"Welcome to the Town of ..." a Kiawah Island Travel Page by nomorewars

Initially, my interest in Kiawah Island did not exceed past the ten miles of beachfront & ten thousand acres of maritime forest & tidal marsh. I had learned about Kiawah Island’s status as a haven for sea turtles, grey foxes, deer, & hundreds of species of birds. For this simple reason I fell in love with the island before my eyes were even able to witness this natural wonderland for the very first time.

Leading up to my first visit to the island, I had been studying the history of labor in South Carolina’s Low Country. My searches on the internet eventually led me to Kiawah Island, which, was I initially found to be astounding as I was under the impression the island was nothing more than a resort town. Upon discovering some small tidbits about the island-which grasped my interest tighter than a pair of pliers-I began to concentrate all my efforts on Kiawah Island.

At first I could not find much information on the subject I was studying (labor). All of the available information at the time had to with real estate, shopping, & recreation. The internet proved to be a bust; at which time, I solicited the assistance of the employee staff at the Richland County Library. With their assistance I was able to obtain a little more information than what I originally had, which, in the end, was all I had hoped for.

Generally speaking, Kiawah Island’s history is nothing more than a large amount of private property that has changed hands numerously during the course of its existence. Isn’t this history of all private property, though?

Kiawah Island didn’t start to “develop” until roughly 1950. By this time, however, the original inhabitants of the island, the Kiawah Indians, were completely extinct. The island was owned by the C.C. Royal Lumber Company, a firm based in Aiken, South Carolina, which had purchased the island for $125,000. The company’s primary source of revenue was generated from logging pine trees from the island to Charleston, where it underwent processing for resale. The vast majority of the company’s personnel on the island were poor black & white laborers who, not only worked under strenuous conditions logging trees, but also sacrificed their health building oceanfront property (homes mainly) & logging roads (the predecessors of today’s paved roads on the island). This was the aspect of the island’s history that commandeered my attention.

Much of the island is closed off to tourists, so getting a chance to truly explore the island is impossible. For a fee of $5 (at least in 2003) you could enter the island, but your travels were limited to a shopping center & restaurant. There was also a beach open to the public, which, I hope my pictures will accurately show was absolutely beautiful.