Here’s a pretty empty street somewhere in South Carolina. What is this building and where is it? Send your name, hometown and guess to: feedback@statehousereport.com.
Last week’s mystery, “Shiny floor,” is a 2009 photo in the U.S. Library of Congress by photographer Carol Highsmith. It shows the interior of the U.S. Custom House on East Bay Street in Charleston.
Congratulations to these longtime sleuths who identified the location: Jay Altman and Elizabeth Jones, both of Columbia; Allan Peel of San Antonio, Texas; George Graf of Palmyra, Va.; David Lupo of Mount Pleasant; Pat Keadle of Perry; Don Clark of Hartsville; and Penny Forrester of Tallahassee, Fla.
Peel provided more info on the building: “Its importance lies in the fact that during the mid-19 century, Charleston was one of the country’s busiest port cities, and this historic building is one of only a few of the country’s custom houses that continues to serve its original purpose … namely, to house the offices of government officials who oversee the importing and exporting of goods into and out of the country.
“Construction of this two-story, Roman-Corinthian style building began in 1852, but was interrupted in 1859 due to costs and the possibility of South Carolina’s secession from the Union. After the Civil War, construction was restarted in 1870 and completed in 1879. The building was placed on the National Register of Historic Places on October 9, 1974.”
Graf sent in this interesting tidbit: “In 1903, President Theodore Roosevelt appointed William C. Crum, MD, graduate of the Avery Institute, University of South Carolina, and Howard University Medical School as port collector. Crum was the son of Darius Crum, a German American, and Charlotte C. Crum, a free woman of color. In 1883 he married Ellen Craft, the daughter of the famous fugitive slave abolitionists William and Ellen Craft of Georgia.”
You can learn more about the Crafts in the Pulitzer Prize-winning book, Master Slave Husband Wife, by Ilyon Woo. Andy Brack wrote recently about it here.
- Send us a mystery picture. If you have a photo that you believe will stump readers, send it along (but make sure to tell us what it is because it may stump us too!) Send to: feedback@statehousereport.com and mark it as a photo submission. Thanks.
We Can Do Better, South Carolina!