Ashley River Historic District
National Register Listing
Street Address:
Roughly, along the Ashley R. from just E of SC 165 to the Seaboard Coast Line RR bridge, Charleston, SC (Charleston County)
NRHP Nomination
NRHP Boundary Increase Nomination
Record Number:
S10817710158
Description and Narrative:
The Ashley River Historic District is a unique nationally significant cultural landscape comprising 23,828.26-acres bounded by the Ashley River, the Ashley-Stono Canal, and a network of roads established in the late-17th century to connect Charleston with the extensive interior land holdings of the settlers as well as with important Native American trade routes. The district encompasses these roads as well as the buildings, structures, landscape features, and archaeological sites of the late-17th century through the mid-20th century. There are 136 resources contributing to the significance of the district and 68 noncontributing resources. Significant and well-known historic resources in the district include plantations, gardens, vernacular buildings, and country houses that were established along the banks of the Ashley River. However, it also includes the extensive savannas and wetlands that, as locations of major slave settlements, livestock pens and pastures, agricultural fields, and phosphate mining and forestry operations, were essential to the economic vitality of the plantation system. This is a system that was tested and defined during the Proprietary period, firmly established during the Colonial and Antebellum eras, and revived with new industry following the Civil War and Reconstruction which continued well into the 20th century. These tracts of land between the Ashley River to the north, and the Rantowles Creek/Stono Swamp watershed to the south continue to be exploited in the early-21st century for their timber and mineral resources, for their recreational value to equestrian and hunt clubs, and as a major tourist destination. Listed in the National Register September 12, 1994; Boundary increase October 22, 2010.
Period of Significance:
circa 1670 – 1940
Level of Significance:
National
Area of Significance:
Transportation;Architecture;Archeology: Historic - Non-Aboriginal
National Register Determination:
listed
Date of Certification:
September 12 1994
Date of Boundary Increase:
October 22 2010
