The only thing constant is change.
This past weekend I made a trip with the kids to Mt. Pleasant to see a friend. While there, we all had a picnic at Sullivan’s Island park.
Aden and I scaled the hill, the locals refer to as “the Mound”. The Mound was once Battery Capron, built in the late 1800’s to house 16 12-inch mortars. Growing up on the island, my friends and I would climb to the top of the hill with makeshift sleds of cardboard. Despite being repeatedly scratched by brambles and sand spurs all the way down, we do this again and again. The park has changed a lot since I was a kid but it was nice to see there were still scraps of cardboard scattered along the bottom of the Mound for kids to use for this purpose.
After seeing other children do it, Aden picked up a piece of cardboard with the intent of sliding down. About half-way up he chickened out. I don’t blame him. It’s a pretty steep and intimidating climb for a five-year-old. I think I was in the second grade before I got enough courage for my first slide down. I held his hand and we climbed to the top instead. The climb for me was much different. Although steep, the Mound didn’t seem as tall as I had remembered it as a child. Being a foot and a half taller and 20+ years older makes a lot of difference. I wasn’t prepared for the shock I received when I reached the top. They filled the bunker in with dirt! It was now flat on top (about the size of a child’s soccer field).
When I was little, the top of the Mound was enclosed by a 10-foot high fence to keep idiot children, such as myself, from falling over 30 feet to our deaths. The center of this old bunker used to be open - a huge circle arena made of concrete with iron ladders down. Think of looking down on a cistern, though storing liquid could not possibly be the purpose. Scrawny shrubs clung for dear life in the cracks of the concrete. At the bottom, you could see several entryways leading to underground tunnels. I know the bunker housed mortars, but I’m not exactly sure what the purpose was for the open area. Iron doors on the back-side of the Mound allowed entry to the underground tunnels. These doors were usually chained and padlocked to prevent homeless people from camping out in the caverns (or stupid children like me from exploring). The chains on the door and the fence on top were not enough to prevent either from happening, so I guess filling in the cistern-like opening was for the best for safety reasons.
I recently spoke to a friend of my mother’s who informed me our old house had been knocked down and a McMansion stands in its place. I had to go see it for myself, which was the main reason for going to the island. After out picnic, we went to go take a look.
The one-acre of land Mom once owned appears to have been subdivided, though the monolith that’s there now covers a good portion of the original acre. Our backyard neighbors had about ¾ of an acre and the water tower sat on about an acre and a half. The water tower is now gone and the alley along the entire strip of land is now no access. It was hard to see because of privacy fences and new trees how many McMansions were on that strip of land. I think there are four.
While I was trying to take pictures, I ran into one of our old neighbors. Bill Murray now bought the McMansion beside them. (Yes, Caddyshack Bill Murray.) Rumor has it Reese Witherspoon was to buy a house off of Station 18, but changed her mind. The neighbor I was talking to was saying their tiny strip of property is valued at 2 million. Not bad for a retired shrimper. I think the fact they are on the Intercoastal Waterway and have a dock is a major factor in the value. Although they are surrounded by mammoths on every side, they still live the same little house, and it doesn’t seem like they’re leaving. Good for them. Since Hurricane Hugo tore through in ‘89, I’ve seen how the Isle of Palms was raped and pillaged of its land. The far end of Sullivan’s Island is covered in McMansions, though not as bad as IOP. Friends assured me that the town of Sullivan’s Island was keeping a watchful eye on development. After what I saw of the far end of the island, I’m not so sure.
I drove around the island a little. The Edgar Allen Poe library was still housed in Battery Gadsden. The elementary school was still there, though the campus was very different. I tried to find Battery Marshal where my mother’s friend Unice Ware once lived, but couldn’t find it. Everything was different. There used to be vacant lots filled with wildflowers and black-eyed Susans along Ion Avenue near the dunes. You couldn't find a vacant lot now. I hardly recognized where I was.
The kids were complaining how boring driving around was so we headed back into Mt. Pleasant. I’d seen enough anyway. On either side of the causeway approaching the drawbridge there used to be rows of beautiful Oleander bushes. There are now only a few left. My view of the marsh that afternoon was marred by the site of high-income condos on the Mt. Pleasant side. I felt rather depressed.
I always knew I was “home”, when I would see the Cooper River Bridges. It didn’t feel like I was home this time.
Aden and I scaled the hill, the locals refer to as “the Mound”. The Mound was once Battery Capron, built in the late 1800’s to house 16 12-inch mortars. Growing up on the island, my friends and I would climb to the top of the hill with makeshift sleds of cardboard. Despite being repeatedly scratched by brambles and sand spurs all the way down, we do this again and again. The park has changed a lot since I was a kid but it was nice to see there were still scraps of cardboard scattered along the bottom of the Mound for kids to use for this purpose.
