SC Historical Society Museum
Immerse yourself in the history of South Carolina!
Although founded in 1855 as an archive and private manuscript repository, the South Carolina Historical Society opened its first museum open to the public in September 2018. The new space pairs personal manuscripts, maps, and artifacts with innovative technology as visitors experience illuminating moments in our past.
The newly remodeled, repurposed Fireproof Building is the home of the Historical Society headquarters. The National Historic Landmark houses a new, state-of-the art museum with interactive exhibits that showcase South Carolina history, culture, and arts. Designed by Robert Mills and constructed between 1822 and 1827, the Fireproof Building is believed to be the first of its kind constructed in the United States.
Highlights:
- Informational exhibits.
- Self guided tours.
- Wheelchair accessible.
The museum is closed Easter Sunday, Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve, New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day.
Riley Waterfront Park & Pineapple Fountain
The Charleston Water Taxi departs from the dock here! Relax on the large dock swings, see dolphins in the harbor play, admire the amazing view of the Charleston harbor and get a photo by the iconic Pineapple Fountain.
The park received the 2007 Landmark Award from the American Society of Landscape Architects and the National Trust for Historic Preservation. This award “recognizes a distinguished landscape architecture project completed between 15 and 50 years ago that retains its original design integrity and contributes significantly to the public realm of the community in which it is located.”
The location of the park, between Vendue Range to the north and Adger’s Wharf to the south, had historically been a center of maritime traffic with several wharfs and shipping terminals. The area entered a long period of decline, capped in June 1955 by a fire at a steamship terminal at the site.
By 1980, the site was an “overgrown area marred by charred pilings and gravel parking lots.” Mayor Joseph P. Riley, Jr. began making plans for a park on the site soon after taking office in 1975 after whom the park is named.
Rainbow Row
Rainbow Row is the name for a series of colorful historic houses in Charleston, South Carolina. The houses are located north of Tradd St. and south of Elliot St. on East Bay Street.
It is referred to as Rainbow Row for the pastel colors used to paint all of the houses. It is a common tourist attraction and is one of the most photographed parts of Charleston.
After the Civil War, this area of Charleston devolved into near slum conditions. In the early 1900s, Dorothy Porcher Legge purchased a section of these houses numbering 99 through 101 East Bay and began to renovate them. She chose to paint these houses pink based on a colonial Caribbean color scheme. Other owners and future owners followed suit, creating the “rainbow” of pastel colors present today. The coloring of the houses helped keep the houses cool inside as well as give the area its name.
Common myths concerning Charleston include variants on the reasons for the paint colors. According to some tales, the houses were painted in the various colors such that the intoxicated sailors coming in from port could remember which houses they were to bunk in. In other versions, the colors of the buildings date from their use as stores; the colors were used so that owners could tell illiterate slaves which building to go to for shopping.
Powder Magazine Historic Site
Completed in 1713, The Powder Magazine is South Carolina’s oldest government building. The building was used as an arsenal from 1713-1748 and during the American Revolution in order to defend the city. After 1780, it was retired, and by the early 19th century, it was privately owned. During this period, The Powder Magazine served as a print shop, livery stable, wine cellar, and carriage house.
In 1902, The National Society of The Colonial Dames of America in The State of South Carolina purchased the building, saving it from demolition. Within a year, it was opened to the public. Today, it is a museum where you can explore colonial military history in the last standing component of Charleston’s original fortifications.
Pounce Cat Cafe
Children under the age of 12 are not allowed. If your group has 8 or more people please call ahead.
What you receive: 1 hour at the Cat Cafe along with one non-alcoholic beverage per person.
Pounce Cat Cafe is a place where you can come to enjoy freshly brewed coffee or tea, sip on wine or craft beer, snack on delicious pastries, and cuddle with adorable (and adoptable!) cats. We’ve teamed up with our local shelter, Charleston Animal Society, to provide our cats, so if at the end of your visit you’ve fallen in love with your new feline friend, you can take them home with you!
Visits to the cafe are $15 per person and include 1 hour in the cat lounge as well as 1 non-alcoholic beverage of your choice to enjoy while you hang out with the kitties. Beverages included with the reservation fee: bottomless non-alcoholic beverages such as coffee, tea, lemonade, and soda. For an additional fee we have wine and beer available. Fresh, local pastries are also available for purchase at the cafe if you would like a snack. Additional time can be purchased at the cafe if the cat lounge is not fully booked for the next hour.
AGE RESTRICTIONS// The minimum age for visiting Pounce Cat Cafe + Wine Bar is 12 years old. A parent or guardian will need to sign a minor waiver for anyone visiting the cafe between the ages of 12 and 17.
CHANGES/CANCELLATIONS: You can alter your reservation date/time by clicking on “Modify Reservation” link in your confirmation email up to 24 hours prior to your visit. You can cancel your reservation up to 24 hours in advance for a full refund.
MAXIMUM GROUP SIZE: Parties larger than 8 people are required to reserve the space as a private event. Not only can large groups be loud and distressing for our cats, they can also be disturbing for other guests who are visiting the cafe during the same hour.
Pitt Street Bridge
An amazing locale to see the Charleston Harbor and view evening sunsets
A bridge at the end of Pitt Street used to span Cove Inlet to connect Mount Pleasant to Sullivan’s Island. When the newer Ben Sawyer Bridge was constructed, the bridge was no longer used. The city renovated the bridge remains by creating a pedestrian greenway with sodded grass and palmetto trees. The bridge extends to roughly 1/2 of the original length, giving visitors a nice view of the surrounding intracoastal waterway. Locals walk, jog, and fish along the bridge. At the end of the walkway, you can see the remains of the old bridge as it extends toward Sullivan’s Island.
