Placed underneath the museum’s logo on letterhead, flyers and other promotional materials is what has become an unofficial, oft-repeated slogan for the museum: “Connecting County and College.” If you have attended a museum-related event in the past few months, odds are, you have heard myself or one of our board members insert some semblance of this phrase into our programming. Ultimately, this statement is meant to remind visitors that this museum is theirs, and it also serves to reinforce our overall mission statement.
Beyond that, though, it contains one of the words that I find to be most important when discussing museums in general – connecting. To me, a sure indicator of a good museum is the connection that folks have to the people, ideas, and items showcased within its walls. Museums come in all forms, from art and natural history museums, to a history museum like ours. But no matter the content the museum chooses to display and contextualize, museums as institutions have a duty to connect visitors with the objects they care for and the stories they choose to tell with those objects.
Connecting with the various municipalities and unincorporated areas within Newberry County is one of the top priorities of the Newberry Museum, as we move toward our public opening on December 15. Lately, this has translated to quite a bit of research on my end to understand the past, present, and future of these municipalities. Simply put, as a relative newcomer to Newberry and someone hired to care for and correctly convey its history, I owe it to myself and everyone involved to connect with and fully appreciate each municipality.
This research into municipalities has led me to Howard Woody’s Newberry County edition of the Postcard History Series – namely, “South Carolina Postcards Volume IV.” Digging into this compilation of historical images has been an illustrative look at noteworthy events that served to shape the culture of Newberry County in the 19th and 20th centuries.
A few things I have stumbled upon that I would like to include in this article are as follows:
Old Joe, the fire department’s horse, broke the all-time state record for the 200-yard race in 1911 at Rock Hill. He competed in and won more fire tournaments than any other horse in the state. The Glenn-Lowery baseball team, sponsored by the Glenn-Lowery mill in Whitmire, played games in the Textile League and claimed the championship of the two Carolinas in 1919; they won 65 games in all.
An April 1923 tornado blew the roof off of the high school in Chappells, leveling the walls of the second floor auditorium but thankfully harming no one. More bad luck for Chappells – in 1928, the Saluda River’s flood crested at 29 feet, causing the waters to expand to a width of a half-mile. The water at the Chappells depot was ten feet deep. The sheer force of the water washed away a 60-foot section of the wooden bridge.
In 1925, Willie Pat Boland, 17-years-old and son of C.F. Boland of Little Mountain, won the Southern Railroad’s initial $2,000 Silver Cup for successfully growing the best 10 ears of corn. That next year, he traveled to Washington, D.C. to meet President Calvin Collidge as well as the U.S. Congress.
In Prosperity, P.E. Wise gave 2.7 acres to school district 14 in 1907 for a school wherein African American students would be educated. The district built the school for $100. In 1924-25, the Rosenwald school was built. The Rosenwald grants, given to southern states to build standard schoolhouses for African American students, were matched by local, district, county, and state funds. Most of the frame buildings were utilized until the 1950s.
These are just a handful of facts, stories, and accomplishments I have discovered during my research of Newberry County and the towns within it. It is an honor to get to tell these stories, to both represent and connect with you all, and it is my sincerest hope that we as a museum do it justice.
As research often does, my endeavour into municipality history has raised more questions than it has answered. I am coming to the conclusion that researching the story of Newberry County and connecting with its residents is a lifelong endeavour, and that is fine by me.
If you are interested in donating items to the museum, either financially or via artifacts, or are willing to donate your time by volunteering, please contact me at director@thenewberrymuseum.com or reach out via phone at (803) 597-5215.