Hamburg, Aiken County, South Carolina
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Hamburg, South Carolina was founded in 1821 by Henry Shultz as a direct commercial competitor to Augusta, Georgia. In fact Shultz, harmed by business dealings in Augusta, openly looked to damage Augusta with his new town. Hamburg enjoyed a thriving cotton trade for a time, collecting the produce of much of the western half of South Carolina during a time of general economic prosperity. However, with time Hamburg's position at the head of navigation on the Savannah River came to hold little advantage. The spread of railroads in the 1850s placed railroad depots within easy reach, and the long overland carry to Hamburg's river connection became unnecessary.
Despite its hardy and enterprising reputation, Hamburg quickly deflated once its commercial underpinnings were removed, and became a ghost town by the time of the Civil War. However, it gained a second life after the war as a haven for freedmen, and became the center of a social experiment as former slaves created a free government to succeed or fail on its own terms. This government was crushed in the bloody 1876 Hamburg Massacre (or Riot), a key event in South Carolina Reconstruction, after which time Hamburg deteriorated to become an industrial slum.
With the 1915 construction of a protective levee by its rival across the river, continued habitation in Hamburg became pointless. The town was finally swept away for good in the massive double flood of 1929, and the last refugees were relocated to the nearby bluffs at today's Shultz Hill, South Carolina and Carpentersville, South Carolina. There are no visible remains of the original Town of Hamburg. Under the protection of the Strom Thurmond dam, adjacent North Augusta has begun to grow back over the site.