Chimney Sweep in Sullivan’s Island, SC

SULLIVAN’S ISLAND, S.C. (WCSC) - The Friends of Charleston National Parks joined South Carolina’s Sea Grant and the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources for their 36th Annual Beach Sweep on Sullivan’s Island by Fort Moultrie to collect trash from beaches.

Families and community members across the Lowcountry came out to clean and help protect the beaches on Sullivan’s Island, collecting everything from different plastics to cans.

“The mission for today is really just to get everybody out and about connected with nature, connected with the beach, and really participate in cleaning up the areas that we all love and to help keep a beautiful future for our beaches and for our public lands,” Friends of Charleston National Parks Member Amy Meola said.

Since 1988, South Carolinians have come together every third Saturday in September to clear trash from our beaches and waterways, just like the 36th Annual Beach Sweep.

“Everybody laughing, smiling, having a great time. You know, we just need more of that in the world,” U.S. Coast Guard Seaman and volunteer Will Jones said.

Volunteers were given a trash bag, gloves and a trash picker to help them with their cleanup.

“If we keep throwing it on the ground and bringing it to the beach. All the wildlife is going to get sick, and we don’t want that,” volunteer Sebastain Killian said.

Many children participated in the beach sweep, showing that anyone can help make an impact.

“Sea turtles have found a lot of plastic bags that they think are jellyfish and are eating them, and it gets caught in their throat,” Girl Scout volunteer Katelyn Rising said.

“We’re all part of a community, and if our whole community works together, we can stop this nonsense,” volunteer Penelope Killian said.

“Good to teach kids about learning and sharing their community at a very young age. So, they know better when they get older,” Girl Scout volunteer Hannah Mayhew said.

Volunteers collected an entire truckload of trash and debris from the beach.

“It’s nothing to pick up some trash, throw it away, recycle, do all the good stuff. Man, take care of the environment, take care of us,” Jones said.

“You don’t have to be an expert. You don’t need to know about pollution or the ocean. It’s just showing up and taking a nice walk, and just picking up some trash, and it makes a bigger difference than you would think.” Meola said.

“Coming together as a community, doing what we can to preserve the lands and preserve the history that they hold so that they stay intact for future generations,” volunteer Hanna Goble said.

SULLIVAN’S ISLAND, S.C. (WCSC) - A Sullivan’s Island stable that has been abandoned for decades may soon get a new lease on life if a new plan is approved.

The Sullivan’s Island Design Review Board will consider the final designs for the project involving the nearly century-old Fort Moultrie Post Theater on Wednesday.

The landmark has a long history, starting as a military theater. It hosted movie showings, war bond drives and various ceremonies. After the fort was decommissioned in 1947, it became an island asset and later became a private theater that could seat 406 people.

Later, it became a warehouse and has sat vacant for decades.

Cissell Design Studio principal and architect Anthony Cissell hopes to change that by making it into a single-family home while preserving its rich history.

“Our goal with this project is really that when we’re done, this should still look like the landmark building that Sullivan’s Island has known for nearly 100 years,” Cissell said.

However, Cissell said the old building faces modern problems.

“If we were to have a flood right now that were to enter this building, it would damage a lot of the historic woodwork would damage a lot of the spaces,” Cissell said.

That’s why they plan to raise the interior three feet above the surrounding grade.

“There’s a lot of historic wood trim around door openings, and things of that nature that we’re going to be carefully cataloging, moving, and then we’re using in the new design in the same locations wherever possible,” Cissell said.

The current plans have the section closest to the former stage remaining open and as the main centerpiece to the living area.

The entrance to the grand space would also be kept intact, with the original theater doors from the 1930s staying in place, just raised up to protect from flooding.

Cissel said they’re considering applying for the historic tax credit program, which would provide an additional layer of feedback from the state Historic Preservation Office and National Park Service.

BVL Historic Preservation Research specializes in helping its clients take part in that tax program.

“They not only have to sensitively restore the exterior, but they also have to do the interior as well in order to be eligible for the tax credits when all is said and done,” BVL Historic Preservation Research owner and architectural historian Brittany Lavelle Tulla said.

Lavelle Tulla said she’s hoping the project undergoes that intensive process, because buildings like this one are important to the community.

“Sometimes we do see buildings get demolished, and often times it’s not until the building is gone that we understand the power that it has on the street in the situation. The exterior character of that building does have a lot of weight. It’s almost like this anchor on Sullivan’s Island, yes, it pays testimony and it survives as evidence of Sullivan’s Island’s military background, but it also, again, is that unique piece of architecture that keeps Sullivans island, Sullivans Island,” Lavelle Tulla said.

