Almost all of the images in this collection document a particular South Carolina place at a specific time in its history. This section, organized alphabetically is not intended, therefore, as a comprehensive list of every South Carolina community. It is actually a fairly impressionistic look at the county seats and rural villages, as well as the cities, in which South Carolinians live and work. For several towns and cities (Beaufort, Camden, Charleston, Columbia, Darlington, Georgetown, Greenville, Spartanburg, and Sumter), an effort has been made to select several images that show how that place has changed over time. Other places were chosen for special features that have made that town unique; still others have been chosen because they illustrate the features that many towns in the state have shared.
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The town of Camden was one of the first official settlements to be laid out in the interior of South Carolina in the 1730s. Settlers flooded into the backcountry during the quarter century of peace...
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This row of four stores on the east side of Second Street in Cheraw is having a sidewalk sale, around 1908. Rocking chairs, bicycles, baby buggies, and rolls of wire are displayed on wooden platforms...
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The Beaufort waterfront in as it appeared in 1906. Courtesy of the South Caroliniana Library.
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Reedy River Falls, site of the Camperdown Textile Mill, Greenville. Courtesy of the Greenville County Historical Society.
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The Corn Exposition in Florence, around 1900, celebrated the rich agricultural produce of this region. Courtesy of the South Carolina State Museum.
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As early as 1897 the Iseman Drug Company was in operation at 807 Front Street in Georgetown. Although the business was bought out, the name and the distinctive brick archway remained a landmark in...
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The Orangeburg County Courthouse, as it appeared with the Confederate monument on the square, in 1909. Courtesy of the South Caroliniana Library.
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This aerial of the Darlington town square shows the brief juxtaposition of a new courthouse, built in 1969, with the old one (see Darlington Town Square), not yet destroyed. The old city hall was also...
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This birds-eye view of Charleston, drawn and engraved in 1853, was widely reproduced in "Harper's Illustrated Weekly" for the next decade; it became the visual image most outsiders had of what the...
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This view of downtown Greenville was taken in the 1920s with the city decorated for the Christmas season. Courtesy of the Greenville County Historical Society.
