The Town of Bluffton is located in Beaufort County, the southernmost coastal county in South Carolina. It is situated on a high bluff overlooking the May River, a pristine waterway that has strongly contributed to the Town's history and continued success. Bluffton is located just 12 miles west of Hilton Head Island, SC and approximately 20 miles northeast of Savannah, GA. It is also easily accessible from Intrastate Highways 46, 170, & 278 and Interstate 95.
Bluffton SC recently expanded its territory by 32,000 acres through annexation of primarily four tracts of undeveloped land, becoming the fifth largest town in South Carolina (by land area). These recent annexations have created a challenge for government officials and citizens to preserve the Town?s rich historical heritage and character.
The Greenways and Leisure Trails Map on the following page shows the most recent Bluffton Town Limits. Since tracts of land are annexed individually, it sometimes creates pockets of unincorporated land throughout a particular area. Such is the case with the Bluffton. However, the catch here is that Bluffton Township (i.e. ? Fire district) overlays one continuous area of land combining property within the Town limits with the unincorporated pockets of land. Therefore, those who are not within in Town limits can still have a Bluffton mailing address if you are in the Township.
Thus, the Town limits consist of the original one-square mile (Old Town), four primary annexed tracts of land (Shults Tract, Palmetto Bluff Tract, Buckwalter Tract, and Jones Estate), and a number of auxiliary annexations (Bluffton Village, Village at Verdier, Shultz-Goethe Road Area, and Willow Run)
Bluffton SC History
During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the area comprising southern Beaufort County was known as Granville County of St. Luke’s Parish. As the Yemassee Indians had established ten towns with over 1,200 inhabitants in that area, it was considered “Indian Lands.” In 1715, the Yemassee War broke out and after several years of fighting, the Yemassee tribe migrated to Florida, opening the “Indian Lands” to European settlement. In 1718, the Lords Proprietors carved the area into several new baronies, including the Devil’s Elbow Barony that contained the future town of Bluffton.
The Town of Bluffton was eventually built on two adjoining parcels in the Devil’s Elbow Barony purchased by Benjamin Walls and James Kirk. The first homes were constructed during the early 1800s by area plantation owners seeking the high ground and cool river breezes as an escape from the unhealthy conditions present on Lowcountry rice and cotton plantations. Easy access by water provided more incentive for expansion and the many tidal coves afforded excellent locations for residences. The first streets were formally laid out during the mid-1800s and the name of Bluffton decided upon during the same period.
In 1852 the Town was officially incorporated by an act of the South Carolina General Assembly and comprised approximately one square mile. A steamboat landing was constructed at the end of Calhoun Street at this time, which allowed the Town to be a stopover for travelers between Savannah and Beaufort or Charleston.
Within one year of the capture of Fort Sumter, Bluffton became a safe haven for residents fleeing Union occupation of the South Carolina barrier islands. Bluffton was a headquarters for Confederate forces until Union forces on Hilton Head Island ordered the Town’s destruction in 1863. Approximately 60 structures were in the Town before the attack, only the Town’s two churches and fifteen residences remained standing after the attack.
Rebuilding came slowly as few local landowners could still afford the luxury of a summer home in Bluffton. The Town did not experience a true rebuilding until the 1880s, when the Town emerged as a commercial center for Beaufort County. The Town remained a commercial center until the Coastal Highway (US 17) and the bridge at Port Wentworth over the Savannah River were completed, making riverboat trade and travel less attractive. The Great Depression, beginning shortly thereafter, brought the closure of the Town’s prosperity and commercial importance. The popularity of the Town as a vacation spot remained even after its loss of commercial stature. The development of Hilton Head Island, nearby Sun City, and related development have caused a resurgence of commercial activity in the Town.
The Hilton Head Story
In the early 1950s, Joseph Fraser and Fred Hack saw the potential of Hilton Head Island as a vast tree farm. They purchased thousands of forested acres on the island for timber. It was Joseph Fraser's son, Charles, who developed Sea Pines and orchestrated the early growth of the island into a resort community. In 1957, developer Charles E. Fraser broke ground for a new resort in Hilton Head Island?s longleaf pine forests. When Fraser started planning Sea Pines Plantation, Hilton Head was an isolated place and most of Beaufort County was impoverished. But Sea Pines? extraordinary success changed all of that. Within just a couple of generations, Beaufort County was transformed from among the poorest to one of the richest counties in the state. Sea Pines Plantation was the first resort development on the island. Soon, other developments, such as Hilton Head Plantation, Palmetto Dunes Plantation, Shipyard Plantation, and Port Royal Plantation, followed imitating Sea Pines? architecture and landscape. In the 1970s, Hilton Head Island was incorporated as a town. Shortly thereafter, a four-lane bridge was constructed to replace the James Byrnes two-lane swing bridge (1982). The completion of the Cross Island Parkway in 1998, which connects the island's north and south ends via a six-mile stretch of road, is one of the most recent stepping stones in Hilton Head's development. The idea to connect the road dates back to the 1950s with Fraser and his brother, Joe, who were early advocates. The bridge spanning Broad Creek was named in Charles Fraser's honor. Today, more than 30,000 people call Hilton Head ?home,? and more than 2 million visitors flock to the island each year. However, with development came the problem of traffic congestion along Highway 278 (Hilton Head?s main thoroughfare) which remains a problem even today.
By 1974, off-island development began with Moss Creek. William A. Fischel’s concept of “incomplete assignment of property rights” relates to the off-island development pressure occurring in the Hilton Head/Bluffton area (London 1999). In the case of Hilton Head Island, active growth management (1980s) tried to restrict further development in order to protect the island’s amenities. Hilton Head limited development by successfully restricting the number of units and number of bedrooms one could build. Hence, the result of these restrictions is off-island development. Once communities place restrictions on development, the development itself often spills over into surrounding communities shifting growth inland (London 1999). In this case, the “spillover development” from Hilton Head Island directly affects Bluffton.
Recent Annexations
Once Hilton Head Island began to reach the “build out” stage of development, Town of Bluffton officials began to recognize the enormous amount of growth that would soon face the Town. All of the land outside the original “one square mile” of the Town was in the jurisdiction of Beaufort County. Instead of ignoring the growth in the area, the Town began to annex land in order to possess some local control over future development.
In less than five years, Bluffton has grown from a square-mile-town to controlling the future development of more than 32,000 acres (approximately 50 square miles), a majority of which is located five or more miles from the heart of the town. In November 1998, Bluffton annexed Palmetto Bluff (20,660 acres) and Shults Tract (620 acres), in April 2000, the Buckwalter tract (5,600 acres), and in June 2000, the Jones tract (4,400 acres). These properties are shown in figure 3 that indicates how the geographical expanse of the town has grown in the past two years. While today those properties stand as large, undeveloped parcels, they each are a planned unit development with homes, businesses and parkland in their future.
Source Bluffton SC
1 comment:
Just a minor correction to your post: you write that "Beaufort County, the southernmost coastal county in South Carolina..."
Actually, Jasper County is the southernmost county, bordering the Savannah River and the state of Georgia to the Atlantic Ocean.
No biggie.
Mark
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