Discovery Centers offer summer travel options to learn S.C. history 7/30/2009 8:30 PM By DR. TOM MACK Columnist
A frequently adopted resolution during the summer vacation period involves the desire to expand individual horizons through travel.
For area residents seeking the novelty of new places, the relatively recent establishment of the South Carolina National Heritage Corridor offers a variety of options.
Encompassing 14 counties that run roughly parallel to the border between our state and Georgia, the Corridor is divided into four regions. Aiken County is part of Region 3, which also includes Barnwell, Bamberg and Orangeburg counties; Region 2 is immediately northwest of Aiken; it includes Abbeville, Greenwood, McCormick and Edgefield counties.
Each region is graced with a Discovery Center, a special facility that offers tourist information and museum-quality exhibits "designed to entertain and educate visitors on the history of the region."
Located about 30 miles southeast of Aiken on U.S. 78, the Region 3 Discovery Center is housed in a two-story brick building just outside of Blackville. The heart of the facility is a "heritage museum" focused on the role that the railroad played in opening up this region to development.
No community offers a better example of the appropriateness of this focus than Aiken, which was named after William Aiken, the president of the South Carolina Canal and Railroad Co. Our city was laid out in 1834, in a grid pattern designed by Alfred Dexter, the construction supervisor of that railroad.
Current visitors to the Region 3 Discovery Center can experience some of the excitement of early rail travel as they enter the exhibition area through a corridor meant to replicate a rail car; video screens on either side feature scenes of Carolina countryside rolling by.
Beyond that entrance, other railroad-car-sized displays beckon visitors who can trace their progress along a route marked on the floor by tracks superimposed on the carpeting.
To the right and left of each railroad car display are "stops" that focus on a variety of topics, including some of local significance.
There is, for example, a single display devoted to the textile industry, especially the work of William Gregg, who used the New England mill town as a model for what he saw as an ideal community devoted to cotton manufacture; Gregg established Graniteville in 1845.
There are also "stations" or exhibition spaces focused on the Battle of Aiken in 1865; Aiken's heyday as a winter resort and the continuing importance of its equestrian activities; and the building of the Savannah River Site in the 1950s and the concurrent dismantling of the small towns of Ellenton, Dunbarton and Meyers Mill.
In addition to the heritage museum, the Region 3 Discovery Center includes a small theater constructed for viewing short films on the four-county area and a gift shop.
For local residents who have not yet explored Abbeville, Greenwood, McCormick and Edgefield counties and even for those who have, there is a single repository of helpful information on how to plan your visits and make the most of your time, the Region 2 Discovery Center located just off the main square in the town of Edgefield.
The building itself is worth a visit. Indeed, the Center is housed in a 6,000 square-feet, 19th-century farmhouse with a wide, wrap-around porch, built by Capt. James Miller around 1840.
Once the residence of Miller, his wife and six children, the house stood in the middle of extensive property outside the town of Trenton; it was eventually moved in 1992 to Edgefield where it has served its present purpose since 2005.
All visits to the Region 2 Discovery Center begin in the small orientation theater where one can view a short film on the colorful history of the region, which is bordered on the west by both Russell and Thurmond lakes. In fact, Region 2 is sometimes known as South Carolina's freshwater coast.
The video offers a glimpse of the places and people that have contributed to the formation of the region's distinctive character.
For more detailed information on these subjects, the Center houses a museum whose meandering exhibition space traces the history of the four-county district from early settlement to the present.
Using the very latest in curatorial design, the various displays offer a combination of graphic art and interactive video to provide a dramatic context for the encased artifacts.
Among the most interesting items on display is the sword of Francis Pickens, the Civil War-era Governor of South Carolina, whose Edgefield home was eventually moved to the USC Aiken campus. Donated to the Center by Dorothea S. Watson, Pickens's great-granddaughter, the sword was used on ceremonial occasions.
Of considerable value is a collection of Edgefield pottery on loan from the estate of Rietta Boatwright of Ridge Spring.
The 10 pieces of alkaline-glazed stoneware include a jar by enslaved African-American potter David Drake, whose work has attracted international attention and record auction prices since the landmark 1998 exhibition mounted by the McKissick Museum in Columbia. Encased by Boatwright in a custom-made wrought iron cradle so that it could be used as an umbrella stand, the jar bears Dave's signature and the date "1863."
The Discovery Centers are open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday. For more information, visit www.sc-heritagecorridor.org or call 637-1237 in Edgefield or 284-3976 in Blackville.
In both gift shops, one can purchase DVD copies of the orientation films on view in each screening room for $10 each. These short videos highlight the features that make each region distinct.
A Carolina Trustee Professor, Dr. Mack holds the G.L. Toole Chair at the University of South Carolina Aiken.
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