This picture is not the propery of Fort Mill Rescue

The Community of Fort Mill

The town of Fort Mill combines a historic sense of home with a growing sophistication.

The Catawba Indians made their homes here for many years. In the mid-1700s, Thomas Spratt and his wife, Elizabeth, were traveling through upper South Carolina in their wagon. They spent a night among the friendly Catawba Indians. The Catawbas invited the Spratts to live in the area, offering them a large tract of land on which to settle. They became the first white settlers in the Fort Mill area, and their descendants still live here.

Both settlers and the Catawbas used the ancient Nation Ford Road, which dates to at least 1650, to travel and trade from Pennsylvania to Charles Towne (now Charleston, SC). The trail passed through the Catawba Nation's five villages and crossed the Catawba River where the railroad trestle now stands.

Scotch-Irish settlers began arriving in the 1750s and 1760s, and a small settlement soon developed. Fort Mill grew rapidly in the 1800s as textile mills were established.

The town gets its name from a colonial-era fort started but never finished by the British, and a grist mill on nearby Steele Creek.

Even though that mill has long since been reduced to a few foundation stones, Fort Mill has a wealth of historic and interesting places to visit. It also has a unique perspective on neighborliness that survives to this day. The original fort, for example, was intended to protect the Indians.

Fort Mill has grown into a thriving municipality, filled with small-town charms while being just 20 minutes south of Charlotte and eight miles north of Rock Hill.

The town is the heart of a larger area known as the Fort Mill Township. The township is a section of York County that runs north to the state line, east to the Lancaster County line, and southwest to the Catawba River and Rock Hill. Fort Mill Township is the fastest growing part of York County.

The area is easily accessible from the north or south by both I-77 and Hwy. 21, and from the east and west by Hwy. 160. With a rich heritage, excellent schools, a 2,300 acre greenway, comprehensive recreational complex, historic downtown district, and the headquarters of Springs Industries, Fort Mill has an identity unlike any other southern town. It's no wonder the population is expected to double within 20 years. Approximately 11,000 people live inside the Town's corporate limits with a total of nearly 40,000 people residing within the entire Township.