Parking Sparked Six-Year Debate

Last week, the Town of Kingstree celebrated the re-opening of the municipal parking lot downtown. Over the past several months, contractors have made improvements to the 64-year old lot by enlarging it, repaving, and installing numerous planters throughout the space.

Planters are interspersed throughout the renovated and enlarged downtown parking lot.

In 1954-55, the Town of Kingstree entered six projects in the Better South Carolina statewide competition. One of the projects included two new parking lots in the town's business district. Sidney Dubin chaired the overall committee to oversee the projects, while the Town of Kingstree sponsored the parking lots, with Police Chief Billy Britton in charge of getting them established. The lot in the middle of the block surrounded by Hampton Ave., Main, Academy, and Mill streets, was designed for use by merchants and employees of downtown stores and businesses to free up street parking for shoppers. In addition, a second parking lot, no longer used for that purpose today, was created across Mill Street from Town Hall. That lot had a 25-car capacity.

This undated arial photo shows that before 1955, several buildings occupied the lot.

Parking may seem like a modern issue, but it has sparked controversy in Kingstree since at least 1901. That year, The County Record noted, "We understand there is a petition being signed around town, asking the County Commissioners to fence in the courthouse square and not allow people to hitch their horses or drive their vehicles in said yard." The paper went on to note that while this was nice for the town folks, it would be a great hardship on the folks who lived in the country. It concluded, "We scarcely think this step would be advisable at this juncture."

But the idea wouldn't die. The Grand Jury recommended an iron fence be erected around the courthouse square to keep horses and buggies out. The County Commissioners ignored the Grand Jury's recommendation. The Grand Jury expressed its great displeasure at being ignored.

In August, 1903, after the Grand Jury again strongly recommended fencing the courthouse square, a series of letters about the issue began appearing in The County Record, both pro and con. Samuel Singletary, a County Commissioner from the Lake City area, wrote, expressing his opposition to the fence. The county had too many other needs to indulge in such a "worthless expenditure," he said. Besides, the courthouse property belonged to everyone, and "no one should be restrained from hitching their livestock on the courthouse grounds," particularly as there was a scarcity of hitching rooms in town. If visitors to Kingstree could not hitch their horses on the courthouse grounds, they would have to pay 10 cents a stall for the privilege.

Former Sheriff J.D. Daniel wrote to express the opposite opinion. While he agreed with Singletary that the courthouse belonged to all citizens, he said the courthouse square had become a place for "gypsies and squatters to make nuisances of themselves, hanging about, smoking, and trying to sell spoiled fish." He noted that in recent years, he knew for a fact that juries had often "agreed to disagree" in order to escape the odors that wafted through the open windows of the courthouse from the grounds below. The time had come, he said, to landscape the public grounds around the courthouse into a parklike place. 

At this juncture, The County Record had apparently changed its position, agreeing with Sheriff Daniel that something must be done to stop "turning into a cattle pen the precincts of our temple of justice."

And S.B Gordon thought the whole issue should be ignored. He believed that certain residents of Kingstree were pushing the idea so that they could make money by renting out their vacant lots as parking facilities. He said there were far worse things on the courthouse square than horses and buggies, citing drunk men and politicians as prime examples.

The County Commissioners, citing a lack of funds, postponed indefinitely any consideration of an iron fence. They did, however, agree to building a wooden fence in front of the courthouse and accepted the $72 bid of P.A. Alsbrook to do just that.

During the first week of July, 1907, attorney J.A. Kelley in open court asked the judge to direct the Grand Jury to recommend that the courthouse square no longer be used as a hitching post for horses. The Grand Jury included that recommendation and also recommended enclosing the courthouse square with an iron fence so that it would "not be used as a horse lot." This prompted an unsigned letter in the newspaper citing the inconveniences this would occasion. The writer noted that horses could be left at various stables in the area and that a lot owned by W.B. Wilkins could be fitted out with hitching posts. But what if they were all full? Would someone coming to pay his taxes have to stop near the cemetery and ask Mr. Epps if he could stake his horse on his property? The writer suggested that if the courthouse square was fenced, the county should have to provide 100 paved stalls at the rear of the courthouse.

The Courthouse and grounds with iron fencing in front of the square.

This time, though, the tide appears to have turned. The County Commissioners put the iron fence out for bids and awarded the contract to Kingstree Hardware, which had submitted the low bid of $425. Not long afterward, The County Record remarked on the "handsome appearance" of the new fence surrounding the courthouse square.

One wonders if the gentlemen so intent on maintaining their old way of life had any inkling that in just a few short years, they would have to begin to find ways of accommodating a new method of transportation. In January, 1910, Dr. E.T. Kelley became the first Kingstree resident to buy an automobile–a late-model Buick–and shortly thereafter attorney J.D. Gilland followed suit. The County Record noted, "Judging from the exhibitions along the streets, both are quite speedy." And by September, 1910, there were 32 automobiles in the county, compared to only 4 in 1909. And the issue of parking has continued to be an important one.

