Allendale County, South Carolina: History
Allendale County was formed in 1919 from southwestern portions of Barnwell County, along the Savannah River, and part of Hampton County, just to its south. It is the location of the Topper Site, an archeological excavation providing possible evidence of a pre-Clovis culture dating back 50,000 years. The site is near a source of chert on private land in Martin owned by Clariant Corporation, a Swiss chemical company with a plant there. The site, named after David Topper, has been under excavation by archeologists from the University of South Carolina for about one month a year since 1999, after an initial exploratory dig in the mid-1980s.
Allendale County was born out of a desire for convenience. Having a new county circumvented the need to travel to the courthouse in Barnwell or Hampton. The original Allendale County Courthouse burned down in May 1998, with reconstruction begun in August 2002. During the Civil Rights movement, the Courthouse almost became a site for a sit-in protest after African-American citizens charged officials with deliberately delaying the voter registration of Black residents.