Going Back to the Market

A while back a question was posed to me: “Was the Charleston County Market building, located at Wappoo Road and Savannah Highway, built as a railroad depot and then subsequently used as a market or was it built specifically as a market?” Spoiler answer: A market. This answer did not come easy and only with the help of Ina Bootle.
First, step back to 1889 and into a “little Hand Book” published by the Charleston Bridge Company entitled “A Little History of St. Andrew’s Parish and it’s Adaptability to Early Truck Farming, Dairy Farming, Stock Raising and other purposes.” In this handbook, the Company described how the completion of the bridge once again reconnected Charleston to St. Andrew’s Parish. The Civil War had provided for the destruction of this access, but the “fertile soil, beautiful woodland, river scenery, and historic associations of the parish” had survived the war. The large planation system had given way to truck or market farming and was bringing revenue back to this area. The handbook was even so bold to announce “The city of Charleston is peculiarly well situated as a centre for market farming.”
Fast-forward 50 years to the opening of a wholesale operation for local farmers in the Corbett Package building on Savannah Highway. The announcement by W. McLeod Frampton, president of the Agricultural Society of South Carolina, appeared in the Sept. 3, 1939 edition of The News & Courier. The idea was to centralize market operations for the local farmers and hopefully facilitate profitability for the participating farmers. One can only presume that this concept was successful, for in the March 9, 1941 edition of the News and Courier an article ran with the headline: “New Truck Market Nearing Completion: Building Being Erected for Wholesale Vegetable Sales at Siding at DuPont.” In this article is the answer: “The new building to be used by the Charleston County Wholesale Vegetable Market, which is being put up by the Seaboard Air Line Railway company at its siding at DuPont, will be ready for occupancy within three weeks, it was announced yesterday.”
The building would contain a large packing room, storage area, scale, and equipment for loading and unloading with future plans for refrigerated storage. The market was erected on seven acres owned by Charleston Produce distributors, the owners of the market.
W.H. Mixson, a local seed dealer and a man known for his business sense was in charge of this operation. W. H. Mixson came to this position with some credentials. His brother, Joseph S. Mixson, who had worked for a New York produce firm, approached W. H. Mixson about organizing a marketing operation for the local famers. In 1915, Atlantic Coast Distributors was formed and grossed $75,000 (representing 20,135 packages and 300 acres). By 1926, gross proceeds had reached $1.6 million (representing 425,850 packages and 4544 acres). Truck farming was coming into its own in St. Andrew’s Parish.
In the 1950s, the Limehouse family purchased the market and continued using it for packing and shipping of vegetables. Many a local high school and college student earned their summer income there during the heat of the summer packing season. By 1968, the Seaboard Coast Line Railroad had begun removing tracks. A merger between Seaboard Air Line and Atlantic Coast Line had rendered the 5 miles of track between Dupont Crossing and Charleston obsolete. Today, the building is approached by the West Ashley Bikeway.
 
What is old is new again. With the growing popularity of farmer’s markets, local first, verge gardens, urban farming, and sustainability, should one look at this building and wonder — can we recreate history in a modern version? Want to pursue the idea or just have an interesting farming story? Contact Donna at westashleybook@gmail.com