Editing York County, South Carolina (section)

====Late 19th century====
Between 1868 and 1871, York County became a hotbed of [[Ku Klux Klan]] attacks on African Americans.<ref name="Pearl">{{cite news|date=March 4, 2016|title=K Troop: The story of the eradication of the original Ku Klux Klan|first1=Matthew|last1= Pearl |work=Slate|url=http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/history/2016/03/how_a_detachment_of_u_s_army_soldiers_smoked_out_the_original_ku_klux_klan.html}}</ref> The Klan had an estimated 2,000 members in the county in 1871. Among their activities was the lynching of [[Jim Williams (militia leader)|Jim Williams]] on March 6, 1871, led by Dr. [[J. Rufus Bratton]].<ref name="Pearl"/> K Troop of the [[7th Cavalry Regiment]] was charged with suppressing them.<ref name="Pearl"/> To escape the violence, in November 1871, a large group of local blacks, led by Rev. [[Elias Hill]], a disabled anti-Klan activist beaten by Klansmen, emigrated to Liberia.<ref name="Witt2009">Witt, John Fabian. Patriots and Cosmopolitans: Hidden Histories of American Law. Harvard University Press, June 30, 2009, p85-86, 128–149</ref> York is believed by some to be the setting for [[Thomas F. Dixon, Jr.]]'s novel ''[[The Clansman: A Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan]]'', later made into the motion picture "[[The Birth of a Nation]]", and Bratton is said to have been the inspiration for one of its characters.<ref>{{cite news|title=South Carolina's First Klan: York had 'Kyklos' in 1868|first1=Pat|last1=Robertson|first2=Ellen|last2=Johnsey|date=October 31, 1965|work=[[The State (newspaper)|The State]]|url=https://dspace.ychistory.org/bitstream/handle/11030/69292/00001049.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|title=Encyclopedia of African American History, 1896 to the Present: From the Age of Segregation to the Twenty-first Century|publisher=Oxford University Press|date=2009 |first1= Paul| last1=Finkelman |isbn=978-0195167795|page=420}}</ref>

During the [[Reconstruction era]], many of York County's more prominent property owners were forced to sell portions of their land to smaller farmers. The average farm size in York County dropped considerably while the number of small farming operations increased. Late-19th-century agriculture in York County was characterized by relatively small farm operations, ignorance of soil qualities, and the benefits of [[polyculture|diversification]], eventually leading to the agricultural difficulties of the 1890s, 1920s, and 1930s.

Railroad development continued in York County after the war's end. In 1880, the Rock Hill Cotton Factory, the first [[steam-power]]ed cotton factory in South Carolina, ushered in a new era of [[agricultural expansion]] and industrial development. The Rock Hill Buggy Company, founded by John Gary Anderson, eventually grew to become the [[Anderson Motor Company]], the first automobile manufacturing facility in the South. Concurrently, Rock Hill's population increased from 809 to over 5,500 from 1880 to 1895.