Page Toppers

• Back to the Carolina You Love
• Carolina Day
  (song by Livingston Taylor)
• Carolina I Remember You
  (song by Charlie Daniels Band)
• Carolina in My Mind
  (song by James Taylor)
• Carolina in the Pines
  (song by Michael Martin Murphy)
• Carolina Mine
• Carolina Moon
  (song by Connie Francis)
• Carolina Rolling Stone
• Carolina Sunshine
• Dreamy Carolina Moon
• Goodbye to Carolina
  (song by Lyle Lovett)
• Just a Little Bit South of North Carolina
• Kinfolk in Carolina
  (song by Doc Watson)
• My Carolina Home
• Nothing could be finer than to be in Carolina in the morning
• Smiling Faces, Beautiful Places
• South Carolina on My Mind

South Carolina Symbols

• Nicknames: The Palmetto State; Keystone of the South Atlantic Seaboard; The Iodine state
• Motto: While I Breathe I Hope
• Slogan: Smiling Faces, Beautiful Places
• Songs: Carolina (words by Henri Timrod, music by Anne C. Burgess) and South Carolina on My Mind
• Waltz: Richardson Waltz
• Opera: Porgy and Bess
• Dance: Carolina Shag
• Folk Dance: Square Dance
• Music: The Spiritual
• Popular Music: Beach Music
• Animal: Whitetail Deer
• Dog: Boykin Spaniel
• Amphibian: Spotted Salamander
• Reptile: Loggerhead Sea Turtle
• Bird: Carolina Wren
• Game Bird: Wild Turkey
• Fish: Striped Bass
• Insect: Carolina Mantid
• Spider: Carolina Wolf Spider
• Butterfly: Eastern Tiger Swallowtail
• Tree: Cabbage Palmetto
• Flower: Carolina Jessamine
• Grass: Indian Grass
• Shell: Lettered Olive
• Gemstone: Amethyst
• Rock: Blue Granite
• Beverage: Milk
• Hospitality Drink: Tea
• Fruit: Peach
• Poet Laureate: Bennie Lee Sinclair (Mrs. Don Lewis)

Facts About South Carolina

• Capital: Columbia
• Residents: South Carolinians
• State Name Origin: named after Charles IX of France and Charles I and II of England
• Admitted to Statehood: 23 May 1788
• Order of Admission: 8th state
• Coastline/Shoreline: 187/2,876 miles
• Length: 260 miles
• Width: 200 miles
• Area: 32,020 square miles
• Size Rank: 40
• Number of Counties: 46
• Streams and Rivers: 29,898 miles
• Geographic Center: 13 miles SE of Columbia in Richland Co.
• Mean Elevation: 350 feet
• Highest Point: Sassafras Mountain, 3,560 feet
• Lowest Point: Atlantic coast, sea level
• Official Language: English (since 1987)
• Agricultural Products: peaches, livestock, tobacco
• Commercial Products: clothing and textiles, chemicals, metal products, industrial machinery, Portland cement
• Average Annual Rainfall: 51.6 inches
• Average Winter High Temperature: 32-55 degrees
• Record Low Temperature: -19 degrees (21 Jan 1985 Ceasars Head)
• Average Summer High Temperature: 70-92 degrees
• Record High Temperature: 111 degrees (28 Jun 1954 Camden)
• Official Language: English
• More information about South Carolina

Quotes

• I was born and raised on a Carolina sea island and I carried the sunshine of the low-country, inked in dark gold, on my back and shoulders. (Pat Conroy)
• The sweet smell of the South, of Camellias and Azaleas, clings to Beaufort's ancient and historic buildings. (Walter Cronkite)
• What I remember most about Monck's Corner, South Carolina, is leaving it... (William Price Fox)

