Edisto Island South Carolina

Edisto Island South Carolina

South Carolina’s best-kept secret. Edisto Island is the ultimate vacation destination and place to move too and live a quite life. Come rent or buy a beach cottage, throw a cast net for shrimp, dip your toes in the surf, or build a sandcastle. Experience the perfect combination of oceanfront beaches, saltwater marshes and Lowcountry oaks draped in Spanish moss.

Edisto SC is a quiet family island-a gathering place to renew the spirit and familial ties. It is a place of little commercialization with responsible development. We place a premium on keeping nature unspoiled in a harmony of friendly people.

Approximately 45 miles south of Charleston and east of Walterboro, coastal Highway U.S. 17 junctures with S.C. Highway 174. From there it is a leisurely 20 minute drive along Highway 174 to Edisto while passing through moss-covered oak archways, past old country churches, working farms and antebellum plantation estates. The Intra-Coastal Waterway at the McKinley Washington, Jr. Bridge marks the gateway to Edisto Island.

Edisto Beach and Edisto Island remains one of the FEW unspoiled beach areas on the East Coast. The lifestyle is fashioned in a Lowcountry profile and the area's appeal is its unstructured atmosphere. Neither permanent residents nor visitors require formality. It is a casual, relaxed, natural feeling that is experienced by all.

Some sources state that Edisto was settled before Charleston, but no records prove or disprove this statement. Records do show that Edisto was purchased from the Edistow tribe of Indians by the Earl of Shaftsbury, one of the original Lord Proprietors, for some cloth, hatchets, beads and other goods in 1674. Rice and indigo were among the first crops planted; however, Sea Island Cotton became world famous. It is reliably stated that the Pope in Rome insisted that his garments be made of Edisto Island cotton.

The cotton industry brought great prosperity to the Island and many of the Plantation owners built magnificent homes and furnished them with the very best of furniture and books. Some of these Plantation homes are still standing. You may take a tour of the Island and view some of these homes if you wish.

Following the end of the War Between The States and the advent of the boll weevil, the cotton industry died and the Islanders started truck farming, shrimping and fishing. Today, tourism is also one of the largest industries on Edisto Island.

Resort development began on Edisto Beach in the 1920s when beachgoers had to time their arrival to coincide with low tide in order to cross the marsh areas by driving on beds of oyster shells. They then crossed over the dunes to the beach and drove along the ocean to their cottages which had no electricity or running water.

Development was slow in the early days and damage from a major hurricane in 1940 destroyed many of the existing homes. Following World War II, development on Edisto Beach began to increase.

Edisto Driving Distances
Charleston SC – 45 miles
Walterboro SC – 45 miles
Columbia SC – 2.5 hours
Charlotte NC– 4 hours
Greenville SC – 4 hours
Atlanta GA– 5 hours

Premiere Edisto Island SC Real Estate Agents