Charleston Chapters

Off-the-wall, odd balls, odd halls, odd calls have all given Charleston a full tank of cranks, pranks and eccentricities.  Charleston is historically unique, with a distinctive culture affected by its diverse melting pot and its significant role America's colonial, antebellum and modern history. There's no place like Charleston, and here are some reasons why.

Fights against boozing were always a recipe for losing in the Charleston area, despite some inventive efforts to make this waterfront city high and dry. Charleston has been through several eras of prohibition, and was the last state to use the mini-bottle. But no matter what methods were made to curb imbibing, spirits in Charleston were always thriving.

 Shaping Charleston's character has largely been by design that durable and curable, in the form of clay beds turned to brick, lime and sand mixed as stucco, and a panorama of pastels that is the most photographed in town. Rainbow Row is one of the historic city's most acclaimed names, and in its multi-colored majesty, tells how its famous facades have become a major must for visitors.

 The origins of our curious collection of coastal cognomens come from a diversity of backgrounds and cultures, and often offer and energetic exercise in elocution. The diversity of backgrounds in Charleston and surrounding coastal South Carolina since its colonial beginnings has produced some very unusual names that often are as confusing as they are amusing

What has shone light for so many nights in Charleston history has a singular history that is doubly delightful. The landmark lighthouses and channel markers that guided seafarers for generations have a host of intriguing details, including one ingenious concept that kept one sentinel intact in two different locations. 

Scouring mud banks, ocean bottoms and sand flats for incredible aquatic edibles has long been a Charleston tradition. Bringing home the catch has not been an easy task historically, but the results are perpetually palate pleasing. Some hands-on methods have renmained unchanged for many generations, and forged a kindred spirit among those who, in some cases, literally scratched for a living.

Tales of Charleston rails in varying scales that had the city on a centuries-old roll. The longest section of passenger rail line in the world once began in Charleston, and since those early locomotives, the city has chugged its way into the future along tracks that brought fortune and opened up the city and the South Carolina coast to a new era in transportation infatuation.

 The heights and depths of ingenuity that doused Charleston’s damnable flammable dilemma that had caused a long history of burning disasters

 The monastic majesty of Mepkin, the wondrous water at Healing Springs, and the towering cypress cathedrals in area swamps make for a tangible spiritual awakening along the South Carolina coast near Charleston.

Each Spring, the pristine expanses of Cape Romain host a renewal of South Carolina's most vulnerable and precious species with the nesting of shorebirds and loggerhead sea turtles. Barren beaches and windswept sand flats provide a rugged haven for creatures that hang on by the barest of necessities.

Ship building has had a distinguished legacy in Charleston, with vessels made of wood, iron  and steel. From the row galleys of the Revolution, to ironclads during the Civil War, and powerful destroyers the helped win World War II, Charleston-made ships have embarked on victorious voyages throughout a notable sea-faring history of this historic port and waterfront city.

Historic Charleston's surfeit of spooks and spirits has made visitors rave over tantalizing tales beyond-the-grave. And with an abundance of colonial graveyards and historic buildings and alleys, the ghostly glare seems everywhere. Haunted hideaways are a classic attraction in this colonial city.