Richard Pearce

April 9, 1975   L. C. “Chick” Thomas is the personnel director of Graniteville Company. He’s a relaxed thoughtful man who has worked with the Company since the early 1930’s. His office is located at the corner of the town’s main intersection in a large white porticoed building that was erected in 1906 as a memorial to the Company’s second president H. H. Hickman, a former treasurer under William Gregg who presided over the Company and its town for almost 30 years following Gregg’s death. Hickman Hall, as it was named, was constructed in the strict neoclassical proportions of a 19th century Greek Revival temple and was originally intended to be, in fact for many years was, a gymnasium and library for the people of Graniteville. In time, however, business expansion dictated that the building be converted into additional office space for the Company, and a new civic center was built on the outskirts of Graniteville during the early 1950’s. Today Hickman Hall houses Graniteville Company’s medical clinic, Paymaster, real estate office and personnel department.

On a high sandy hill of long-leaf pine and scrub oak marking the rim of South Carolina’s Appalachian piedmont as it begins its descent into the tidewater delta, there stands in the middle of a small clearing a 14 foot white marble shaft dedicated to the memory of William Gregg, 1800-1867. The monument was unveiled on June 14, 1926 on this spot in honor of one of America’s earliest guerilla fighters for industrial capitalism in the heart of the Ante-Bellum South. Three hundred feet below and less than a mile down the winding road from Kalmia Hill, so named for the mountain laurel that once covered its slopes, lies the town of Graniteville, William Gregg’s single-handed industrial revolution to which he gave his life. Photograph courtesy of Mr. Fraser Sofge, assistant treasurer and photographer for the Company 1935-1956. Graniteville lies tucked within a tiny deep-cut valley carved by Horse Creek as it makes its way south over twelve miles of watershed to Augusta and the Savannah River. Graniteville is a milltown, with a large two-story