Orangeburg County and its county seat, Orangeburg, were named for William IV, Prince of Orange, the son-in-law of King George II. The name was first used in the 1730s for a township on the Edisto River, one of eleven townships created by the governing body of Charles Town. The original township, which was settled along the banks of the Edisto River, was 20,000 acres in size. The head of each family was given 50 acres of land and provisions for one year before departing from Charles Town. Swiss and German farmers moved into this region around 1735, and English settlers from the Lowcountry followed. The center of town in these early years was know as Public Square. The Square was bounded on its four sides by today’s streets of Broughton, Bull, Middleton, and Waring. The site of an early trading post, the Square continued to grow and became the center of downtown business, industry, finance, religious life, and entertainment. By the early 1800s, downtown provided its citizens with blacksmiths, lawyers, doctors, and shopkeepers.
The battle of Eutaw Springs was fought nearby during the Revolutionary War on September 8, 1781; it was the last major battle of the war in South Carolina. Large plantations using slave labor were established in Orangeburg in the nineteenth century, and the county became a major producer of cotton. Railroads arrived in the area early; Branchville became the first railroad junction in the state in 1840. Union troops under General Sherman passed through Orangeburg in February 1865.
The years following the Civil War brought positive changes. The town of Orangeburg was incorporated as a city in 1883. In 1887, a water system was built and leased to the city. A street trolley system was constructed in 1888. The trolley was mule-drawn during the day to carry passengers, but with the aid of a small steam locomotive, it was used to haul freight to various downtown businesses at night. Electricity came to the city in the 1890s, and before the end of the decade, Russell Street, the city’s main street, was lit with electric lights.
In 1926, the land along the Edisto River in downtown Orangeburg was cleared, filled in, and the first azaleas planted. In the early 1950s, 3,500 rose bushes were planted. The bank of the river, which was such a vital part of the early settlement, morphed into a panoply of springtime color. In 1972 the first South Carolina Festival of Roses, now called the Orangeburg Festival of Roses, was held. Each year since, thousands flock to Orangeburg in the spring to enjoy the beauty of the flowers.
Our walking tour will begin in the historic center of town where four courthouses were constructed over the years but none remain...
For the past 100 years pert near every description of Seattle contains the phrase “largest city in the Pacific Northwest.” The original settling party in 1851 seemed to sense this would be the case. They had come overland by wagon train from Illinois and boldly named their encampment “New York.” Similar grandiose thinking saw party leader Arthur A. Denny wrote to his brother that he had found “a valley that will support a thousand families.” But alas the settlers were on the west side of Puget Sound on Alki Point with sandy beaches that did not allow for easy loading and unloading of ships. Denny staked claims across the water along Elliott Bay and named the new settlement after the chief of the friendly Duwamish Indians. In short order the original cabins on Alki Point were abandoned and all the pioneers gathered at the site of current Seattle.
Seattle’s growth was never steady but came in waves of prosperity sandwiched around troughs of hard times. In the early days Seattle got the Territorial University while rivals Tacoma and Olympia got the terminus of the Northern Pacific Railway and the capital, respectively. After thirty years Seattle’s population still numbered around 3,000 and the streets were unpaved when the first boom - in timber - caused the population to jump to over 40,000.
In the middle of the afternoon on June 6, 1889 fire broke out in a cabinet shop at First Avenue and Madison Street and before the day was over 50 downtown blocks and $15 million of property were consumed. The City wasted no time in reinventing itself. Eight-foot retaining walls were built around the remains of charred buildings, filled in to raise the grade over muddy tidal flats and paved for the first time. Plans were launched to level the hills near the shoreline. There would be no more wooden buildings downtown. Then the financial Panic of 1893 ground progress to a halt.
The dark days did not last long. In 1897 the transport Portland steamed into port with “a ton of gold” from the Yukon River district in Alaska. In the years to come it was estimated that Seattle controlled 95 percent of the the total amount of Alaskan shipping. When many of the prospectors returned they didn’t travel much past Seattle. By 1910 the population was pushing 250,000 and Seattle was one of the 25 largest cities in America.
During this time the Pike Place Market organized to enable small truck farmers, many Japanese, to sell goods directly to the public. Stalls were assigned by drawing lots daily to prevent any one vendor from monopolizing the trade as the market expanded over several buildings. This is where our walking tour will begin and from here we will move up into the retail district where we will encounter such familiar names as Starbucks and Nordstrom and Eddie Bauer but we will start with a pig named Rachel...
