Hicks: Fire, Hurricane, and Earthquake Disrupt Recovery | 350th Anniversary of Charleston | Mail and Mail – postandcourier.com

Editor’s Note: This is the 30th installment in the Charleston History sequence celebrating the city’s 350th anniversary.

William Ashmid Courtenay was elected the 46th mayor of Charleston in the fall of 1879, campaigning heavily on promises to reform and modernize the city.

His work was cut short from him.

As the 1880s approached, Charleston did not address much of the damage the war had done to it, and a serious fire broke out on King Street in 1876, eventually spreading to St. Philip. More than 100 of the city’s poorest families were left homeless.

Charleston’s finances remained in shambles, as a result of corruption in the Reconstruction Era, and nearly 90% of the peninsula’s water supply was contaminated by leakage from the queens. Diphtheria and scarlet fever epidemics claim hundreds of local lives every year.

National leaders declared Charleston one of the nation’s most disease-plagued cities.

Courtenay pledged to improve the city’s sanitation and water supply and pave more of its roads, many of which were little more than dirt paths. But the key to his victory was the support of the Broad Street bankers, and in particular the attorneys … who will govern Charleston for the next century.

There was some good news. In 1879, construction crews finally finished the large Custom House on the city’s waterfront and began work on the docks to improve the port works. This particular project will aid trade, but the damage caused by erosion of the Morris and Foley Islands will not be met for decades.

The local economy recovered somewhat, giving Courtenay a second term. But as much as Charleston has tried to dig for despair and devastation, nature will not allow it.

In August 1885, a tornado classified by modern scientists as a powerful Category 3 storm hit the city, flooding White Point Park and dumping 6 feet of water into some homes along the battery.

Most of the homes in Charleston have sustained some damage, with almost a quarter of them losing their roofs. It was devastating for the crumbling city and its poor recovery, but an even worse disaster happened six days after the storm’s memory.

On Tuesday, August 31, 1886 – as Walter J. Fraser Jr. described in “Charleston! Charleston!” – the ground shook, a great roar echoed across the peninsula shortly after 9 pm Resident Ellen Heard later described it as “a bellow … wild animals,” And grinding enormous rocks. ” The Charleston earthquake began in 1886.

The first wave of the earthquake was bad enough, but the second shock was even worse. People fled their homes as buildings collapsed across the city. Telegraph lines and trees fell into the streets, and the dust from falling buildings made it nearly impossible for people to see them. When the dust subsided the next morning, no one was sure they wanted it.

The earthquake destroyed or destroyed more than 2,000 homes and businesses – damage was estimated at $ 6 million in an era when the total value of the city was $ 24 million. Nearly 30 people were found dead in the initial clean-up, when more than 100 buildings had to be demolished. In the end, the earthquake resulted in nearly 100 casualties.

Many people became homeless due to the earthquake which, for a while, became almost a tent city. More than twenty years after the war ended, conditions somehow have worsened. It was as if the city’s penalty for leading the country into war would never end.

Cleaning was still in progress as Courtenay’s second and final term expired. He returned to newspaper publishing, and his primary rival was the famous editor of the Charleston News & Courier, Frank Dawson.

An advocate of reviving local ports and railroads, Dawson opposed the former mayor’s policy – in particular Courtenay’s promotion of a farmer / budding demagogic politician named Ben Tillman.

Dawson will not live to see Tillman elected governor. In March 1889, he encounters a local doctor who is believed to have seduced the nanny of his African American family. The two men argued on the street, and Dawson eventually raised his stick to hit the doctor.

The doctor shot Dawson and turned himself in. There were inconsistencies in the story, but the jury acquitted the doctor. Local politics played a role in ruling, but Charleston may have believed the doctors were too valuable to lock up someone.

The way things have been, it seems the city will need all the medical help it can get.

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