Tag: South Carolina

The first inhabitants of Charleston were Wando, Sewanee, and Kiawah Indians, who lived in the area until the mid-1700s. The first colonists from England called their city “Charles Towne” after their king, Charles II. Because...

There are so many churches in Charleston that it is known as the Holy City. St. Philip’s Church is the first Anglican church organized in the South. The first St. Philip’s was built at the corner of meeting and Broad streets...

The Old Exchange Building is one of the most historically important colonial buildings still standing in the United States. Built in 1771 on 122 East Bay Street on the site of the Court of the Guard, colonists met in the Great...

The Dock Street Theater was the first building in America designed solely for theatrical performances. The theater opened at the corner of Church and Dock streets on February 12, 1735, with the production of a bawdy farce by...

The Old Charleston Jail stands on the site of a building, dating back to 1738, which served as a slave workhouse, a poor house, and a hospital for vagrants and other impoverished people. In 1802, the old building was replaced...

After John Fenwick arrived in John’s Island in 1703, he was appointed Commissioner of the Indian Tract. He married Elizabeth Gibbes, the daughter of Governor Robert Gibbes, and moved into a house made of notched logs on the...

The Embassy Suites Hotel is one of the few hotels in the entire world that is housed inside a local landmark. The structure on this site was a fort, built in 1758 to protect the city. Charleston sold the fort to the State of...

The Garden Street Theater is a remnant of a by-gone era. When it opened on January 14, 1918, patrons eager to view vaudeville acts and the latest silent movies paraded into a garden of hanging baskets, trellises, and caged...

The Unitarian Church in Charleston is the second oldest church on the city peninsula. In 1772, the Society of Dissenters decided that their building on meeting Street was not large enough to accommodate the church’s increasing...

Built in 1886, the building on 72 Queen Street that now houses one of Charleston’s most popular restaurants was owned by two spinster sisters, Elizabeth and Zoe Saint Amand. Both women were schoolteachers, but they had entirely...

A great deal of Charleston’s appeal likes in its splendid array of antebellum mansions. Before the Civil War, Charleston was the most prosperous city in the South, due in large part to the slave trade. In the late 18th and early...

In the 19th century, the Battery ws one of the most exclusive residential neighborhoods in Charleston. During the Civil War, however, the waterfront area was also one of the most embattled. Beginning in 1861, Federal forces...