thumb|A drone view of Jefferson
Jefferson is a town in western Chesterfield County, South Carolina, United States at the junction of SC routes 265 and 151. Jefferson is located in the Piedmont region of South Carolina just in the edge meeting the Sandhills region. Jefferson is located 16 miles northwest of McBee, 8 miles south of Pageland, 50 miles southeast of Charlotte, North Carolina, and 70 miles north-northeast of the state capitol Columbia.
As of the 2020 census, Jefferson had a population of 772.
History
Jefferson was incorporated in 1904.
The area known today as the Town of Jefferson was founded in the late 1700’s to early 1800’s by the Miller Family on their farm land, and was named Millers store or Millersville on 1800’s maps. The town was first incorporated in 1901 then 1904. The first Intendent/ Mayor was Lewis E. Gardner. ( Great grandfather of current Mayor James M Miller in 2025) Lewis Gardner was married to the Susan Alice Miller the granddaughter of the founder Michael Miller. You can find many Millers buried at the Miller-Lowry family cemetery on main street.
On April 14, 2020, a local turkey farm reported a case of Influenza A virus subtype H7N3 which resulted in the euthaniztion of 32,000 turkeys.
Geography and climate
According to the United States Census Bureau, the town has a total area of , of which is land and 0.56% is water.
Neighboring towns
- Pageland, South Carolina – North
- Waxhaw, North Carolina - Northwest
- Mount Croghan, South Carolina – Northeast
- Chesterfield, South Carolina – East
- McBee, South Carolina – Southeast
- Bethune, South Carolina – South
- Kershaw, South Carolina - Southwest
- Lancaster, South Carolina – West
Brewer Gold Mine
The Brewer Gold Mine is an abandoned mine located on the western border of Chesterfield County, about 1.5 miles due west of the town of Jefferson, South Carolina. Brewer Gold Company owns approximately 1,000 acres of land along a small north-south ridgeline that divides Little Fork Creek and the Lynches River. About one-quarter of the 1,000 acres has been disturbed by mining operations. Brewer Gold Mine was one of the oldest and most productive gold mines in the eastern United States.
Activities at Brewer are rumored to date to the 16th century involving Indian trade with the Spaniards. Before the Revolutionary War, the area was mined for iron. The first documented discovery of gold took place by Burrell Brewer in 1828. Brewer Gold Company, a subsidiary owned by the British Costain Limited Group (Costain), secured ownership of the mine in 1986, with the first gold production occurring in August 1987. Ore was mined using conventional open pit methods until January 1995. Rock was first fractured using drilling and blasting, and then loaded into trucks. Waste rock was used as fill for facility construction or hauled to a disposal area to the south of the Brewer Pit. Ore was hauled to the crushing area where processing for the cyanide heap-leach method began. The crushed ore was then placed on pads and a dilute cyanide solution was sprayed over the heaps and allowed to percolate through the ore, thereby dissolving the gold into solution.
Demographics
2020 census
{| class="wikitable"
|+Jefferson racial composition
!Race
!Num.
!Perc.
|-
|White (non-Hispanic)
|477
|61.79%
|-
|Black or African American (non-Hispanic)
|245
|31.74%
|-
|Native American
|2
|0.26%
|-
|Asian
|13
|1.68%
|-
|Other/Mixed
|23
|2.98%
|-
|Hispanic or Latino
|12
|1.55%
|}
As of the 2020 United States census, there were 772 people, 350 households, and 248 families residing in the town.
2000 census
As of the census
Education
Public education in Pageland is administered by Chesterfield County School District. The district operates Jefferson Elementary School, New Heights Middle School, and Central High School. Northeastern Technical College offers higher education.
Jefferson has a public library, a branch of the Chesterfield County Library System.
Infrastructure
Medical
Sandhills Medical Foundation is a community health center serving residents of Chesterfield, Kershaw, Lancaster and Sumter counties. It was founded in 1977.
References
External links
- The official Facebook page for the Town of Jefferson