AIKEN

city, seat of Aiken county, western South Carolina, U.S. Aiken lies 16 miles (26 km) northeast of Augusta, Georgia. It was chartered in 1835 and named for the railroad entrepreneur William Aiken. The city was originally a health resort. During the American Civil War the Confederate forces of General Joseph Wheeler defeated General Hugh J. Kilpatrick's Union troops in the town's main street. By the beginning of the 20th century, Aiken was a winter colony for the wealthy and was noted for equestrian sports, especially polo. It experienced a boom after 1950 with the building of the Savannah River Atomic Plant in an area now called the Savannah River Site, 12 miles (19 km) south. Although the five nuclear reactors on the site (which were used to produce materials for nuclear weapons) have been permanently shut down, tritium is still being recycled there. The city is a focus of regional industrialization (textiles, glass fibre, paper tissue products, solenoid valves, and kaolin mining). A campus of the University of South Carolina was established there in 1961. Also situated in the city is Aiken Technical College (1972). Hopeland Gardens, a public garden on a former estate, is a local attraction; it includes the Thoroughbred Racing Hall of Fame. The annual Aiken's Triple Crown includes harness racing, trials, and steeplechase. Pop. (1990) 20,386; (1998 est.) 22,861. county, western South Carolina, U.S. It lies in the state's sandhill region between the North Fork Edisto River to the northeast and the Savannah River border with Georgia to the southwest. The county is also drained by the South Fork Edisto. Aiken and Redcliffe Plantation state parks are within its boundaries. The area was inhabited by Algonquian-speaking Savannah Indians in the late 18th century. During the U.S. War of Independence colonial patriots defeated Tories during a battle in Dean's Swamp. The area's growth began with the establishment of the first cotton mill in the southern United States, at Graniteville in 1845. In 1848 Hamburg (near present-day North Augusta), across the Savannah River from Augusta, Georgia, was a centre of the slave trade, which was banned in Georgia. Aiken county was established in 1871 and named for the politician and railroad executive William Aiken. Race riots in Hamburg and Ellenton in 1876 led to Aiken county's becoming a centre for the political white supremacy movement during and after the Reconstruction era. The U.S. Department of Energy's Savannah River Site, once a leading producer of nuclear weapons materials and now operating in a much-diminished capacity as a weapons materials processor, occupies much of the southeastern portion of the county. To make room for the plant, homes and other buildings were moved to new locations, including the entire town of Ellenton, now called New Ellenton. Livestock raising (notably racehorses) and the growing of soybeans, grains, and peaches are major factors in the economy, as are the mining of kaolin and other minerals. Chief manufactures include chemicals and paper, textile, and glass products. The city of Aiken is the county seat. Area 1,073 square miles (2,779 square km). Pop. (1990) 120,991; (1998 est.) 134,051.