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"S" is for State Road

South Carolina From A to Z
SC Public Radio

"S" is for State Road. In 1818, the General Assembly appropriated funds for roads and canals to improved transportation in the state. As part of this larger effort, construction began on a 110-mile State Road, which would connect Charleston with Columbia. The road was not designed to connect towns in the state and, except for Charleston did not enter a single county seat. The project was a true state enterprise, and for the first four years the laborers were direct state employees. Later, in 1823, all work was contracted out. The expensive undertaking was to be paid for with tolls. Plagued by high costs and low income from the tolls, the State Road project was a failure. More than a century later, Interstate 26 would essentially retrace the route of the original State Road.

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Dr. Walter Edgar has two programs on South Carolina Public Radio: Walter Edgar's Journal, and South Carolina from A to Z. Dr. Edgar received his B.A. degree from Davidson College in 1965 and his Ph.D. from the University of South Carolina in 1969. After two years in the army (including a tour of duty in Vietnam), he returned to USC as a post-doctoral fellow of the National Archives, assigned to the Papers of Henry Laurens.