Moon Coastal Carolinas

by Jim Morekis

  For the freshest island seafood, check out the Old Daufuskie Crab Company (Freeport Marina, 843/785-6652, daily 11:30am-9pm, $8-22). The deviled crab is the house specialty. The other place to dine out on the island is Marshside Mama’s (15 Haig Point Rd., 843/785-4755, www.marshsidemamas.com, hours change frequently, $10-15), a laid-back spot to enjoy grouper, gumbo, and Lowcountry boil. Reservations are strongly encouraged.

  For handcrafted island art, go to Iron Fish Gallery (168 Benjies Point Rd., 843/842-9448, call ahead for hours), featuring the work of Chase Allen. His “coastal sculptures” include fanciful depictions of fish, stingrays, and even mermaids.

  Transportation

  The main public ferry between Daufuskie and Hilton Head is Calibogue Cruises (18 Simmons Rd., 843/342-8687, www.daufuskiefreeport.com). Taking off from Broad Creek Marina on Hilton Head, the pleasant, short ride—a half hour each way—brings you in on the landward side of the island. Cost is $33 per person round-trip, or $64 per person round-trip including a meal at the Old Daufuskie Crab Company and a golf cart rental. Ferries run three times a day Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, and twice a day Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday-Sunday. Ferry reservations are essential!

  While the ferry trip and many vacation rentals include the rental of a golf cart, for à la carte service—get it?—rent one near Freeport Marina by calling 843/342-8687 (rates vary but hover around $30 pp/day). As the number of golf carts is limited, I strongly recommend reserving yours in advance. All standard rules of the road apply, including needing a valid driver’s license.

  Points Inland

  It’s likely that at some point you’ll find yourself traveling inland from Beaufort, given that area’s proximity to I-95. While this area is generally more known for offering interstate drivers a bite to eat and a place to rest their heads, there are several spots worth checking out in their own right, especially Walterboro and the Savannah National Wildlife Refuge.

  WALTERBORO

  The very picture of the slow, moss-drenched Lowcountry town—indeed, the municipal logo is the silhouette of a live oak tree—Walterboro is a delightful, artsy oasis. Right off I-95, Walterboro serves as a gateway of sorts to the Lowcountry, and the cheap commercial sprawl on the interstate shows it. But don’t be put off by this ugliness—once you get into town it’s as charming as they come, with roots dating back to 1783.

  antiquing in Walterboro

  Walterboro is chiefly known to the world at large for being one of the best antiquing locales on the East Coast. Indeed, many of the high-dollar antiques shops on Charleston’s King Street actually do their picking right here in the local stores, selling their finds at a significant markup in Charleston! (Another advantage Walterboro antiques shopping has over Charleston: plenty of free parking.)

  Convenient and walkable, the two-block Arts and Antiques District on Washington Street centers on more than a dozen antiques and collectibles stores, interspersed with a few gift shops and eateries. The best shop, though by no means the only one you should check out, is Bachelor Hill Antiques (255 E. Washington St., 843/549-1300, Mon.-Sat. 9am-6pm, Sun. 9am-4pm), which has several rooms packed with interesting and unique items, from collectibles to furniture to most everything in between.

  Walterboro is about a 45-minute drive from Beaufort. Take U.S. 21 north to I-95, then take exit 53 or 57. Walterboro is about an hour’s drive from Charleston or Savannah.

  Sights

  S SOUTH CAROLINA ARTISANS CENTER

  If you’re in town, don’t miss the South Carolina Artisans Center (334 Wichman St., 843/549-0011, www.scartisanscenter.com, Mon.-Sat. 9am-5pm, Sun. 1pm-5pm, free), an expansive and vibrant collection of the best work of local and regional painters, sculptors, jewelers, and other craftspeople, for sale and for enjoyment. Imagine a big-city folk art gallery, except without the pretension, and you get the idea. You can find most any genre represented here, including jewelry, watercolors, shawls, photography, and sweetgrass baskets. The Artisans Center hosts numerous receptions, and every third Saturday of the month they hold live artist demonstrations 11am-3pm.

