Recreation and Leisure

More than 550 pieces of sculpture are displayed in an outdoor setting, grouped with plants carefully selected to set off the smooth, classic lines of marble, bronze, and even gold-leaf figurative sculpture. In addition to works by Anna Hyatt Huntington and several contemporary sculptors, the Brookgreen collection includes pieces by Frederic Remington, Herbert Adams, Augustus Saint-Gaudens, Daniel Chester French, and John Quincy Adams Ward. Ten garden “rooms” are highlighted by ponds, fountains, and sculpture set off by native plants and seasonal flowers.

One of the myriad organizations that gave structure to the free black community and functioned primarily as a mutual aid association. During its early history, free blacks received minimal benefits from public services and had to provide for their own needs. Beginning in the late nineteenth century, some members were college-educated professionals. Affiliation with the society became a marker of aristocratic status within Charleston’s black community.

While he was called the “Godfather of Soul,” his body of work forms the rhythmic foundations of funk, disco, and hip-hop. He is arguably the most sampled musical artist of all time.

In the late 1800s and early 1900s the area was only land with a dirt road running through it. In 1890 Daniel Burnette obtained land on one side of the dirt road. In 1901 he sold a few lots, homes were built, and the property became known as “Mr. Burnette’s land.” A portion was later traversed by the route of a proposed interurban trolley line between Aiken and Augusta, Georgia.

Headquartered in Myrtle Beach and holding tens of thousands of acres throughout Horry County, Burroughs & Chapin is dedicated to coastal economic development and attracting new businesses to Myrtle Beach and the Grand Strand. The firm is the linear descendant of the business partnership formed in 1895 by Franklin Burroughs and B. G. Collins.

Although Myrtle Beach was not founded in his lifetime, Burroughs dreamed of a coastal resort midway between New York and Miami. He set in motion the building of a railroad to what is now Myrtle Beach, and his sons completed his plan—a major step toward developing the resort. His widow named Myrtle Beach for the plant that thrived there. The Burroughs heirs, along with Simeon Chapin, built a remarkable business that was to include forestry, farming, shopping centers, theme parks, and golf courses.

Burroughs’s work, often compared to that of New England poet Henry David Thoreau, was collected in Best American Essays in 1987 and 1989. In 1989 he was awarded the Pushcart Prize for nature essays. His collection Billy Watson’s Croker Sack appeared in 1991, followed by a paperback edition in 1992. That same year his book Horry and the Waccamaw was published, and it was later reprinted in 1998 with the title The River Home: A Return to the Carolina Low Country.

Burton’s intense interest in the culture and history of the South Carolina lowcountry resulted in three landmark books: South Carolina Silversmiths, 1690–1860 (1942); Charleston Furniture, 1700–1825 (1955); and the critically acclaimed Civil War narrative The Siege of Charleston, 1861–1865 (1970). A dynamic individual with charm, refinement, and an engaging personality, Burton spent forty years as director of the Charleston Museum, retiring in 1972.

In 1927 Susan Butler opened a free library and reading room in Dart Hall, using her father’s books, folding chairs, and two tables. The reading room was open Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays from 5:00 to 8:00 p.m. Dart served as librarian and operated the room with donations and at her own expense until the Charleston Free Library established the Dart Hall Branch in 1931. The Charleston County Free Library and its branches received money from the Rosenwald Fund and the Carnegie Foundation, while the Dart family rented the building to the county for one dollar a year. The Dart Hall Branch opened to the African American public with 3,600 books.

Among her numerous novels, Byars won the most critical acclaim for The Summer of the Swans (1970), the story of a young girl named Sara and her experiences with her mentally handicapped brother, Charlie. This book won many honors, including the John Newbery Medal from the American Library Association. In total, Byars has written more than fifty books, including The Night Swimmers (1980), Wanted . . . Mud Blossom (1991), and Keeper of the Doves (2002).

Formed about 409 million years ago, Caesars Head rises 3,266 feet above sea level on the southern edge of the Blue Ridge Escarpment.

Located in the Midlands, Camden boasts more than sixty well-preserved buildings in its historic district that attest to a rich past and to a lifestyle respectful of that heritage.

These outdoor services of worship held for a week or longer were characterized by the encampment of the participants, often near an established church. The meetings were sometimes accompanied by emotional outbursts and resulted in dramatic conversion experiences.

The Myrtle Beach Area Chamber of Commerce began the festival in 1961 as a means of attracting vacationing Canadian families during their annual winter school break.

In its shallow bays, tides combine the life-giving nourishment of the ocean with the nutrient-laden freshwaters of rivers to make one of the most productive environments on earth.

Destined to become one of the most popular stops on the national steeplechase circuit, the Carolina Cup is among the oldest surviving race meets in America and the largest in terms of faithful fans.

Due to its location, the refuge is home to a variety of plants, animals, and habitat types characteristic of both the Atlantic coastal plain and the Piedmont Plateau. The rolling sandhills and deep sandy soils are remnants of an ancient coastal shoreline of the Atlantic Ocean.

In its modern configuration, Charleston County is a long sliver of land—mainland and islands— bounded at the north and south by the South Santee and South Edisto Rivers. It has existed only since 1882.

Economically, Cherokee was the heart of the “Old Iron District.” The iron industry that had flourished in the 1700s and 1800s was gone by the end of the Civil War. In the 1880s iron production gave way to railroad construction.

In addition to the scenic vistas of Table Rock, Hogback, Caesars Head, Glassy, Sassafras, and numerous smaller mountains, the Cherokee Foothills Scenic Highway passes many of the region’s major waterways.