Editing Rock Hill, South Carolina (section)

===Founding===
Although some European settlers had already arrived in the Rock Hill area in the 1830s and 1840s, Rock Hill did not become an actual town until the [[Charlotte and South Carolina Railroad]] Company made the decision to send a rail line through the area. Originally, the railroad had hoped to build a station in the nearby village of [[Ebenezer, South Carolina|Ebenezerville]] which was squarely between [[Charlotte, North Carolina]] and [[Columbia, South Carolina]]. When approached, however, the locals in Ebenezerville refused to have the railroad run through their village since they considered it dirty and noisy. Instead, engineers and surveyors decided to run the line two miles away by a local landmark. According to some, the engineers marked the spot on the map and named it "rocky hill."<ref name=Willoughby>{{cite book|last=Willoughby|first=Lynn|title=The "Good Town" Does Well: Rock Hill, S.C., 1852–2002|year=2002|publisher=Written in Stone|location=Orangeburg, South Carolina|isbn=0-9669707-2-1}}</ref>{{RP|page=26}}

Some of Rock Hill's early founding families—the White family, the Black family, and the Moores—believed that having a rail depot so close to them would be advantageous, so they decided to give the Columbia and Charlotte Railroad the right of way through their properties. As they were the three largest landowners in the area, this settled the matter. [[White House (Rock Hill, South Carolina)#Past Residents|George Pendleton White]] contracted with the railroad to build a section of the line. Construction began in 1848. The first passenger train arrived on March 23, 1852. A few weeks later, on April 17, 1852, the first Rock Hill Post Office opened.<ref name=Willoughby />{{RP|pages=26–28}}

Now that Rock Hill had a name, a railroad station, and a post office, it began to draw more settlers to the area. Captain J. H. McGinnis built a small general store near the station in 1849 or 1850 to provide supplies for the construction and railroad workers.<ref name=Willoughby />{{RP|pages=27–28}} Templeton Black, who had leased the land to McGinnis, decided to devote some of his other adjacent land to building a larger town. He hired a local surveyor, Squire John Roddey, to organize a main street. Black sold his first plot of land along that street to Ira Ferguson for $125 a few weeks before the post office opened; other businessmen bought plots quickly after that.<ref name=Willoughby />{{RP|page=28}}

Rock Hill Academy, the first school in Rock Hill, opened in September 1854. Despite its official name, most residents referred to it as the Pine Grove Academy after the pine grove it was located in. [[White House (Rock Hill, South Carolina)#Past Residents|Ann Hutchinson White]], wife of George White, donated the land to the school after her husband's death. The school had 60 male pupils in 1856; a school for girls was later opened in the same place.<ref name=Willoughby />{{RP|page=28}}

Prior to 1857, the ''Indian Land Chronicle'' was Rock Hill's first newspaper. It was renamed ''The Rock Hill Chronicle'' in 1860.<ref name=Willoughby />{{RP|page=33}} Prior to 1860, Rock Hill had at least two doctors.<ref name=Willoughby />{{RP|page=33}}