Old Slave Mart Museum
The Old Slave Mart Museum, located at 6 Chalmers St., recounts the story of Charleston’s role in this inter-state slave trade by focusing on the history of this particular building and site and the slave sales that occurred here.
History of The Old Slave Mart
The 1808 ban on the United States’ participation in the international slave trade led to a renewed demand for slave labor, which was satisfied, in part, by the creation of a domestic slave-trading system in which Charleston functioned as a major slave collecting and reselling center. The Old Slave Mart Museum, located at 6 Chalmers St., recounts the story of Charleston’s role in this inter-state slave trade by focusing on the history of this particular building and site and the slave sales that occurred here. In the seven decades between the drafting of the U.S. Constitution and the Civil War, more than one million American-born slaves were sold away from plantations in the upper South to work the rapidly expanding cotton and sugar plantations in the lower South.
In Charleston, enslaved African Americans were customarily sold on the north side of the Old Exchange Building. An 1856 city ordinance prohibited this practice of public sales, resulting in the opening of the Old Slave Mart and a number of other sales rooms, yards, or marts along Chalmers, State and Queen Streets. Other Uses Possibly the only known building used as a slave auction gallery in South Carolina still in existence, the Old Slave Mart was once part of a complex of buildings known as Ryan’s Mart that occupied the land between Chalmers and Queen Streets. The complex consisted of a yard enclosed by a brick wall and contained three additional buildings: a four-story brick building partially containing a “barracoon,” or slave jail, a kitchen, and a “dead house,” or morgue. More Recently
Slave auctions at the Old Slave Mart ended in November 1863. The property changed hands many times after the Civil War, and between 1878 and 1937 the building was used as a Negro tenement and as an auto repair shop. In 1938 Miriam B. Wilson purchased the building, which by then, had come to be known locally as the Old Slave Mart, and established a museum featuring African and African-American arts and crafts.
Judith Wragg Chase and Louise Wragg Graves took over the Old Slave Mart in 1964, placed it on the National Register of Historic Places in 1973 and operated it until its closure in 1987. Recognizing the significant importance the institution of slavery has had in Charleston’s history, the City of Charleston acquired the property in 1988.
Old Exchange & Provost Dungeon
Completed in 1771, the Old Exchange Building is a Charleston landmark and the site of some of the most important events in South Carolina history. Over the last two and a half centuries, the building has been a commercial exchange, custom house, post office, city hall, military headquarters, and museum. Previously the property of the British, United States, Confederate, and Charleston city governments, the Old Exchange Building is today owned by the South Carolina State Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution and operated by the City of Charleston.
Admission to the Old Exchange includes a self-guided exhibition on the top two floors of the building and a 25 minute guided tour of the bottom floor cellar, otherwise known as the Provost Dungeon. Docents and other staff members are available throughout the building to share more of the site’s history with visitors of all ages and answer guest questions.
Most visitors spend between 45 minutes and 1 hour on site, though guests are welcome to take as much or as little time as they like exploring the self-guided exhibition.
The Old Exchange is handicap accessible, with an elevator providing access to all three floors of the building. If someone in your party needs to use the elevator to enter the building, please feel free to call us at 843-727-2165 or speak to a cashier, and one of our docents will be glad to assist you.
North Charleston Fire Museum
North Charleston Fire Museum is a remarkable and unforgettable destination for the firefighter in all of us!
Collection
The North Charleston Fire Museum and Educational Center is proud to house the largest collection of professionally restored American LaFrance fire apparatus in the country. With over 20 vehicles in our collection, dating as far back as 1780’s, the North Chareston Fire Museum has become renouned as destination for fire history and the preservation antique fire apparatus. All the pieces in our collection still run and can fight fire just like the day it was produced.
Exhibits
The Fire Museum offers its guests the opportunity to get as close to a fire as possible without getting burned. In addition to our collection of antique fire apparatus, the museum offers hands on and interactive exhibits and theater presentations that children and adults will love. From our “Home Fire Hazard Theater” complete with live smoke to our newest show “Are you an Esacape Artist”, guests to the museum will gain an enhanced knowledge and understanding of the history and science of fire and firefighting.
Nathaniel Russell House Museum
A National Historic Landmark, the Nathaniel Russell House Museum was built over a five-year period and completed in 1808 by Charleston merchant Nathaniel Russell. The house cost $80,000 to build, at a time when the average value of a home was $262. The homes graceful, free-flying, three-story staircase is an architectural marvel with each cantilevered step supporting the one above and below it.
The graceful interiors with elaborate plasterwork ornamentation, geometrically shaped rooms, formal gardens and collection of 18th-century decorative and fine art speak to the wealth of Charlestons elite in the early days of the American Republic. The homes graceful, free-flying, three-story staircase is an architectural marvel with each cantilevered step supporting the one above and below it.
Restored to its original splendor using forensic analysis and cutting-edge conservation technology by our curatorial staff, we ensure the highest standards of old-world expertise to replicate the finishes, fixtures and textiles appropriate for this 200-year old townhouse.
Because restoration is an ongoing process, visitors have the opportunity to see and learn about the meticulous care, craft and consideration that goes into every detail. The 18 enslaved Africans that lived on and maintained the property during the Russell occupancy are an integral part of the history of this one-of-kind house. An exhibit in the original kitchen house features archaeological artifacts, educational panels and stories of the people vital to the history of this property.
