Forbes called him an iconoclast, a person who attacks settled beliefs or institutions. Without having set foot in a textile mill, Bettis Rainsford began a 17-year career as a textile tycoon, starting a Fortune 500 company out of the need to save one particular textile mill in Edgefield, S.C.

He has countered any belief that you need to be a golfer in order to create a professional-caliber golf course.

For rural and mostly undeveloped Edgefield County?

"Most of us around here would have never believed that we would be selling lots for $200,000 in Edgefield County at the golf course. His vision was out there, and it panned out to come true," Edgefield Mayor Ken Durham said of Mount Vintage Plantation on Sweetwater Road.

As a student at Harvard in the early 1970s, Mr. Rainsford challenged the rampant counterculture, the following of the throngs involved in the Vietnam War protests

"Protested the protesters," Mr. Rainsford said. "It was shocking to me. I supposed I was shocking to some of those folks."

At one point, he blared German military marches at his fellow students.

While at law school in Columbia, Mr. Rainsford decided not to become a lawyer, but turned his interest into becoming a businessman. Before obtaining his law degree at the University of South Carolina, he took a year off to run the congressional election campaign of a Edgefield lawyer.

His only run for political office was for Edgefield mayor in 1981 as a 30-year-old who had impressive academic credentials but had only dabbled in real estate and started a nursing home. It was that failure at the ballot box that gave him the time to form his first important business partnership.

A textile executive from Greenville, S.C., Erwin Maddrey, joined Mr. Rainsford. Together, they went against the grain and created a textile company, Delta Woodside, that at its height had annual revenues of $700 million.

The iconoclast had become an icon.

Along the way, be bought and sold exercise equipment company Nautilus, bought and sold newspapers in Edgefield, and bought - but has not yet sold - his way into downtown Augusta high-rise buildings.

He was able to get out of the textile industry in 1999 before it collapsed. South Carolina's textile workers number about 30,000 now, he said, but they were once 135,000.

Since his exit from the corporate world, Mr. Rainsford has become more Edgefield-centric. Mount Vintage Plantation, a combination golf course, equestrian farm and 500-lot housing development, is now 7 years old. He spends his Sundays teaching local history at the Edgefield library.

Mr. Durham said Mr. Rainsford has dedicated his life to preserving the past and ensuring the future of Edgefield.

Though the local hospital no longer had an obstetrics area, Mr. Rainsford arranged for both of his children to be born there.

"I felt my children deserved to be born in Edgefield," he said, so he got the Augusta obstetrician to drive up in 1987 for his son, Bettis Jr. and in 1988 for his daughter, Mary.

"He loves the county. His family has been there since the 1700s," said Butler Derrick Jr., a former congressman from South Carolina who is now a partner in a Washington, D.C., law firm. He also is the godfather of Bettis Jr.

Fellow historian and Augusta business partner Bryan Haltermann said Mr. Rainsford is a detail guy who can also see the big picture.

"He's larger than life," Mr. Haltermann said, and that isn't because Mr. Rainsford is 6 feet 7 inches tall. "He's a one man economic development engine."

Son of Edgefield

Mr. Rainsford was reared on Buncombe Street up the hill from lifelong friend Hugh Bland. The Blands and Rainsfords have been friends for generations.

It was an age before air conditioning, where sitting on the front porch in the evenings was the family tradition. Fun and games was hunting and fishing.

"We took an old pair of skates and made a skateboard before people knew what a skateboard was," Mr. Bland recalled. The friends would make soapbox carts, too. "Bettis would do anything. He wasn't scared of anything. He would go down the steepest hill. We'd always get him to do it."

Mr. Rainsford was the second child of Mary, a retail clerk, and Albert, a former government scientist who had come back home after World War II to be a dairy farmer. His father, a chemical engineer, had worked on the Manhattan Project in Oak Ridge, Tenn. Mr. Rainsford's brother, Albert Jr., followed in his father's footsteps and became a scientist, just recently retiring from a career at Savannah River Site.

Their father died in 1970 while Bettis was a freshman at Harvard.

"Fortunately, his Aunt June moved up with his mother. That was a big house to be lonely in," Mr. Bland said. "(Bettis) never wavered. He went straight through (college)."

His mother died in 1972, his junior year at the university.

"Aunt June was like a mother figure to him. She really rallied Albert and Bettis, held the house together for them," Mr. Bland said.

