How the Commercial Club in Charleston, SC came to be

The last four decades of the 19th century were not kind to Charleston.

The Lowcountry was reeling from the Civil War, Reconstruction and the occupation of Federal troops, several major hurricanes , the largest earthquake ever recorded on the East Coast , collapse of the rice and sea island cotton industries, and an economic depression that seemed to have no end in sight.

By the dawn of the 20th century, city leaders — especially its young businessmen — were ready to effect a change in their fortunes. One of the ways they sought to do that was with the South Carolina Inter-State and West Indian Exposition of 1901-02. (You can read how that worked out in our column about the Ivory City , published Nov. 25, 2024.)

But that wasn’t the only idea these guys had. On Sept. 27, 1902, just