Most visitors to Charleston never venture far enough north to discover what residents claim as the most appealing public open space on the peninsula. Hampton Park is completely unexpected in this city famous for highly manicured gardens with clipped lawns, sculpted shrubs and precise designs hidden behind massive walls and iron gates. Hampton Park's naturalistic character was created as an antidote to the cramped conditions of the lower peninsula, and it still offers open fields of grass, walking trails, shade trees and overflowing flower beds. But the story is not that simple--it began more than three hundred years ago with Native Americans and involves early plantation life, Revolutionary War battles, horse racing, the Civil War, industrial development, civic spectacle, professional baseball, a zoo and disco.

Charleston's "freedman's cottages" are some of the most understudied and undervalued vernacular buildings in the city, found as far south as Council Street and as far north as North Charleston. Though these cottages have long been associated with African American history and culture, they in fact extend much further into the history and development of Charleston and deserve to be studied and understood. The predominant theory is that these tiny houses, often no larger than five hundred square feet, were constructed by and for freed slaves after the Civil War, due to a rising need for inexpensive housing. Who occupied these houses over time? What were their lives like? Most of them were ordinary citizens to whom we can all relate. Each one of these houses has at least a hundred stories to tell, many of which have been uncovered and recounted here.

Hobcaw Barony is a beloved 17,500-acre plantation and wildlife refuge on the South Carolina coast between Charleston and Myrtle Beach.

CHARLESTON SALT & IRON South Carolina Publisher, Lydia Inglett Publishing,announces the pre-sale of their new book: CharlestonSalt and Iron by Wendy Nilsen Pollitzer, author if theaward-winning, South: What it means to be here inheart or in spirit.

In 1681, Boone Hall Plantation began its long history in the Lowcountry. From the Boone family through the McRaes, the plantation's residents, black and white, all left a significant imprint upon the land as the plantation survived two wars and became the longest running brickyard in the area.

Atlantic Beach, once a mecca for African American vacationers in Myrtle Beach and other East Coast communities during segregation, remains one of a few African American-owned and governed oceanfront resorts in North America.

Located in the West Ashley area of Charleston, Byrnes Downs is a charming community designed and developed by the V-Housing Corporation in the 1940s. The Long Construction Company built this successful war-housing project of 360 houses that became the lifelong homes for many families.

The stretch of land known as "East of the Cooper," featuring the charming town of Mount Pleasant, is interwoven with innumerable waterways; these waters pulsate with the ebb and flow of tides like a network of arteries, veins, and capillaries connecting to the living heart that is the sea.

Many claim that the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad was the first in the United States, but in reality the Charleston & Hamburg was the first to provide regular service to passengers when it opened its doors in Charleston, South Carolina, on Christmas Day 1830.

In 1911, the Charleston Colored Industrial School opened its doors to 375 African American boys and girls, making it the first public high school for African Americans in the city of Charleston.

These great plantations are symbols of the South and days gone by. Today perhaps only a hundred along the coast and another hundred inland remain.

Boasting one of the oldest lighthouses in North America and the most working lighthouses today, South Carolina has a long seafaring history. In 1767, the Morris Island Lighthouse was built at the entrance to Charleston Harbor, and before 1860, there were lighthouses in Georgetown, Cape Romain, Bull's Bay, and Hunting Island. During the Civil War, all lighthouses on the eastern coast were darkened. Many were destroyed.