Aunt June was June Rainsford Butler Henderson, who died in 1993 at age 97. She was a librarian at the Library of Congress and an author.

"She was a mentor for him," Mr. Haltermann said. "She grew up in Edgefield, broke out of the mold."

Aunt June was entrepreneurial. Mr. Haltermann said that she liked to make money and that that rubbed off on Mr. Rainsford.

"She was old school in her gracious entertaining. That is very much Bettis, a person from an older era," Mr. Haltermann said.

For instance, a writer from The New York Times was studying a family - four generations of murderers - that had roots in Edgefield.

"Bettis entertained him, gave him a place to stay, helped with the research," Mr. Haltermann said.

There's a black-and-white picture of Aunt June on Mr. Rainsford's office wall, depicting her at a school in China where she taught English. The future wives of two of China's leaders are in the photo with her, Mr. Rainsford said.

After Aunt June's death, another figure occupied an important role in his life, the longest-serving U.S. senator in history.

Mr. Rainsford graduated from Strom Thurmond High School in 1969. He was an intern in the senator's office in 1971.

It is the extensive number of interns that was the subject of Mr. Rainsford's eulogy at Thurmond's funeral in June 2003. Mr. Rainsford said the senator "had more pages and interns than colleagues."

Young South Carolinians were invited to Washington to learn about the nation's capital and the workings of government.

"His whole life was helping people. He had a strong personal interest in education," Mr. Rainsford said. He said his grandfather and Mr. Thurmond's father were close friends.

"In the last two decades of his life, we were close," he said.

Over the years, Mr. Rainsford saw a lot of the senator, who traveled back to the area often. He enjoyed talking to the elder statesman about his life, career and experiences, particularly his early years in Edgefield.

In the later days of Thurmond's life, Mr. Rainsford was among those that worked to get him back to Edgefield. A suite was prepared at the hospital. From late January to late June 2003, Mr. Rainsford visited Thurmond often.

"At the end, he was there for Strom and a spokesman for the family at times," Mr. Durham said.

"He (Thurmond) was a person who was devoted to trying to help his fellow man. Did far more to do that than others in this world," Mr. Rainsford said. "Wipe it all away, what really counts is the contribution you made to making this a better place."

Mr. Derrick said Mr. Rainsford "wanted to use Strom to get things done for Edgefield. But there was a genuine friendship there, it wasn't built on him being a U.S. senator. Bettis sincerely loved Strom."

Mr. Derrick recalls being involved with Thurmond and Mr. Rainsford in the attempt to get a federal prison located in Edgefield.

Mr. Rainsford was instrumental in getting the statue of Thurmond crafted and placed in the town.

It is there that a conflict with the sculptor has become part of the folklore surrounding Mr. Rainsford. In a dispute over delays, funding and changes concerning the statue in the town square, the sculptor placed a bug on the coattail of the senator.

Mr. Rainsford was the chairman of the committee that commissioned the statue in 1984. The bug was discovered years later and has since been filed away. It is humorous now, Mr. Haltermann said: "I think he took the conflict with the sculptress seriously."

One of the more infamous rivals was Walton Mims, who owned the Edgefield Advertiser and at one point sued Mr. Rainsford, alleging a monopoly after Mr. Rainsford had purchased two of the county's newspapers.

"Walton challenged Bettis to a duel. I thought it was a joke. Bettis didn't think it was a joke and thought he might start firing on him in the town square," Mr. Haltermann said.

As the story goes, Mr. Rainsford sent one of his employees out of the office and into the town square ahead of him in case Mr. Mims was out there with a gun.

"There's almost a body of folklore about him," Mr. Haltermann said of his friend.

There also is the side of him that is rarely the subject of stories.

Mr. Bland said he knows of people with financial troubles who found money in their mailboxes: "He'll help anybody."

Mr. Durham said he has heard that Mr. Rainsford loaned money to friends or employees down on their luck.

"If someone needs something, he's going to do his best to provide," Mr. Haltermann said. "That's the small-town thing: People take care of one another."

Mr. Bland said he thinks most people in the town love Mr. Rainsford, but there are some people who think he is motivated by profit.

"When you get to be as successful as he has, a lot of people are jealous of you," said Mr. Bland, the childhood friend. "Deep down, on everything he's ever done, I feel Edgefield was his primary focus."

Yet, he is also influential in the redevelopment of downtown Augusta.

