People who visit Charleston on vacation are often surprised to find out how much of Charleston is built on former wetlands. I explain on my walking tour that the peninsula was once ringed with marshes and mud and interlaced with tidal creeks that were gradually filled in. This picture below is just to the west of the foot of King Street, along an area of the Ashley River once called South Bay, and the original western wall of White Point Garden can be seen at the right. Beginning in 1911, the city, with the generous donations of Andrew Buist Murray, began filling to the west of White Point Garden with a grand thoroughfare that would become known as Murray Boulevard. Where the boat is in the picture is now approximately the southwest corner of the Sumter House, a condominium built as a hotel in the 1920’s.