For the past 100 years pert near every description of Seattle contains the phrase “largest city in the Pacific Northwest.” The original settling party in 1851 seemed to sense this would be the case. They had come overland by wagon train from Illinois and boldly named their encampment “New York.” Similar grandiose thinking saw party leader Arthur A. Denny wrote to his brother that he had found “a valley that will support a thousand families.” But alas the settlers were on the west side of Puget Sound on Alki Point with sandy beaches that did not allow for easy loading and unloading of ships. Denny staked claims across the water along Elliott Bay and named the new settlement after the chief of the friendly Duwamish Indians. In short order the original cabins on Alki Point were abandoned and all the pioneers gathered at the site of current Seattle.
Seattle’s growth was never steady but came in waves of prosperity sandwiched around troughs of hard times. In the early days Seattle got the Territorial University while rivals Tacoma and Olympia got the terminus of the Northern Pacific Railway and the capital, respectively. After thirty years Seattle’s population still numbered around 3,000 and the streets were unpaved when the first boom - in timber - caused the population to jump to over 40,000.
In the middle of the afternoon on June 6, 1889 fire broke out in a cabinet shop at First Avenue and Madison Street and before the day was over 50 downtown blocks and $15 million of property were consumed. The City wasted no time in reinventing itself. Eight-foot retaining walls were built around the remains of charred buildings, filled in to raise the grade over muddy tidal flats and paved for the first time. Plans were launched to level the hills near the shoreline. There would be no more wooden buildings downtown. Then the financial Panic of 1893 ground progress to a halt.
The dark days did not last long. In 1897 the transport Portland steamed into port with “a ton of gold” from the Yukon River district in Alaska. In the years to come it was estimated that Seattle controlled 95 percent of the the total amount of Alaskan shipping. When many of the prospectors returned they didn’t travel much past Seattle. By 1910 the population was pushing 250,000 and Seattle was one of the 25 largest cities in America.
Most of that growth pushed the Central Business District northward and the original city core became neglected and so run down it was known as “Skid Road.” By the 1960s the future of most of the buildings in Pioneer Square lay as parking lots. Instead preservationists rallied and got a 30-acre swath of downtown designated an Historic District in 1969. Our walking tour of this collection of brick and stone Victorian buildings will start on Pioneer Square with part of Seattle’s original industry, a steam-powered sawmill established by Henry Yesler...
European-American settlement began on the shores of Commencement Bay in the 1850s with Swedish immigrant Nicolas De Lin’s sawmill providing what little industry the settlement enjoyed. Although blessed by a deep natural harbor, the 1870 the United States census counted only78 people in Tacoma, which took its name from the Puyallup Indian name for the mountain (Mt. Rainier today) that loomed over the bay. Like many a 19th-century American frontier town Tacoma’s fate would be determined by the vagaries of the railroad.
In the 1870s Tacoma hit the jackpot - the western terminus of the Northern Pacific Railroad’s transcontinental railroad across the America’s northern tier was headed for Commencement Bay. Tacoma became known as the “City of Destiny” and the population between 1880 and 1890 increased from a few heads more than 1,000 to over 36,000. In 1888 alone more than 1,000 buildings were erected in town.
In every census since then the population of Tacoma has grown, to over 200,000, a statistic that belies the sometimes dodgy fortunes of the town. When gold was discovered in the Klondike in 1898 Tacoma lost its early rivalry with Seattle as the dominant city of Puget Sound. But there was enough growth to go around and Tacoma experienced its greatest building boom between 1902 and 1912 as its waterfront was lined with over a mile of wheat warehouses and the city port became one of the busiest on the West Coast. The Depression hit Tacoma harder than most and after the boost from war-related industries around World War II faded downtown Tacoma declined more rapidly than most similar mid-sized industrial cities. At its low point in the 1970s mayor Harold Moss famously described his city as looking “bombed out.”
But as its misfortunes may have been magnified compared to other towns so to has downtown Tacoma’s revival been more energetic. Our walking tour of the City of Destiny will dip back to see buildings from those original days of heady optimism and we will start above the town’s greatest natural asset, Commencement Bay...