He owns two of the tallest buildings on Broad Street, the SunTrust Building and the Lamar Building. He is a partner with Mr. Haltermann in the ownership of the Marion Building.

Downtown Augusta has an historic appeal to the historian. There's also a connection from his personal times gone by.

"Downtown is where everybody went," Mr. Rainsford said. "It was a wonderland of excitement."

It was a busy and vibrant shopping area until the late 1970s.

He bought his first Augusta property in 1978, the Eve House at 619 Greene St. Restoring it was not financially rewarding, but he enjoyed the experience.

About 10 years later, he started investing in downtown with Mr. Haltermann and others.

The partner

"Bettis is the best partner I've ever known because he's good at what he does, he's totally fair, he's up front with you," Mr. Haltermann said.

It was a partnership that got Delta Woodside started. It was a partnership that got Mount Vintage Plantation off the drawing board.

"He understands that he can't do all the things he wants to do alone," Mr. Haltermann said.

When Mr. Rainsford wanted a construction company, he sought out Mr. Durham. Ideally, according to Mr. Haltermann, Mr. Rainsford would love to be on the job site every day, operating the machinery. "But he can't do that every day, so he gets together with Ken Durham."

Mr. Durham said Mr. Rainsford is the silent partner, letting him run Edgefield Construction. They also share ownership in some real estate.

Mr. Haltermann said Mr. Rainsford is careful in picking partners who have good judgment.

"People is what makes the world go round, not money," Mr. Rainsford said. "If you have good people, the money will find its way there."

Mr. Derrick describes Mr. Rainsford as a brilliant man. Few people from Edgefield have found their way to Harvard.

Mr. Rainsford said he had to go to college somewhere. The other place on his list was the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md.

"I ultimately decided that I don't have a military bone in my body," he said. "I like giving orders, but not taking them."

The two turning points in his business life came from partnerships, not giving orders.

Mr. Rainsford was on pace to becoming a lawyer when he stopped into the office of his former Sunday school teacher, Mr. Derrick, and asked what he could do to help a fellow Edgefield native get elected to Congress.

Mr. Derrick said he needed a campaign manager. Mr. Rainsford volunteered, and put his law degree on hold for a year in order to get Mr. Derrick elected to South Carolina's Third District in 1974.

"I think he wanted the experience," Mr. Derrick said.

At sosme point, there was an epiphany.

"He told me one time that the campaign had made up his mind, that he wasn't going to actually practice law, he was going to do business things," Mr. Derrick said.

It is part of his lore.

As is the day he was reading The Wall Street Journal about an executive leaving a Greenville textile company so that he could run his own. Mr. Rainsford called Erwin Maddrey.

Mr. Rainsford wasn't trying to create a textile empire; he was simply trying to find a way to save Edgefield Cotton Yarns, which was going to close and lay off 200 people. He had no takers to buy the Edgefield facility, so he decided to buy it himself. He and Mr. Maddrey bought it for $4 million.

"They worked hard, took a lot of chances, not too confident in the beginning," Mr. Derrick said.

Then they bought other textile companies and eventually took Delta Woodside public in 1987.

A clothing line called Duck Head was the most recognized brand. It is still manufactured, though it is now a part of Goody's Family Clothing. Mr. Rainsford said it was popular in the Southeast when he owned it, but the company could never get out of the region.

Mr. Maddrey and Mr. Rainsford had a falling out in the late 1990s. Mr. Rainsford left the company to pursue other endeavors, though his relationship with the partners wasn't the total cause.

"In the time since I left it, it has really hit the rocks. I'm amazed at how rapidly downhill it has gone. I left it in large measure because the future was not bright."

Since leaving, Delta Woodside has been split in three: Delta Woodside as a textile company is defunct; Delta Apparel, a T-shirt company, is doing well; and Duck Head is sold in Goody's stores.

The old textile mill in Edgefield was vacated when a new one was built in 1991. It was empty until a nonprofit entity made it an office. It is empty again. Mr. Rainsford said there will be some efforts to transform it in much the same way old mills in Augusta have been revitalized.

A lot of Mr. Rainsford's time now is devoted to history and development. He has plans to take his partnership with the Edgefield Grill to downtown Augusta and start up a fine-dining restaurant on the first floor of the Lamar Building.

"He works all the time, but that's his hobby. He enjoys what he does," Mr. Durham said. "Even though he gets a lot of publicity, he really doesn't want his name out there. So many of the successful ventures here have Bettis in it, even if not in the forefront."