  MUSEUMS

  Walterboro boasts three small museums. The newly relocated and upgraded Colleton Museum (506 E. Washington St., 843/549-2303, www.cm-fm.org, Tues. noon-6pm, Wed.-Fri. 10am-5pm, Sat. 10am-2pm, free) is one of the best examples of a small-town museum you’re likely to find anywhere. It has a lot of surprisingly well-curated exhibits about local history, from Native American days through the colonial and Civil War periods through the present day. Adjacent is the Farmers Market (May-Oct. Tues. 2pm-6pm, Sat. 10am-2pm).

  Colleton Museum in Walterboro

  The Bedon-Lucas House Museum (205 Church St., 843/549-9633, Thurs.-Sat. 1pm-4pm, $3 adults, free under age 8) was built by a local planter in 1820. An example of the local style of “high house,” built off the ground to escape mosquitoes and catch the breeze, the house today is a nice mix of period furnishings and unadorned simplicity.

  The Slave Relic Museum (208 Carn St., 843/549-9130, www.slaverelics.org, Mon.-Thurs. 9:30am-5pm, Sat. 10am-3pm, $6 adults, $5 children) houses the Center for Research and Preservation of the African American Culture. It features artifacts, photos, and documents detailing the Atlantic passage, slave life, and the Underground Railroad.

  TUSKEGEE AIRMEN MEMORIAL

  Yes, the Tuskegee Airmen of World War II fame were from Alabama, not South Carolina. But a contingent trained in Walterboro, at the site of the present-day Lowcountry Regional Airport (537 Aviation Way, 843/549-2549) a short ways south of downtown on U.S. 17. Today, on a publicly accessible, low-security area of the airport stands the Tuskegee Airmen Memorial, an outdoor monument to these brave flyers. There’s a bronze statue and several interpretive exhibits.

  GREAT SWAMP SANCTUARY

  A short ways out of town in the other direction is the Great Swamp Sanctuary (www.thegreatswamp.org, daily dawn-dusk, free), a still-developing ecotourism project focusing on the Lowcountry environment. Located in one of the few braided-creek habitats accessible to the public, the 842-acre sanctuary has three miles of walking and biking trails, some along the path of the old Charleston-Savannah stagecoach route. Kayakers and canoeists can paddle more than two miles of winding creeks. There are three entry points to the Great Swamp Sanctuary, all off Jefferies Boulevard. In west-to-east order from I-95: north onto Beach Road, north onto Detreville Street (this is considered the main entrance), and west onto Washington Street.

  Festivals and Events

  In keeping with South Carolina’s tradition of towns hosting annual events to celebrate signature crops and products, Walterboro’s Colleton County Rice Festival (http://thericefestival.org, free) happens every April. There’s a parade, live music, a 5K run, and the crowning of the year’s “Rice Queen,” and you just might find yourself learning something about the unique coastal lifestyle built around this ultimate cash crop of the early South.

  Accommodations

  If you’re looking for big-box lodging, the section of Walterboro close to I-95 is chockablock with it. The quality is surprisingly good, perhaps because they tend to cater to Northerners on their way to and from Florida. A good choice is Holiday Inn Express & Suites (1834 Sniders Hwy., 843/538-2700, www.hiexpress.com, $85), or try the Comfort Inn & Suites (97 Downs Ln., 843/538-5911, www.choicehotels.com, $95).

  If you’d like something with a bit more character, there are two B&Bs on Hampton Street downtown. Old Academy Bed & Breakfast (904 Hampton St., 843/549-3232, www.oldacademybandb.com, $80-115) has four guest rooms housed in Walterboro’s first school building. They offer a full continental breakfast. Note that credit cards are not accepted. Although built recently (by local standards), the 1912 Hampton House Bed and Breakfast (500 Hampton St., 843/542-9498, www.hamptonhousebandb.com, $125-145) has three well-appointed guest rooms and offers a full country breakfast. By appointment only, you can see the Forde Doll and Dollhouse Collection, with over 50 dollhouses and oodles of antique dolls.

  Tuskegee Airmen in Walte
rboro

  In a state where all too often African American history is studied in the context of slavery, a refreshing change is the tale of the Tuskegee Airmen, one of the most lauded American military units of World War II. Though named for their origins at Alabama’s Tuskegee Institute, the pilots of the famed 332nd Fighter Group actually completed their final training in South Carolina at Walterboro Army Airfield, where the regional airport now sits.

