The Santee-Cooper Project was designed to create a navigable waterway between Charleston and Columbia. Pineville was located between the two new lakes, Lake Marion and Lake Moultrie.
Editor’s Note: At the request of his readers and in memory of Warner M. Montgomery, Ph. D, we will continue to publish his Adventure Travel stories for the time being.
In her 215-year history, Pineville has experienced three major catastrophes: the Epidemic of 1834, the Civil War and Reconstruction, and the Santee-Cooper Project. The first two destroyed lives and scattered the survivors. The third flooded homes and land, disenfranchising the remaining families.
The idea of connecting Charleston and Columbia with a waterway was first realized with the Santee Canal, which was completed in 1800 and operated until 1850. The canal connecting the Santee and Cooper Rivers ran through Pineville and had an immediate economic impact in the rural community. It fell victim to the railroads and steamships.
Eighty years later, the idea was revised by T.C. Williams, a Columbia entrepreneur and owner of the Columbia Railway and Navigation Company. Taking the Santee Canal several steps higher, Williams envisioned carving two huge lakes out of the swamps and pineland between the Cooper and Santee Rivers and building a waterway for his steam-powered paddlewheel boats between Columbia and Charleston. Since this would require dams and locks to bridge the elevation between the two rivers, he added a hydroelectric plant to his project.
Since the South Carolina Lowcountry was suffering from the lack of rural electrification, Williams’s project received political attention in Washington, and he obtained a federal license in 1926. However, Williams’s dream was shattered by the Depression.
FDR attacked the Depression with his New Deal, and a young legislator in South Carolina, Strom Thurmond, proposed Williams’s project as a way to prime the pump and light the homes at the same time. U.S. Sen. James F. Byrnes joined the lobbying effort for economic recovery of the Old South. The S.C. legislature created the S.C. Public Service Authority in 1934 to construct and operate the Santee Cooper Hydroelectric and Navigation Project.
The Roosevelt Supreme Court set aside law suits by private power companies in early 1939. Objections by landowners were swept aside earlier by local courts. In April 1939, the largest land-clearing project in U.S. history began. Men, mules, and machines moved into Pineville.
The federally-stated purpose of the Santee-Cooper Project was to
• Provide affordable electric power,
• Develop the Santee, Cooper, and Congaree rivers for navigation,
• Reclaim and drain swamp lands,
• Improve public health,
• Reforest the watersheds of the rivers.
The state added its own objectives of
• Treating and transmitting water,
• Providing recreational uses of Lakes Marion and Moultrie
• Managing water and controlling floods on the lakes and rivers
• Fostering economic development
• Protecting the environment, plants, and animals
• Providing a publicly owned utility for the citizens of South Carolina.
Little did the people of Pineville realize the impact Santee-Cooper would have on their lives. Plantations would be demolished, farmland would be flooded, cemeteries would be moved, and families would be displaced.
Loading Comments