At This Spot- The Old Post Office at Store Creek

     SC highway 174 is a two lane passageway through moss covered Live Oaks standing aside Palmetto trees and Edisto Island history as well. In the early days it served as a sandy pathway for those afoot as well as animal drawn wagons.
    
     Even before the early roads were developed, the low country rivers and tidal creeks served as a means of cargo and human transport. At the spot in 1825,
where one of the larger tidal creeks was crossed by this central roadway an early home and store was constructed which subsequently gave name to the waterway as "Store Creek" and the store, "Holmes' " store.

      Before the Civil War, slaves of some of the "good " plantation owners were allowed to grow gardens to provide for themselves, after plantation work was done. What they produced surplus to their needs could be sold for cash at a little market the plantation owners permitted near the intersection of the main road (now highway 174) and Store Creek.
     They sold corn, peas, beans potatoes, rice, okra and pumpkins but were forbidden to sell the long staple Sea Island Cotton since this was a highly profitable crop kept for the plantation owners.
     After the war during "Reconstruction" they were allowed to sell Sea Island Cotton at the market.

      A sawmill operator named Ackerman of Cottageville fabricated rafts and loaded them with lumber, then floated them down the waterways to the head of "Store Creek " where they were offloaded and then disassembled  to be sold to those building houses in the area. Nearby, a cotton gin was constructed and something of a 19th century business district began to flourish.
    
     Eventually a man named Stevens re-opened the store in 1881 and he and his two sons moved a house from Eddingsville with his sons taking over the cotton gin business.

     In the early 1900s  a Bailey married a Stevens and moved in the house and store became known as "Bailey's Store". Thereafter a small one room post office was opened, laying the groundwork for the naming of a restaurant in the distant future. Today a seasonal restaurant called "The Old Post Office Restaurant" is operated for the beach tourists to the island.

     My family has visited the gift shop there and when you walk down to the little Store Creek bridge  and look back, one can't help but consider all the changes that must have happened there yet it would seem to be unchanged somehow.

Reference:
1.  And I'm Glad ... An Oral History of Edisto Island 
     by Nick Lindsay and Julia Cart
2. Edisto Island  1861-2006  Ruin ,Recovery and Rebirth
     by Charles Sagett Spencer