Cissel said he believes that before his team took over the project, the designs were headed in a direction that may have taken away from its unique character and he wanted to reset the goal for the project.

“Let’s stop for a minute, let’s listen to the building and listen to what the building is telling us it wants to be for the next hundred years of its life, and I think that’s what we’ve done,” Cissell said.

A historic marker stands outside the building, indicating that it was completed in May of 1928 at a cost of $19,500.

Cissell said he and the family plan to work with Sullivan’s Island staff to figure out what works best to continue to have some form of historical marker on the property after the project is complete.

Click here to see the design plans in the Sullivan’s Island Design Review Board agenda.

The board will consider final approval for the project on Wednesday.

SULLIVAN’S ISLAND, S.C. (WCSC) - The Town of Sullivan’s Island Public Facilities Committee discussed the future welcome sign onto the island at a meeting on Friday afternoon after facing community backlash against the sign.

The town was asked by the to add a temporary sign on the island to acknowledge the role it played in securing American independence as part of the anniversary next year. The controversy comes from the original idea for the welcome sign to read “The Gateway to Liberty Since 1776” to honor the Battle of Sullivan’s Island during the Revolutionary War.

Some residents pushed back against it, saying it overlooks a painful part of the island’s history. The National Park Service says were forced to quarantine on Sullivan’s Island in pest houses prior to being sold at markets in downtown Charleston.

Committee officials said all of the meetings prior to the approval of that phrase were open to the public, and they encouraged the community to take part in coming up with what the sign was going to say. They said it was only after the approval that they started to receive communications from residents about the disapproval of the sign’s phrase.

A sign with the original phrase had been ordered, but then was put on pause after the town kept receiving community pushback.

Jody Latham is a town councilmember and said she’s mortified that she didn’t think of the entire history of the island when discussing the original welcome sign phrase.

“Once someone brought it up, I was just adamant that I don’t think we could continue,” Latham said. “I couldn’t continue wholeheartedly, and thankfully, we have a very responsive town council, and they listened to what people said.”

With no time limits on public comment during the meeting, many residents shared their concerns about the phrase and offered suggestions for a new slogan that wouldn’t create division amongst the town.

Some new phrases mentioned include “History lives here” and “Revolution and resilience.”

One resident against the original phrase said, “lands hard and fails to recognize the complex, painful part of our history,” and another said it’s “too broad and narrow of a name.”

A resident who supports the original idea said the “focus shouldn’t be on mistakes made” and how the town “should celebrate the importance of the battle that was fought.”

A few residents also said they thought the phrase encapsulated one of the major victories of the town: the Battle of Sullivan’s Island.

Town officials affirmed to the community that the original phrase is now gone and there will be more opportunities for community input moving forward.

“I think we were wrong on this and we need to find better words,” Ned Higgins, town councilmember and member of the public facilities committee, said.

The temporary welcome sign’s phrase is now back on the drawing board with plans for it to go up before July 4 of next year.

Between Hurricane Erin kicking up massive waves and a separate rain system hammering the region with torrential rainfall, it’s been a tempestuous few days for Charleston and the Lowcountry. Now, with the sun back out and a temperature drop forecasted over the coming days, many residents are planning to head to the beach to enjoy the nice weather.

Just don’t be surprised when you arrive if the shore looks a bit different than you remember. Some area beaches have experienced minor erosion due to the recent weather.

A city official of Sullivan’s Island confirmed that the beach eroded over the last week, but said the investigation into exactly how much sand was lost is ongoing. The Isle of Palms also experienced some erosion over the last week.

Folly Beach saw some minor erosion but “nothing compared to past hurricanes,” said Nicole Elko, the president of the Folly Beach-based Elko Coastal Consulting.

Elko works with the city of Folly Beach on maintaining its beaches, and municipal leaders there deferred questions on recent erosion to her.

Elko, who also is the executive director for the American Shore and Beach Preservation Association, said the beach protects Folly from flooding and storm surge — so in that regard, the erosion was according to plan.

“The beach did its job,” she said.

Erosion and accretion are a natural part of the life of South Carolina’s islands, according to the S.C. Department of Environmental Services. The process is generally an annual cycle. Smaller summer waves push sand up the beach and high-energy winter waves suck the sand away.

But that cycle can be disrupted by major hurricanes and abnormally high tides, which can rip away a significant amount of sand in just a few hours. Both of those threats could increase as climate change powers higher tides and stronger hurricanes.

On a larger island like Folly Beach or Isle of Palms, erosion can be costly, as taxpayers must foot the bill for beach renourishment to keep a tourism-based economy thriving. But on smaller spits of land, like Deveaux Bank off the tip of Seabrook Island, a single storm can be devastating.

