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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Fire damage to Sherper's Wharf in Beaufort, 1907. Courtesy of the South Caroliniana Library.
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Florence City Hall, built in 1900, photographed in 1909. Courtesy of the South Caroliniana Library.
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Main Street in Conway, around 1906. The township plan implemented in 1731 to protect Charleston with a ring of settlements, called for a town along the west bank of the Waccamaw River, originally...
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Main Street, Hampton, 1949. The clock tower in the business district was installed in 1948. Modern Hampton County is primarily agricultural, although there is also an industrial base built on the...
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Market Street, Cheraw, looking west, around 1900. The white columned building at the right is the Lyceum, a library and meeting place for the Cheraw Lyceum Society, built in 1820. Courtesy of the...
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Morgan Square, Spartanburg, showing the Confederate monument and City Hall around 1907. First known as "Public Square," it was created in 1787 as a public pasture, and renamed after a statue of...
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"Orangeburg Courthouse" survived Sherman's march through South Carolina, sketched here for "Leslie's Illustrated Magazine" on February 13, 1865. Courtesy of the South Caroliniana Library.
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Main Street of Rock Hill at night, 1950. Courtesy of the Winthrop University Archives.
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The corner of Front and Broad Street in Georgetown, looking east, shows the People's Bank with its summer awnings up on the left, around 1900. Courtesy of the South Caroliniana Library.
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The Grand Strand at Myrtle Beach has not always been crowded with high rise apartment buildings, like those seen in this aerial view of the Grand Strand taken in 1955. Courtesy of the South...
