Page 89 - Florence County, SC Florence County 2032: Connecting Our Past, Defining Our Future

Existing County | Cultural Resources

This post, organized in May 1919 and
chartered by national headquarters in June
1919, was the first American Legion post in
S.C. Florence County veterans J.D. Smyser,
American Legion 34° 11.816′ N, R.B. Fulton, and N.S. Lachicotte represented
21-29
Post #1 79° 41.467′ W S.C. at the first national caucus. The
American Legion of S.C. held its first state
caucus in Florence in July 1919. A
monument to Florence County WWI
veterans was erected here in 1928.
This house, built as a one-room tenant
house ca. 1890 and later enlarged several
times, features a narrow front porch and
Gregg-Wallace Farm 34° 12.120' N, rear shed addition typical of many tenant
21-30
Tenant House 79° 39.108' W houses on plantations and farms in the
post-Civil War South. Like the families who
lived here, most tenants were African
American.
Wilson School, later Wilson High School,
was the first public school in Florence, and
stood here from 1866 to 1906. At first a
private school for black children, it was
established by the New England Branch of
34° 11.613′ N, the Freedmen’s Union Commission and
21-31 Wilson School
79° 45.957′ W operated by the Freedmen’s Bureau.
Thomas C. Cox, its first principal, later
served as Darlington County sheriff. The
school became a public school after the S.C.
Constitution of 1868 authorized a system of
free public schools.
This Art Moderne house, completed in 1939
for Joseph Maner Lawton, has housed the
Florence Museum since 1953. It was
designed by Sanborn Chase, then an
engineering student influenced by Moderne
Lawton-Chase 34° 11.208' N, architecture in France and later a prominent
21-32
House 79° 46.557' W local businessman. The house features
curved streamlined forms, a semicircular
glass block entrance bay, and black glass
bands just below the roofline. When
completed it was described as “the talk of
Florence.”

Florence County, SC | Comprehensive Plan pg. 88