“During (1979's) Hurricane David, Deveaux Bank essentially completely disappeared," Katie Luciano, a coastal geologist with the S.C. Department of Natural Resources, previously told the paper. The bank was reconstituted a few years later. Luciano said Deveaux appears to have a cyclical lifecycle of about 40-50 years.

"This is a feature that's been mappable since the mid-to-late 1800s," she said. "It has a really dynamic nature to it."

Folly Beach bucks the natural trend. The island loses sand at a much faster rate than it accumulates because of the jetties just outside Charleston Harbor, built by the Army Corps at the end of the 19th century.

Those two long rock piles disrupt the natural current flowing south along the coast, cause shoaling on the north side — and the accretion of sand on Sullivan’s Island, which now has a robust maritime forest as a result — and erosion on the south side, especially along Morris Island and the northern part of Folly Beach.

So now the Army Corps does semi-regular sand renourishment work on the island. The last renourishment project on Folly Beach wrapped up in fall 2024 to the tune of $23 million.

Towns all across South Carolina are rightly gearing up for the 250th anniversary of the American Revolution.

Not one of these towns is having as much trouble with it as Sullivan's Island is.

The island played an important role in this country’s struggle for independence. There, on June 28, 1776 — before the Declaration of Independence was drafted — Col. William Moultrie and his troops famously repelled an attempted British Navy invasion of Charles Town.

So, Sullivan’s Island Town Council, doing its part for the long-planned SC250 campaign, recently decided to add a plaque on its welcome signs … one that proclaims the island a “Gateway to Liberty since 1776.”

You either see the problem immediately — or you don’t. Town Council, uh, didn’t.

Some residents and historians quickly pointed out the language was tone-deaf at best, divisive and disrespectful at worst. You know, seeing as how Sullivan’s Island was also where thousands of enslaved Africans landed in the New World.

As such, critics asked if the sign isn’t a slight to the people who lost their liberty on the island. One even suggested a more accurate slogan would be “Gateway to Bondage.”

Ouch.

Michael Allen, a retired National Park Service historian at Fort Moultrie, says it’s most appropriate to teach people about the battle, but such lessons should put the island in a global context.

It’s like telling the story of Fort Sumter’s role in the Civil War without explaining what that war was all about, he notes.

And Peter Wood, a retired Duke professor who wrote the book “Black Majority,” recently sent a letter to The Island Eye newspaper, explaining the problem.

“South Carolina deserves a place of honor as we mark the 250th anniversary of the American Revolution,” Wood wrote. “Nowhere was the desire for liberty more fervent and widespread — but nowhere was the issue more divisive. The vexing question was: Who deserved new liberties, and what form should they take?”

The "Gateway to Liberty" sign would’ve become an issue regardless, but you have to figure that what’s going on in this country today has added to the tension here.

See, the White House is attempting to whitewash history — and Sullivan’s Island is right in the line of fire. The National Park Service, including Fort Moultrie, is under orders to potentially remove history from its tours, and books from its gift shops, that recount black history … or portray these United States as anything other than a perfectly benevolent land throughout history.

There’s even talk of removing a bench that the Nobel Prize-winning author Toni Morrison dedicated near the fort in 2008 to commemorate the history of the African diaspora on the island.

That’s just cancel culture plain and simple, and it has raised ire across the country. Rightly so.

When this sign issue was brought to the attention of Sullivan’s officials, reactions were mixed. Some didn’t see how marking the battle detracted from anything, while others were absolutely horrified.

As such, council decided last week to send the sign proposal back to its Public Facilities Committee. You know, to perhaps change the verbiage.

Which is a good sign (no pun intended), and which Allen says needs to happen.

“The town failed a critical test: seeking input from all segments of the community," Allen says. "Unfortunately, that outreach did not happen — and both the mayor and council members have acknowledged this oversight. At this point, I suggest using the same thoughtful approach that led to the creation of the Gullah Geechee Cultural Heritage Corridor.”

He suggests a sign that reads “Home of Fort Sullivan, June 28, 1776.” Others have endorsed the slogan “History Lives Here."

For now, it’s probably best to wait and see what the town does. Because Sullivan’s Island officials have given no indication they consciously had ill intentions. In fact, some suggest they'll find a new home on the island for the Morrison bench if the National Park Service is forced to remove it.

Which is an absolutely fabulous idea.

Unfortunately, this has only highlighted the fact that some historical events are much more widely known than others. That’s partly because, in generations past, history lessons were skewed, focused only on the story of some major events, and some Americans.

The folks trying to drag us back to those days of jingoistic propaganda have made a mistake bringing this fight to Sullivan’s.

Because the island has a long, well-known history of rejecting the whims of would-be monarchs.