Mount Pleasant Magazine Sept/Oct 2013

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Mount Pleasant’ s
Main Street
Then and NowIt stretches just 2.4 miles, from
the foot of the Ravenel Bridge to the intersection
of Ben Sawyer and Chuck Dawley boulevards,
but the story of what is now Coleman Boulevard
reaches back to the earliest days of Colonial
Charles Town.
Georgetown Road was the main thoroughfare
in Christ Church Parish when Robert Mills surveyed the
area in 1825. It followed an old
Native American route that once
brought tribes to the coast to enjoy the ocean’s bounty of
shellfish. These old “Indian” pathways become the roads of
the early colonists. King’s Highway
was established as early as 1650,
when King Charles II instructed the
Colonial governors to build postal
routes linking the Colonies.
Following the American
Revolution¸ newly-elected President
George Washington traveled to
Charleston on King’s Highway during
his Southern Tour. He arrived in the
city on a barge he boarded at Shem
Creek. After his visit, memorialized
in a painting by John Trumbull that
now hangs in Charleston’s City Hall,
colonists often referred to the road as
Washington’s Highway.
President James Monroe also
visited Charleston, accompanied by his
Secretary of War John C. Calhoun, a
South Carolina native.
In the late 1800s, many Charlestonians summered at
Sullivan’s Island. Barges and ferries brought city residents
to the wharf on Hibben Street in Mount Pleasant. From
there, they boarded trolleys that traveled down Pitt Street,
across the Cove Inlet Bridge to the island. Another line,
the Cooper River Ferry, landed at Hog Island – today
Patriots Point – and dropped off passengers for a trolley
which followed old Georgetown Road into the village of
Mount Pleasant, where it continued to Sullivan’s Island.
When the federal government established the Ocean
Highway early in the 20th century, the route followed
much of Old Georgetown Road and King’s Highway. In
South Carolina, it was known as Route 40. When the
‘motor car’ arrived, improvements such as paved surfaces
became necessary.
The opening of the first Cooper River Bridge in 1929 – a
private enterprise financed by the owners of Isle of Palms,
who wanted to bring tourists from Charleston to their island
resort – brought many changes to Mount Pleasant. The
bridge deposited tourists onto Old Georgetown Road, where
a toll booth was located. The bridge offered a shortcut along
the coast, since Highway 17 now crossed the Charleston
peninsula to the bridge and linked up with Route 40.
Previously, Highway 17 turned inland at the Ashley River.
The Great Depression slowed
progress in the Charleston area,
and it was not until the prosperity
following World War II that Mount
Pleasant experienced a growth spurt.
Soon businesses and motels popped
up along Highway 17 as it passed
through Mount Pleasant. Shem
Creek, once the site of water-powered
mills, became a haven for fishing
boats and shrimpers, and the lure of
fresh seafood attracted tourists and
locals to the restaurants on its banks.
Mount Pleasant grew, annexing
land in old Christ Church Parish
and building roads that brandished
the names of town leaders. Old
Georgetown Road received a new
name in 1958: Coleman Boulevard,
after Mayor Francis Coleman, who served the town from
1946 until 1960. The roadway was increased from a two-lane,
18-foot-wide road to four lanes, ranging from 52 feet to 62 feet
wide before connecting to the fork leading to Sullivan’s Island.
A second bridge opened in 1967 that connected to a
new Highway17 bypass, built through the former tomato
and okra fields. The highway drew travelers away from
Coleman Boulevard businesses, and Hurricane Hugo in
1989 proved to be the final death knell for many Coleman
Boulevard businesses.
In the early 1990s, plans were launched to revitalize
Coleman Boulevard. A newer plan continues to transform the
boulevard into Mount Pleasant’s main street.
By PaM GaBrIeL