Encyclopedia

Georgetown’s designation as a port of entry by royal authorities in 1732 greatly improved its prospects. Port activity in Georgetown thrived and the town briefly supported its own shipbuilding industry to meet demands of area planters.

During Reconstruction, with its large black majority, Georgetown County became a Republican Party stronghold. Even after the return of Democratic rule to South Carolina after 1876, African Americans in Georgetown County still held significant political power. They shared control in uneasy cooperation with local whites in a process called “fusion” until 1900, when white control was reestablished.

A c.1917 view of the Georgetown County Courthouse. The building was constructed in 1824 by Russell Warren, who used a design by Robert Mills. Mills was a state engineer and architect at that time.

This massive, four-story structure housed the Georgetown Rice Milling Co. within the corporate limits of Georgetown. The company was established in 1879 as a joint stock co. with an investment of $60,000. This mill and the Waverly Mill on Waccamaw Neck together pounded about 350,000 bushels of rice in 1902. This pounding mill was located at the foot of Wood St. on the Sampit River. A replica of the mill is on display at The Rice Museum. The mill was destroyed by fire during the 1940's.

Georgetown Steel Company was among the earliest foreign-owned companies wooed to South Carolina as part of a campaign to attract foreign investment. A subsidiary of Korf Industries of West Germany, Georgetown Steel provided hundreds of well-paying jobs to the economically depressed city, although pollution from the plant would be a recurring concern throughout its existence.

Sixteen German men constituted themselves as a social and mutual-assistance society to pay sick and death benefits, and allow members to borrow funds at low rates of interest. Almost immediately, German ethnicity was not necessary for membership, nor was the ability to speak German.

The most prominent contingent of German-speakers was in Charleston, where a vibrant artisan and mercantile community had been established by the decade before the Revolutionary War.

The Gibbes Museum of Art is the home of the Carolina Art Association, an organization dedicated to the cultivation of the arts and art education in Charleston since its inception in 1858.

Inspired by her “urge to write,” in 1895 she became the first woman to enroll in South Carolina College (later the University of South Carolina), two years after the General Assembly mandated that women should be allowed to attend the school as special students.

During his fifty-four-year career at the College of Charleston, Gibbes taught mathematics, chemistry, physics, and astronomy, and endeared himself to generations of students despite his exacting standards.

As one of only three proprietors’ deputies in the colony when Governor Edward Tynte died in June 1710, Gibbes proceeded to bribe his way into the governor’s office and brought government to a virtual standstill for nearly two years.

Keenly interested in natural history, Gibbes collected bird specimens, mollusk shells, and minerals. He was especially interested in vertebrate fossils, and it was in the field of paleontology that he made lasting contributions.

Gibbons entered the national spotlight in 1984 as a reporter-anchor on Entertainment Tonight, a nationally syndicated television program.

Gibson played nationally and internationally. In 1956 she won sixteen of the eighteen tournaments she entered. That same year she became the first African American to capture a Grand Slam event when she won the French Championship. She went on to win Wimbledon in 1957 and was welcomed home with a ticker tape parade. Ranked as the number one tennis player in 1957, Gibson won her first U.S. championship and was named Female Athlete of the Year by the Associated Press.