Three-Story Buildings, Part I: The Gourdin Skyscraper

One of the architectural differences that distinguish small towns from cities is that most buildings in a small town are usually only one, two or three stories tall. In 2019, Kingstree, South Carolina, has only three buildings that are three-stories high. The first of those, built on Main Street in 1904 on a lot which in the 1870s held a mercantile business owned by Edwin Harper, was called during its construction, The Gourdin Skyscraper. 

The "skyscraper" as it looks today.

P.G. Gourdin broke ground for the three-story building across the street from the Williamsburg County Courthouse in April 1904. He expected to complete the building in October, but that deadline seemed doubtful when construction had to cease for a time because the iron beam needed to support the upper stories was long delayed in getting to Kingstree. However, once it arrived, work went on at a feverish pace, and Saul Marcus was able to hold a grand opening for his dry goods store on the ground floor on October 22, 1904. Saul and Anne Marcus would continue to operate their store in this building until July, 1913, when they moved into a new three-story building just down the street.

S. Marcus, painted on the side of the building, is still faintly visible.

In the months after the Marcuses vacated the Gourdin building, the first floor was the used by the community as a place to hold hot suppers or bazaars for the benefit of local churches and civic organizations.

In March, 1914, Dr D.C. Scott used the first floor as a temporary home for his drugstore while he built a new building on the site of his old one on Academy Street. After he moved into his new drugstore, the first floor of the Gourdin building was renovated to house the revived Kingstree Dispensary, the state-run method of dispensing liquor in South Carolina. Williamsburg County had been a "dry" county for a number of years, but voters had, in 1914, agreed that dispensaries could be re-established in the county.

The first floor of the Gourdin Building in 2019.

When the dispensary closed once again with the onset of Prohibition in 1917, the Electrical Supply Company took over the building's first floor, but by February 1921, H.C. Crawford had moved his shoe repair shop into the building. After only a short stay, he moved into one of the W.I. Nexsen buildings down the block, and in September of that year, the Williamsburg Distributing Company moved in. This company was organized to handle field, truck, and garden seeds and plants. C. J. Thompson managed the business, and that September, he was advertising wheat and rye seeds, as well as strawberry plants. I don't know how long this business occupied the building, but in January, 1930, The Coffee Shoppe had moved into a remodeled and renovated first floor.

The County Record, the town's weekly newspaper, leased the second floor of the building, even before it was completed. Problems with equipment delayed their moving in until February 1905. The County Record closed the week between Christmas 1906 and New Year's 1907 to install a new gasoline engine in the smaller building located behind the "skyscraper." The gasoline engine was to run the press, and this necessitated making alterations to the press room as well. By the end of January, 1907, the engine had already ceased to function, much to the dismay of the newspaper staff. However, their dismay at this development was mild compared to the consternation of replacing the press in March, 1912. "We never fully appreciated the power of the press until we undertook the job of lifting to and lowering from a second-story window a five-ton piece of machinery." Even with W.R. Funk and his son, Ernest, lending the news staff a block and tackle to help with the job, the paper was two days late in publishing that week. The paper would do business from that office for almost 20 years.

The addition off the back of the building housed the gasoline engine

use to power The County Record's press.

After the newspaper moved to new quarters, building owner P.G. Gourdin, who had maintained his office on the third floor of the building for many years, moved downstairs into the space vacated by The County Record. Part of the second floor was also used as overflow storage for another member of the Gourdin family. Martha Wolff owned many antiques, some of which she had inherited from the Gourdin and Boyd families, and others that she had collected. According to the January 12, 1929, News & Courier, "When her house overflowed, she stored the excess in a room of the Gourdin building." The paper noted that among these antiques were a Hepplewhite dining table, a Chippendale chest of drawers, and a Duncan Phyfe sofa. She also reportedly had a Stradivarius violin stored in a vault.

The third floor of the building was used by Kingstree Magistrate, Richard Wallace, as his office for several years. In later years, the Woodmen of the World used the third floor as their meeting place. On June 9, 1920, the Loyal Order of the Moose used the Woodmen of the World hall to organize a Moose Lodge with 60 charter members. The Boy Scouts also used the third floor for their meetings. However, in 1929, the Boy Scouts were displaced when the Georgia-Carolina School of Commerce began offering classes on the third floor of the building. The school was directed by Laura Lynch, a former member of the Kingstree High School faculty. Seven received diplomas after completing the seven-month course. The school closed after its first session, and Scout Master, the Rev. John W. Davis, returned the Boy Scouts to the third floor of the building.

The archway which once led to a barber shop and later a pressing club.

The arched portion of the first floor of the building, led to what was used originally as a barber shop. John Mouzon had his barbershop in this part of the building until he moved to the Kellahan Hotel. When Mouzon moved, Jeff Fulton established a pressing club in this space. The pressing club provided services of washing and pressing, primarily men's shirts. On July 24, 1909, a fire which started in the pressing club's quarters endangered the whole building. Fulton had gone home to lunch, leaving a small boy in charge of the shop. A three-burner kerosene stove was left burning, and while he was gone, gasoline came in contact with the stove, causing an explosion. John Mouzon happened to be walking down Main Street toward his shop when he saw the blaze and managed to extinguish it before it caused serious damage. A little over a year later, in October, 1910, another small fire at the pressing club was quickly extinguished, although The County Record noted that "a business such as this is a risk to all other downtown businesses."