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Blake Morgan, caretaker of the house at Waverly Place, walks within the gardens of the plantation in Eastover, Tuesday, July 8, 2008. The South East Rural Community Outreach Ministry will get $250,000 this year from Richland County. Its mission is to attract tourists to Lower Richland with a new heritage corridor that includes Waverly Place.
The South East Rural Community Outreach Ministries is putting up five new historical markers in Lower Richland.
They will provide information about Hopkins, Eastover, Minervaville, Kingville and the Harriet Barber House. Additionally, the sign at Horrell Hill will be restored.
The organization is accepting suggestions for other sites for markers. Call Mary Sherrer at 353-0456.
By fall, tourists stopping at the state’s welcome centers will be able to pick up brochures leading them to historic homes, churches and plantations in Lower Richland.
Historic markers, too, will be erected along two-lane highways to resurrect stories in danger of being lost.
Both are efforts to capitalize on travelers who seek history off the beaten path.
Richland County is devoting $250,000 of this year’s $5.2 million tourism budget to a fledgling group, the South East Rural Community Outreach Ministries, which hopes to make Lower Richland more of a destination.
That level of funding makes it one of the top three groups to get county restaurant-tax money, behind the Columbia Museum of Art and Historic Columbia Foundation.
The boost in funding was part of a discussion on County Council about shifting resources from city-based groups to unincorporated areas. No groups’ budgets were cut, however, since the council had money set aside for a failed farmers market.
Last year, the county gave South East Rural Community Outreach Ministries $167,250.
The 3-year-old, all-volunteer group is developing a heritage corridor, encouraging events to attract visitors and advocating the preservation of buildings, some dating to the 1700s.
“People frequently get here and ask us, ‘What else is there to do in the local area?’” said Congaree National Park superintendent Tracy Swartout, who sits on the heritage group’s board of directors. “There are some interesting sites out here.”
Swartout is convinced people will come to Lower Richland for events like Swampfest — if events are promoted well.
Already, the park gets 150,000 visitors a year, with the festival that is held in October attracting about 2,500 people, she said.
While the national park is the biggest attraction in Lower Richland, other places and events are taking shape as well — from Christmas at Kensington Mansion to Memorial Day at the Harriet Barber House.
“Let people enjoy what we have,” said Councilwoman Bernice Scott, an advocate for the group who said she was “in hog heaven” at a jazz concert at Kensington Mansion, near Eastover, last fall.
“Now that was nice,” she said. “They had lemonade and cakes. It’s a Southern thing.”
Tourists who explore local history are an important part of the 28 million visitors to South Carolina each year, said Marion Edmonds, a spokesman for the S.C. Department of Parks, Recreation and Tourism.
“As we become more of a destination for conventions and meetings and groups, we’re going to have opportunities to showcase that,” he said.
Many of the area’s historical sites are privately owned and not typically open to the public, but organizers hope that will change.
Board member Mary Sherrer, who is associated with Kensington Mansion, is hoping local restaurants will open, too.
Chairwoman Marie Adams said the extra money this year will allow the group to put up more historic markers and do more research on sites that should be included on the National Register of Historic Places.
But the big push for the year will be a promotional package to distribute at the nine welcome centers, she said. “We want to make the public more aware of what’s in the Lower Richland community.”
Reach Hinshaw at (803) 771-8641.