Items of Interest

• The first American library housed in a separate building was constructed in 1840 at the University of SC in Columbia.
• The oldest formal gardens in the U.S., Middleton Place, was founded in 1740 and took 100 people more than 10 years to complete.
• The first battle of the Civil War took place at Fort Sumter.
• The Thoroughbred Racing Hall of Fame features champion thoroughbred flat racers and steeplechase horses trained in Aiken.
• Sumter has the largest Gingko farm in the world.
• The first boll weevil found in South Carolina is on display at the Pendleton District Agricultural Museum.
• Duncan Park Baseball Stadium in Spartanburg is the oldest minor league stadium in the nation.
• Johnston is known as the Peach Capital of the World.
• The Upper Whitewater Falls is the highest cascade in eastern America; it descends for nearly 411 feet.
• The Edisto River is the world's longest free-flowing "blackwater" stream. "Blackwater" not only describes the color of the tannin-rich water, but also refers to the peaceful rate of flow.

Notable Natives

Some of these people were born here, others just lived a part of their life in the state.

• "Whispering" Bill Anderson - songwriter (Columbia)
• Bernard Baruch - statesman (Camden)
• Clayton "Peg Leg" Bates - lost his leg in an accident at 12 but became a famous dancer, performed more times on the Ed Sullivan show than any other artist
• Mary McLeod Bethume - educator (Mayesville)
• Charles F. Bolden, Jr. - astronaut
• James F. Byrnes (1879-1972) - senator, secretary of state, governor, supreme court justice (Charleston)
• John C. Calhoun - civil rights leader (Calhoun Mills)
• Chubby Checker (1941- ) - singer, entertainer, best know for The Twist (Spring Gulley)
• Mark Clark (1896-1984) - Army general in WWII, president of the Citadel (Charleston)
• David Robert Coker (1870-1938) - agriculturist who helped create better cotton plants.
• Beth Daniel - professional golfer
• Alex English (1954- ) - basketball player (Columbia)
• Joe Frazier (1944- ) - boxer, heavyweight champion 1970-1973 (Beaufort)
• John Birks "Dizzy" Gillespie (1917-1993) - jazz trumpeter (Cheraw)
• Althea Gibson (1927- ) - first African American woman to win Wimbledon and U.S. National tennis championships (Silver)
• King Haiglar - Catawba Indian who befriended early Camden settlers
• DuBose Heyward - poet, playwright (Charleston)
• Charlayne Hunter-Gault - journalist (Due West)
• Andrew Jackson (1767-1845) - U.S. president (Waxhaw)
• Jesse Louis Jackson (1941- ) - civil rights leader (Greenville)
• "Shoeless" Joe Jackson - baseball player
• Eartha Kitt - singer (North)
• Henry Laurens - political leader
• Francis Marion aka "Swamp Fox" (1721-1795) - Revolutionary War general (Berkeley county)
• Robert Evander McNair - governor (Cades)
• Ronald McNair - astronaut (Lake City)
• Robert Mills (1781-1855) - designed the Washington Monument in Washington D.C. (Charleston)
• Julia Peterkin (1880-1961) - Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist
• Joel Poinsett - diplomat
• John Rutledge - supreme court justice (Charleston)
• Strom Thurmond - politician, in 1954 he became the first US senator elected by write-in vote (Edgefield)
• Charles Hard Townes - physicist (Greenville)
• Bill Voiselle - pitcher, only major league baseball player to wear his hometown name on his uniform, from Ninety Six, SC and wore number 96
• William Westmoreland - general, army chief of staff (Spartanburg)
• Vanna White (1957- ) - television personality (Conway)

You know you are from South Carolina if...

• There ain't no such thing as "lunch." There's "dinner" and then there's "supper."
• Sweet tea is appropriate for all meals, and you start drinking it when you're two.
• "Backards and forwards" means, "I know everything about you."
• There is a Dairy Queen in every town with a population of 1000 of more, except for Orangeburg which has Dairy-O.
• You know that going "barefootin" is one of the great joys of life
• You think everyone from a bigger city has an accent.
• "Vacation" means going to Myrtle Beach.
• Out of state friends beg you to send them fireworks
• You know at least three places to get great fried chicken
• You've taken a road trip to South of the Border - and it wasn't Mexico
• You buy your groceries at Winn-Dixie
• You know someone who works at Hooters
• You actually get these jokes and pass them on to other friends from South Carolina.