in downtown Aiken The municipality of Aiken was incorporated on December 19, 1835. The community formed around the terminus of the
South Carolina Canal and Railroad Company, a rail line from Charleston to the Savannah River, and was named for
William Aiken, the railroad's first president. During
Sherman's March to the Sea in the
American Civil War Sherman ordered
Hugh Judson Kilpatrick and the
cavalry corps he commanded to march through South Carolina. By February 5, they had reached Aiken County. While in Aiken County Kilpatrick fought
Joseph Wheeler and his cavalry corps. This battle, called the
Battle of Aiken, was a Confederate victory. Originally it was in the Edgefield District. With population increases, in 1871 Aiken County was organized, made up of parts of neighboring counties. Among its founding commissioners were three African-American legislators:
Prince Rivers;
Samuel J. Lee, speaker of the
state House and the first black man admitted to the
South Carolina Bar; and
Charles D. Hayne, a
free man of color from one of Charleston's elite families. Aiken was a
planned town, and many of the streets in the historic district are named for other cities and counties in South Carolina, including Abbeville, Barnwell, Beaufort, Chesterfield, Colleton, Columbia, Dillon, Edgefield, Edisto, Fairfield, Florence, Greenville, Hampton, Horry, Jasper, Kershaw, Lancaster, Laurens, Marion, Marlboro, McCormick, Newberry, Orangeburg, Pendleton, Pickens, Richland, Sumter, Union, Williamsburg and York. Between 1890 and the 1920s, many
Jewish immigrants settled in Aiken. The Jewish immigrants were from
Eastern Europe, including
Russia and
Poland. Many were from
Knyszyn, Poland. In 1905, a group of Russian-Jewish
socialists from
New York founded a farming colony in Aiken County that was known as "
Happyville". Adath (Adas) Yeshurun (Congregation of Israel) Synagogue was chartered in Aiken in 1921 and the cornerstone was laid in 1925. A historical marker was added to the synagogue in 2014, sponsored by the Jewish Historical Society of South Carolina. In 1903, the Jewish-American peddler
Abraham Surasky was the victim of an
antisemitic murder that occurred near Aiken. Aiken was the subject of a series of broadcasts by
Orson Welles in July and August 1946 regarding the blinding and severe beating of Sergeant
Isaac Woodard, a black
World War II veteran.
Savannah River Plant The
United States Atomic Energy Commission's selection of a site near Aiken for a plant to produce fuel for thermonuclear weapons was announced on November 30, 1950. Residences and businesses at
Ellenton, South Carolina, were bought for use for the plant site. Residents were moved to
New Ellenton, which was constructed about eight miles north, or to neighboring towns. The site was named the Savannah River Plant, and renamed the
Savannah River Site in 1989. The facility contains five production reactors, fuel fabrication facilities, a research laboratory, heavy water production facilities, two fuel reprocessing facilities, and tritium recovery facilities. ==Geography and climate==