McColl, South Carolina, is one of those tiny Southern towns that has a history of being something at their founding. Situated just about eight miles from the North Carolina border, in 1874, McColl had been lucky enough to be the spot chosen for a depot to be built on a new railway line running from Fayetteville to the Marlboro County seat of Bennettsville. It became the northern SC hub for commerce, as shops and businesses clustered around the railroad. Additionally, local farmers now had a much easier and faster way to get their produce to ships out of the port at Wilmington, N.C.
Glorious mansions still to be seen testify to the wealth that the cotton fields and easy access to markets around McColl created.
That transportation link helped assure McColl of first dibs as America began to industrialize.
The Pee Dee country town suffered the ebbs and flows of…
