Old photos of Charleston

Charleston, South Carolina, was founded by English colonists in 1670 as Charles Town, named for King Charles II, and moved to its present site on the peninsula between the Ashley and Cooper rivers in 1680. It became the wealthiest city of the southern colonies, its fortune built on rice and indigo plantations worked by enslaved Africans; it was also the principal port through which enslaved people were brought into North America. The city was besieged and captured by the British in 1780 during the American Revolution.

In the antebellum period Charleston was a centre of the cotton trade and of Southern political life, and the first shots of the American Civil War were fired on Fort Sumter in its harbour in April 1861. The city was bombarded for much of the war and suffered a great fire in 1861 and a severe earthquake in 1886. It declined economically afterwards, which helped preserve its historic core; in 1931 Charleston enacted the first historic-district zoning ordinance in the United States. Its streets are lined with 18th- and 19th-century houses, many with side piazzas, and with the church steeples that gave it the name the Holy City.

Old photographs of Charleston typically show the Battery and waterfront mansions, church spires, Broad and Meeting streets, the market, cotton wharves and the ruins left by the Civil War.

What the photos show

The 176 photographs of Charleston on PlaceWas span 6 decades, from 1863 to 2023. 6 of them were taken before 1980; the other 170 are recent views of the same streets and landmarks.9 spots were photographed more than once, so you can compare the same street, square or building across the years.176 of the photos carry a written caption explaining what is in the frame. Every picture is pinned to the place it was taken, so the map below shows where the photographers stood.