They did ultimately get a lease, but initially they got ownership of 17 acres of land from the local utility company. Very poor land, by the way. And they raised about 40 or 50,000 dollars. But they eventually, after a couple of years, just said, “This isn’t gonna work,” and they gave up. That would have been around 1965-’66. In 1966, the state legislature in South Carolina created a commission called the Tricentennial Commission. In 1967, South Carolina celebrated its 300th birthday, and they charged the three metropolitan areas of the state, Charleston on the coast, Columbia in the midlands, and Greenville in the upstate, with each developing some sort of what they call permanent monument to the anniversary. And Charleston appropriately was assigned the first century, 1667.
