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ST. GEORGE — The tiny town in northwest Dorchester County might be getting some new next-door neighbors, and more, in one residential influx than it has ever seen before.

If approved by the county, a "cluster" housing development proposed by the D.R. Horton, a national builder, would bring more than 330 new homes and a new zoning designation for roughly 300 rural acres near the "Town of Friendly People."

While the development would land on Sugar Hill Road outside town limits, St. George would provide water to the development while Dorchester County Water and Sewer would provide sewer services, said Kiera Reinertsen, the county's planning director. The development would also add an estimated 100 students to Dorchester School District Four and draw on services and amenities from St. George’s Fire Station Nine, Davis-Bailey Park and the town’s library.

“We’ve never had this many houses come in at one time since I’ve been here,” said Mayor Kevin Hart, who has lived in the town for 35 years.

The 2.8-square-mile town is home to roughly 1,800 residents, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Now the county seat, St. George was originally called George’s Station as a stop along the South Carolina Railroad, now Norfolk Southern. It was incorporated in 1875.

“We haven’t had a housing development like this in this area before. There’s no way we can stop them, but we have to make plans. We won’t know it works until we see how it goes,” Hart said. "... Some want to keep our small-town feeling. It’s a tough battle, and we knew it was coming. You can see the progress coming all way up Highway 78. Harleyville is having the same challenge as St. George.

“We’ve got to hope and pray our best laid plans go well for our little town.”

Described as “America’s largest home builder” on its web site, with operations in 45 markets nationwide and 1 million homes constructed since its inception in 1978, D.R. Horton wants to change zoning for the property for the proposed development from agricultural residential, which allows one-acre home lots, to single family residential (R-1), which reduces lot sizes to a third of an acre.

An historic school built for African Americans in 1925 is restored and reopened in St. George, S.C. as a community center and museum. It will share the stories of those who created it and were educated there.

Painted bright white with a red, tin roof, the St. George Rosenwald school in Dorchester County looks new. Inside, former student Clara Britt is excited to sit behind a small, wooden desk again.

“I never thought that this would happen,” says Britt, giggling like a schoolgirl. She’s about to turn 102-years-old.

Sitting beside Britt is former classmate Ordie Brown. He’s 94-years-old and met his wife here.

“She was taking home economics,” says Brown. “They were practicing how to cook. She would give me lunch out the window.”

Brown and Britt are reunited for the reopening of the historic St. George school. After years of fundraising, planning and construction, the restored schoolhouse will now serve as a community center and museum, sharing the story of African Americans denied an education and the hope they found in schools like St. George Rosenwald.

Built in 1925, the schoolhouse is known as a Rosenwald school because it was funded in part by Julius Rosenwald. He was the son of Jewish immigrants who became the president of Sears, Roebuck and Company.

Rosenwald met educator Booker T. Washington in 1911. The founder of the Tuskegee Institute believed education was the key to African Americans breaking free from generations of oppression.

Together, the wealthy business owner and the educator born into slavery, set out to build schools for Black children.

At the time, 90% of African Americans lived in the South. Yet, schools for Blacks were just shacks with merely a fraction of the funding as White schools, if they existed at all.

Rosenwald offered to match funding in Black communities that raised money for schools and got the support of local white schoolboards. The idea was to get communities to work together.

Black families, already paying taxes for white schools, struggled, but came up with the money. They knew education could be life changing.

“If you’re a parent who can’t read or write, you want your kids to be able to that,” says former state Sen. John Matthews.

Matthews is grateful for the education he received at a Rosenwald school in Bowen, S.C. He helped raise money for the St. George restoration.

Between 1917 and 1932, roughly 5,000 Rosenwald schools were built, educating more than 600,000 Black children. Their graduates include civil right activists like Medgar Evers, John Lewis, and Maya Angelou.

Today, 500 Rosenwald schoolhouses remain but many are in disrepair. Former students like Ralph James want to save them.

“We see the progress, that in spite of these things, we tell the story of how persons made it,” says James. “How they were successful in life.”

A retired municipal judge, James attended the St. George school until it closed in 1954. He’s made it his mission to resurrect the schoolhouse and proudly gave a tour during its reopening earlier this month.

James says the six-teacher schoolhouse is one of the largest in the state, repurposed with electricity and bathrooms, amenities that did not exist when he was a student. He points to potbelly stoves and brick chimneys that warmed children who often had to walk miles because there were no school buses for Black children. And, like most Rosenwald schools, the building features tall windows with classrooms strategically placed.

“Because they had no light, they had no power and they didn’t want shadows on their desks,” explains Micah Thompson with the Electric Cooperatives of South Carolina, which helped with the restoration.

Congressman Jim Clyburn joined the tour as a special guest during the reopening. His late wife graduated from a Rosenwald School. He said preserving them pays tribute.

“Making sure that we honor the blood, sweat and tears of those who made this community what it is today.”

The congressman helped celebrate Brown and Britt as members of the school’s first graduating class. Brown spoke about playing basketball for the school with the team making a big tournament. But they’d only played on a dirt court.

“We went to the white high school and asked to practice on a wood floor,” said Brown. “But we were told no.”

Britt, meantime, was smitten with Clyburn.

“I had no idea I would ever meet you,” she said.

But Britt took issue with a banner that read she and Brown graduated in 1950.

“Our class is the class of 49. So, I would like them to change that sign,” said Britt as a roomful of guests erupted in laughter.

And, who’s going to argue? Britt is known as the student who once rode an ox to school to maintain her perfect attendance.

DORCHESTER COUNTY, S.C. (WCSC) - The Dorchester County Council is looking at a proposal to rezone 300 acres of land in St. George through using a new process.

