Following the war, area farmers moved away from cattle switched to growing corn, oats, indigo, and cotton. In 1837, the county's first textile mill, Richmond Manufacturing Company, was built. A growth in cotton production, concentrated in the western portion of the county, led the enslaved population to increase to the point where they made up half of local residents. Around 1850 the largely unused Sandhills region in the eastern section of the county began to be exploited by the naval stores industry, particularly for the harvest of turpentine from longleaf pines. Railway service was introduced in Richmond in 1861.
