"L" is for Lancaster, the county seat of Lancaster County [population 8,177]. The town of Lancaster was incorporated in 1830 and Robert Mills designed the Court House and Jail. Most Lancaster residents were Unionists in the decades prior to the Civil War, but supported secession in 1860. In 1896 Leroy Springs opened the Lancaster Cotton Mill, the first of many cotton factories to be built in the area. Over the next few decades, textiles replaced cotton farming as the mainstay of the local economy. Between 1940 and 1970 the town's population more than doubled. In 1959, a branch of the University of South Carolina opened. With the decline in textiles, the town suffered a decline in population between 1990 and 2000. Lancaster residents found employment in new industries such as Duracell batteries or commuted to jobs in nearby Charlotte.
"L" is for Lancaster
