Ask the most diehard lover of South Carolina geography where Kingville is and you will likely draw a blank stare. The tiny little rail stop in Lower Richland County on the edge of the Congaree National Park has literally dropped off the map, at least most road maps. All that's left of a town that once supported two schools, a church, two cotton gins, and a general store is a lonely rail junction surrounded by forest and a small green sign acknowledging that a community once existed here.

Kingville got its start back in 1842 when the very first rail spur in South Carolina was constructed from Branchville to Columbia. At that time it had an "s" on King but over the years the "s" just disappeared.

The town owed its existence to the fact that it was the first piece of high ground the rail spur came to in Richland County after crossing the Congaree Swamp. It must have been a monumental job bridging the Congaree River, clearing the right away across three miles of river swamp, then constructing the elaborate network of trestles holding up the rails. In this pre- dam era, mighty "freshets," as floods were called back then, would periodically sweep down the Congaree, causing damage to the bridge and the rail line.

Stationery from the 1850s shows the Kingville Hotel. Kingville really got a boost in 1848 when it became a junction after the rail line to Camden was completed. By the 1850s, Kingville had grown to the extent that it supported the Kingville Hotel to house and feed overnight travelers. The little rail stop saw its share of well- known people pass through in the 1860s, including the famous Civil War diarist Mary Boykin Chesnut and Confederate President Jefferson Davis. One of the biggest happenings at Kingville occurred in September 1863, when General James Longstreet's First Corps, Army of Northern Virginia, 12,000 men in all, came through to provide reinforcements for Braxton Bragg's army at the Battle of Chicamauga.

Kingville and the rail line that fed it suffered greatly from Sherman's march through the area in February 1865. The hotel and railroad support facilities were burned and much of the track was turned into "Sherman's neckties" by heating the middle of the rail and wrapping it around a tree.

The town slowly rebounded after the war. Cotton production increased and rail traffic picked up. But "freshets" continued to bedevil the small town. The great flood of 1908 was especially devastating. The far bigger threat, however, was the 20th century, with its automobiles, better roads, the boll weevil, and out migration. By the 1930s Kingville had been reduced to a rail junction supporting the Holly Hill Lumber Company sawmill.

Sam Watson, a retired English professor, has fond memories of Kingville from the 1940s and 50s, just before it faded away to nothing. At that time the town consisted of his aunt and uncle's house, a general store, and the Holly Hill sawmill. His Uncle Utsey ran the general store that catered to the railroad men and sawmill operators. Sam grew up in Orangeburg, and in those days the train would actually make stops in Kingville. As with many rural communities of that era, "running" water came out of a pitcher pump and the only power came from a "Delco plant" - a kerosene- fueled generator that charged the batteries to run a few light bulbs.

Sam's memories of the Kingville general store sound like recollections of country stores everywhere in those days - shelves stocked with work clothes and other dry goods, canned goods and coolers with meats, cheeses, and soft drinks. The town's single gas pump was out front - the kind that had a glass cylinder where you first hand- pumped the gas into it before opening a valve that dispensed it into the container or automobile.

It's hard to believe now as you stand by the lonely railroad tracks that Kingville was ever anything but a rail junction. But on an overcast winter afternoon in the fading light, sometimes you can hear the high pitched whine of Holly Hill Lumber Company saws spitting out lumber; the whistle stop of a steam locomotive taking on water; the soft conservation of passengers on the hotel front porch; and the ghosts of 12,000 Confederate soldiers enroute to bloody Chicamauga.

For sharing their information and memories of Kingville, I thank John Grego, Mark Kinzer, and Sam Watkins.

(Next week: Sparkleberry Swamp)