hunting dogs for scratching up the first traces. The Dorn Gold Mines drew prospectors to the area for over a decade before Cyrus McCormick bought the operation and turned the mining camp into a planned town. The county still marks that history every year with the Gold Rush Festival, drawing visitors for gold panning, quilting, pottery, and dancing.
When did McCormick become a town, and when did it become a county seat?
McCormick incorporated as a town in 1882, eleven years after Cyrus McCormick platted it. It remained part of Edgefield County until 1916, when the South Carolina legislature carved McCormick County out of pieces of Edgefield, Abbeville, and Greenwood counties — and made the town of McCormick its seat. That's still the arrangement today: McCormick is both a town and the government center for the county that shares its name.
What is the French Huguenot history of McCormick County?
McCormick's history didn't start with gold, either. A full century earlier, in the 1760s, a group of French Huguenot refugees settled a community called New Bordeaux along the Little River, part of a wave of European Protestant settlement in the South Carolina backcountry. The Guillebeau House, built by one of those Huguenot families, still stands today at Hickory Knob State Resort Park — one of the oldest structures in this part of the state, and a direct link to the county's pre-gold-rush roots.
What are the key dates in McCormick's history?
French Huguenots settle New Bordeaux along the Little River.
William "Fool Billy" Dorn discovers gold; the Dorn Gold Mines open.
Cyrus McCormick buys the mines for $20,000 and plats a 40-acre town.
McCormick incorporates as a town.
McCormick County forms from Edgefield, Abbeville, and Greenwood counties; McCormick becomes the county seat.
The annual Gold Rush Festival keeps the town's origin story alive.
What is McCormick, SC like today?
The gold is long gone, but the grid Cyrus McCormick surveyed in 1871 is still the town's downtown. What's grown up around it since is a lakefront retirement community, a state resort park, and a small county seat that punches well above its size for outdoor recreation.
See what living here looks like → or explore Lake Thurmond →