  The U.S. military was segregated during World War II, with African Americans mostly relegated to support roles. An interesting exception was the case of the 332nd, formed in 1941 as the 99th Pursuit Squadron by an act of Congress and the only all-black flying unit in the American military at the time. For the most part flying P-47 Thunderbolts and P-51 Mustangs, the pilots of the 332nd had one of the toughest missions of the war: escorting bombers over the skies of Germany and protecting them from Luftwaffe fighters. Though initially viewed with skepticism, the Tuskegee Airmen wasted no time in proving their mettle.

  In fact, it wasn’t long before U.S. bomber crews—who were, needless to say, all white—specifically requested that they be escorted by the airmen, who were given the nickname “Red-tail Angels” because of the distinctive markings of their aircraft. While legend has it that the 332nd never lost a bomber, this claim has been debunked. But as Tuskegee Airman Bill Holloman said, “The Tuskegee story is about pilots who rose above adversity and discrimination and opened a door once closed to black America, not about whether their record is perfect.” The 332nd’s reputation for aggressiveness in air combat was so widely known that the Germans also had a nickname for them—Schwartze Vogelmenschen, or “Black Birdmen.”

  Today Walterboro honors the Airmen with a monument on the grounds of the Lowcountry Regional Airport, on U.S. 17 just northeast of town. In an easily accessible part of the airport grounds, the monument features a bronze statue and several interpretive exhibits. Another place to catch up on Tuskegee Airmen history is at the Colleton Museum (506 E. Washington St., 843/549-2303, www.cm-fm.org, Tues. noon-6pm, Wed.-Fri. 10am-5pm, Sat. 10am-2pm, free), which has a permanent exhibit on the pilots and their history in the Walterboro area.

  Walterboro Army Airfield’s contribution to the war effort was not limited to the Tuskegee Airmen. Seven of the famed Doolittle Raiders were trained here, there was a compound for holding German prisoners of war, and it was also the site of the U.S. military’s largest camouflage school.

  Food

  The story of food in Walterboro revolves around S Duke’s Barbecue (949 Robertson Blvd., 843/549-1446, $7), one of the best-regarded barbecue spots in the Lowcountry and one of the top two joints named “Duke’s” in the state (the other, by common consensus, is in Orangeburg). The pulled pork is delectable, cooked with the indigenous South Carolina mustard-based sauce. Unlike most area barbecue restaurants, some attention is devoted to the veggies, such as collard greens, green beans, and black-eyed peas with rice.

  HARDEEVILLE

  For most travelers, Hardeeville is known for its plethora of low-budget lodging and garish fireworks stores at the intersection of I-95 and U.S. 17. Truth be told, that’s about all that’s here. However, train buffs will enjoy getting a gander at the rare and excellently restored Narrow Gauge Locomotive near the intersection of U.S. 17 and Highway 46. Donated by the Argent Lumber Company in 1960, Engine No. 7 memorializes the role of the timber industry in the area.

  If you’re hungry in Hardeeville, go straight to S Mi Tierrita (U.S. 17 and I-95, 843/784-5011, daily 11am-10pm, $5), an excellent, authentic Mexican restaurant near the confluence of I-95 and U.S. 17. It’s pretty beat-up on the inside, but the food is delicious and many steps above the typical watered-down Tex-Mex you find in the Southeast.

  If barbecue is your thing, go on Highway 170A on the “backside” of Hardeeville in the hamlet of Levy to The Pink Pig (3508 S. Okatie Hwy., 843/784-3635, www.the-pink-pig.com, Tues.-Wed. and Sat. 11am-3pm, Thurs.-Fri. 11am-3pm and 5pm-7pm, $5-15). They offer three sauces: honey mustard, spicy, and “Gullah.” The place is surprisingly hip, with good music piped in and a suitably cutesy, kid-friendly decor with plenty of the eponymous rosy porcine figures.

  Hardeeville is about a half-hour drive from both Beaufort and Savannah, at the intersection of I-95 and U.S. 17.