The rezone ask is to allow for clusters of homes and create a high-density neighborhood at the old St. George Country Club property. Monday, the topic appeared on the agenda only as an informational meeting within the planning committee.

Committee Chair Dave Chinnis says the informational meeting a the committee level first is a somewhat new step in the process.

“One of the things that we seem to always do is give everything a first reading automatically. But we also had questions so then we get a second reading, and we ask questions, and we weren’t getting answers. To a third reading, which was ultimately when we were making the decision to pass or not to pass to zone or not rezone something,” Chinnis says.

Walking through that process, Chinnis says the lack of preparation didn’t make much sense to him. Talking with a Charleston County Council acquaintance, he decided to adopt one of their steps for large proposals - like the 300 acres in St. George. Thus, the informational meeting now happens before coming to council, to make future readings and public hearings even clearer on the details.

“I believe this St. George project is probably only the second maybe the third that we’ve had this,” Chinnis says.

Chinnis says this process will hopefully benefit everyone with an interest in a project. At the old St. George Country Club, the land is zoned agricultural, which allows for building houses on one-acre plots. The developer wants to change that to one-third acre plots but is promising to include green space. Chinnis says he’s already been able to nail down what that green space will be.

“I know in this case, we talked about open space being accessible, like community parks, pocket parks, so the people living in this neighborhood can go to their local park,” Chinnis says.

Chinnis says this is only the earliest stage of the major proposal, and there will be three full council readings, including a public hearing in the future. Now, he believes, those discussions will have more answers readily available when the public or council asks questions.

“The public gets input on everything. Sometimes there’s reasonable concerns. A property owner has certain rights, just like the person speaking has rights on their property. That property owner has rights on what they can and can’t do to their property and balancing that is always the challenge,” Chinnis says.

Chinnis says the public hearing for the 300-acre old St. George Country Club re-zone request will be at the St. George chambers, and the date will be posted 15 days ahead of time.

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ST. GEORGE, S.C. (WCSC) - After years of neglect, community leaders and former students of a nearly-forgotten Dorchester County Rosenwald School worked together to restore the historic building to its former glory.

Ralph James and Edith Oldham are extremely proud to speak of their alma mater in upper Dorchester County. It was originally known as the St. George Colored School, and it was the first school that they ever knew.

The schoolhouse was built in 1925. At the time it was known as a Rosenwald School, one of several thousand built for Negro students across the South during the age of segregation.

Booker T. Washington, the founder and president of the Tuskegee Institute, teamed up with Julius Rosenwald, a wealthy Jewish philanthropist of his day, to build thousands of quality schoolhouses for Black children throughout the South. Rosenwald had the deep pockets but he didn’t pay for it all.

James recounted how the school came to be with a lot of support from the local community.

“The people in the community, they donated $2,000. Rosenwald donated $1,500 to each school, but the bulk of those funds really came from fish fries and bake sales,” James says.

The school stood proudly for about 40 years until newer, more modern schools were built during the integration era.

Over time, the Rosenwald School fell into disrepair. Trees and overgrowth hid it from the roadway.

After years of neglect, former students and community leaders worked together to restore the school. Millions of dollars and 10 years later, the school is back and is now a sought-after venue for civic meetings and social events. There are even plans for a children’s museum.

Oldham calls the renovation a gift to the next generation.

“We need the youth to be interested in getting involved. Because this is their history,” Oldham says.

James says the Dorchester County schoolhouse is one of the largest Rosenwald Schools that’s preserved originally in the southeast.

“We’re very happy and proud of that fact that here in the rural area of St. George, you’re able to present a jewel to the state of South Carolina and hopefully, nationally,” James says.

Copyright 2024 WCSC. All rights reserved.

SAINT GEORGE, S.C. (WCSC) - A Dorchester County industrial park in the works for over 15 years is soon to be completed and will provide many more jobs and access to products for the area.

Winding Woods is a 1,300-acre industrial park in Saint George and Port 95 is a private development within the park. Port 95 will serve as distribution and manufacturing centers for different companies.

Crews are anticipating three buildings to be a part of Port 95, but they are currently completing construction on the first two. One of these buildings will be one million square feet, making it one of the largest buildings in the Charleston region.

This giant building can hold anywhere from one to four companies alone. The second building is about 240,000 square feet and will hold just one company.

This project in its entirety cost $100 million and was privately funded. They have yet to lease the spaces out, but Dorchester County Director of Economic Development John Truluck says they have many prospective companies. He said they have had an encouraging amount of people come to scope the buildings out, but nothing has been finalized yet.

Truluck says they are excited for this project to be completed.

“It has sort of been a field of dreams for Dorchester County to build it,” he says, “So it’s always interesting you know, when the first 10 years of this, everything has been below the surface, but now when you start to see something go vertical, it gets exciting, because that’s real and then everybody else in the community can now see it.”

They first broke ground on this project in October 2022 and are looking at anticipated completion at the end of the quarter. This project is a part of Dorchester County Council’s strategic plan to bring more employment and tax base to areas of the county that haven’t seen growth in the past. Truluck also anticipates that the project will bring more products to the county and believes that all of this will help congestion problems on I-26 from people commuting.

“Our whole objective is to bring jobs and investment to parts of Dorchester County that haven’t had that in the past. So, we hope to fill these buildings with, with jobs so that folks that live in Saint George can also work in Saint George,” Truluck says.

Truluck says that while the physical structure is almost complete, it likely would not be until 2025 that these buildings are up and running. He says the buildings are meant to act as shells so that the companies can make the space suitable for their needs. He said this process would probably take a few months after leasing.

Copyright 2024 WCSC. All rights reserved.