Vintage

If you live in Edgefield and need to know something about your family's genealogy, ask Mr. Rainsford.

He has always been interested in Edgefield and its history, even as a child, Mr. Bland said. Edgefield history is his hobby.

"I keep telling him he needs to write some of this down," said business partner Mr. Haltermann, an Ivy Leaguer with a history degree.

Mr. Rainsford said he might, in his old age when he has time.

Mr. Haltermann said Mr. Rainsford's knowledge goes deep. Mr. Rainsford had a grant to organize a two-day symposium of 20 scholars. One of them discussed the violence of the region, hangings from Colonial times because it was considered the frontier and people took the law into their own hands. Mr. Rainsford, as the master of ceremonies, could recite the location of some of those violent episodes.

Sitting in the clubhouse of Mount Vintage Plantation, Mr. Rainsford discusses the history of the land. It once belonged to Peter Carnes, an Augusta lawyer who has the distinction of being the first person in America to man a hot-air balloon.

The center of the clubhouse itself is a piece of history. The Shaw House was moved two miles from its original location. It was built in 1840 by cotton planter Thomas Lewis Shaw.

Mr. Haltermann remembers its being moved in 1995. When he first saw it, there was no paint. There was nothing modern about it, not even a lock on the front door.

The name "Mount Vintage" has historical significance, having been the home of a prominent South Carolina judge, Richard Gantt, who bought it in 1796.

"Here's a guy who went out of his way to research with the finest detail he could some historical event or building which stood near the tee of every hole," Mr. Haltermann said.

The golf course was secondary to the original plans for the 4,000 acres. He had been mulling a development since the mid-1980s. Edgefield County, though it is part of the greater Augusta area, had been largely undeveloped.

"I was not anxious to see us become home to every mobile home in the CSRA," he said, "so I decided a way to fix that was to go down to the low end of the county and buy a large enough piece of property to do a high-end residential development there."

In 1992, the land became available for him to start on it, first a stable and kennel for fox hunting, still one of his favorite pastimes. The golf course opened in 2000 and was host for four years of LPGA tournaments.

"If we could get 30 percent of the people going to Columbia County to come here instead, that would be a good objective," Mr. Rainsford said of the housing at Mount Vintage. The houses sell for $500,000 to $900,000, and most of the people moving there are retiring from some other part of the country.

Mr. Rainsford said there are 300 lots in inventory and enough acreage to plot out three more golf courses.

Yet, he dislikes golf.

Mr. Rainsford has a notable sports background, setting state records.

Mr. Bland played high school basketball with Mr. Rainsford. Even though the all-state center was good at it, Mr. Bland was not surprised to see his friend end his basketball career after one season at Harvard.

Mr. Bland recalls seeing Mr. Rainsford walk around on crutches in high school. He would go with his teammate after every game so the doctors could take fluid out of his legs.

"Bettis almost has nothing to do with sports. He's too busy with business. Sports is very secondary," Mr. Haltermann said.

Mr. Rainsford said he is golfing more now because his daughter, Mary, wants to learn to play.

To find Mr. Rainsford doing something outdoors that he loves, attend a fox hunt in the fall and winter.

It would be appropriate to find Mr. Rainsford some day immortalized in bronze, Mr. Haltermann said.

"He's of the 19th century heroic tradition, where you do great stuff and someone builds a statue for you," he said. "It would be appropriate for someone to build a statue one day."

Reach Tim Rausch at (706) 823-3352 or timothy.rausch@augustachronicle.com.

bettis rainsford Title: President, Rainsford Development Corp. Born: Aug. 3, 1951, in Edgefield, S.C. Education: Harvard University, bachelor general studies, history, 1973; University of South Carolina, juris doctor, 1976 Career: Co-founder of Delta Woodside, founder of Mount Vintage Plantation golf course and subdivision, chairman of South Carolina National Heritage Corridor, member of the board of trustees of Cambridge College, member of the South Carolina Board of Technical and Comprehensive Education, former owner of Edgefield County Communications Inc., former president of Medical Park Development Corp. Awards: Honorary doctorate of business administration, South Carolina University, 1993; South Carolina Entrepreneur of the Year, 1993; South Carolina Ambassador for Economic Development, 1991; Edgefield County Chamber of Commerce Citizen of the Year, 2001. Family: Son, Bettis Jr., daughter, Mary