  SAVANNAH NATIONAL WILDLIFE REFUGE

  Roughly equally divided between Georgia and South Carolina, the sprawling 30,000-acre Savannah National Wildlife Refuge (912/652-4415, www.fws.gov/savannah, daily dawn-dusk, free) is one of the premier bird-watching and nature-observing locales in the Southeast. The system of dikes and paddy fields once used to grow rice now helps make this an attractive stopover for migrating birds. Bird-watching is best October-April. While you can kayak on your own on miles of creeks, you can also call Swamp Girls Kayak Tours (843/784-2249, www.swampgirls.com), who work out of nearby Hardeeville, for a guided tour. The wildlife refuge is about 20 minutes from Savannah, two hours from Charleston, and an hour from Beaufort. To get here, take exit 5 off I-95 onto U.S. 17. Go south to U.S. 170 and look for Laurel Hill Wildlife Drive. Be sure to stop by the brand-new visitors center (off U.S. 170 at Laurel Hill Wildlife Dr., Mon.-Sat. 9am-4:30pm).

  kayaking through marshland on Bald Head Island, North Carolina

  Background

  The Landscape

  GEOGRAPHY

  CLIMATE

  ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES

  Plants and Animals

  PLANTS

  ANIMALS

  History

  BEFORE THE EUROPEANS

  THE EUROPEANS ARRIVE

  THE LOST COLONY

  THE FOUNDING OF CAROLINA

  REVOLUTION AND A NEW NATION

  A UNION DISSOLVED

  RENAISSANCE

  A NEW DEAL

  WORLD WAR II AND THE MODERN ERA

  Government and Economy

  GOVERNMENT

  ECONOMY

  People and Culture

  POPULATION

  RELIGION

  MANNERS

  THE GUN CULTURE

  a sandpiper on Myrtle Beach in South Carolina.

  The Landscape

  GEOGRAPHY

  The story of the coastal Carolinas’ geography begins, ironically enough, with the Appalachian Mountain chain. It’s in Appalachia where so much of the coast’s freshwater—in the form of rain—comes together and flows southeast—in the form of rivers—to the Atlantic Ocean.

  Moving east, the next level down from the Appalachians is the Piedmont region. The Piedmont is a rolling, hilly area, the eroded remains of an ancient mountain chain now long gone.

  At the Piedmont’s eastern edge is the fall line, so named because it’s there where rivers make a drop toward the sea, generally becoming navigable. This slight but noticeable change in elevation—which actually marked the shoreline about 60 million years ago—not only encouraged trade, but has provided water power for mills for hundreds of years. Many inland cities of the region trace their origin and commercial success to their strategic location on the fall line.

  Around the fall line zone in the Upper Coastal Plain you can sometimes spot sandhills, usually only a few feet in elevation, generally thought to be the vestigial remains of primordial sand dunes and offshore sandbars. Well beyond the fall line and the sometimes nearly invisible sandhills lies the Lower Coastal Plain, gradually built up over a 150 million-year span by sedimentary runoff from the Appalachian Mountains, which were then as high or even higher than the modern-day Himalayas.

  The Coastal Plain was sea bottom for much of the earth’s history, and in some eroded areas you can see dramatic proof of this in prehistoric shells, sharks’ teeth, and fossilized whale bones and oyster beds, often many miles inland. In some places, calcium from these ancient shells has provided a lush home for distinct groups of unique plants, called dijuncts.

  At various times over the last 50 million years, the Coastal Plain has submerged, surfaced, and submerged again. At the height of the last major Ice Age, when
global sea levels were very low, the east coast of North America extended out nearly 100 miles farther than the present shoreline. (We now call this former coastal region the continental shelf.) The Coastal Plain has been in roughly its current form for about the last 15,000 years.

  In coastal North Carolina, above about Jacksonville, begins a sort of hybrid geography, mixing characteristics of the Coastal Plain with a series of massive river estuaries. Here the general salt marsh environment gives way to a more windswept, deeper-water topography that will find its ultimate expression in the remote feel and independent lifestyle of the Outer Banks themselves.

  Rivers

  Visitors from drier climates are sometimes shocked to see how huge the rivers can get in the South, how wide and voluminous as they saunter to the sea, their seemingly slow speed belying the massive power they contain. North and South Carolina’s big alluvial, or sediment-bearing, rivers originate in the region of the Appalachian mountain chain.

  The blackwater river is a particularly interesting Southern phenomenon, duplicated elsewhere only in South America and one example each in New York and Michigan. While alluvial rivers generally originate in highlands and carry with them a large amount of sediment, blackwater rivers—the Edisto in South Carolina being a great example, along with North Carolina’s Cape Fear River—tend to originate in low-lying areas and move slowly toward the sea, carrying with them very little sediment.