After seeing other children do it, Aden picked up a piece of cardboard with the intent of sliding down. About half-way up he chickened out. I don’t blame him. It’s a pretty steep and intimidating climb for a five-year-old. I think I was in the second grade before I got enough courage for my first slide down. I held his hand and we climbed to the top instead. The climb for me was much different. Although steep, the Mound didn’t seem as tall as I had remembered it as a child. Being a foot and a half taller and 20+ years older makes a lot of difference. I wasn’t prepared for the shock I received when I reached the top. They filled the bunker in with dirt! It was now flat on top (about the size of a child’s soccer field).
When I was little, the top of the Mound was enclosed by a 10-foot high fence to keep idiot children, such as myself, from falling over 30 feet to our deaths. The center of this old bunker used to be open - a huge circle arena made of concrete with iron ladders down. Think of looking down on a cistern, though storing liquid could not possibly be the purpose. Scrawny shrubs clung for dear life in the cracks of the concrete. At the bottom, you could see several entryways leading to underground tunnels. I know the bunker housed mortars, but I’m not exactly sure what the purpose was for the open area. Iron doors on the back-side of the Mound allowed entry to the underground tunnels. These doors were usually chained and padlocked to prevent homeless people from camping out in the caverns (or stupid children like me from exploring). The chains on the door and the fence on top were not enough to prevent either from happening, so I guess filling in the cistern-like opening was for the best for safety reasons.
I recently spoke to a friend of my mother’s who informed me our old house had been knocked down and a McMansion stands in its place. I had to go see it for myself, which was the main reason for going to the island. After out picnic, we went to go take a look.
The one-acre of land Mom once owned appears to have been subdivided, though the monolith that’s there now covers a good portion of the original acre. Our backyard neighbors had about ¾ of an acre and the water tower sat on about an acre and a half. The water tower is now gone and the alley along the entire strip of land is now no access. It was hard to see because of privacy fences and new trees how many McMansions were on that strip of land. I think there are four.
While I was trying to take pictures, I ran into one of our old neighbors. Bill Murray now bought the McMansion beside them. (Yes, Caddyshack Bill Murray.) Rumor has it Reese Witherspoon was to buy a house off of Station 18, but changed her mind. The neighbor I was talking to was saying their tiny strip of property is valued at 2 million. Not bad for a retired shrimper. I think the fact they are on the Intercoastal Waterway and have a dock is a major factor in the value. Although they are surrounded by mammoths on every side, they still live the same little house, and it doesn’t seem like they’re leaving. Good for them. Since Hurricane Hugo tore through in ‘89, I’ve seen how the Isle of Palms was raped and pillaged of its land. The far end of Sullivan’s Island is covered in McMansions, though not as bad as IOP. Friends assured me that the town of Sullivan’s Island was keeping a watchful eye on development. After what I saw of the far end of the island, I’m not so sure.
I drove around the island a little. The Edgar Allen Poe library was still housed in Battery Gadsden. The elementary school was still there, though the campus was very different. I tried to find Battery Marshal where my mother’s friend Unice Ware once lived, but couldn’t find it. Everything was different. There used to be vacant lots filled with wildflowers and black-eyed Susans along Ion Avenue near the dunes. You couldn't find a vacant lot now. I hardly recognized where I was.
The kids were complaining how boring driving around was so we headed back into Mt. Pleasant. I’d seen enough anyway. On either side of the causeway approaching the drawbridge there used to be rows of beautiful Oleander bushes. There are now only a few left. My view of the marsh that afternoon was marred by the site of high-income condos on the Mt. Pleasant side. I felt rather depressed.
I always knew I was “home”, when I would see the Cooper River Bridges. It didn’t feel like I was home this time.
posted by Jen at 1:19 PM
1 Comments:
Hello Jen,
I found your excellent blog entry because I was distressed to see Battery Butler/Capron filled in on Google Earth.
I grew up there 1966-74 before moving to Columbia.
We used to ride bicycles down the hill and jump a ditch at the bottom!
There were no fences around the mortar pits then either!
http://scharch.org/Ray_Baer/Weapon,%20Mortar%2012%20inch.jpg
Originally there were 8 of these in Butler/Capron.
We went through every square inch of every fort on the island you could get in.
My stepfather was in the Coast Guard so I got to go inside the lighthouse and after going up stairs, you had to climb a ladder
2 levels to the very top.
Scary but fun for a kid.
We also had a boat and explored the other islands (Capers and Goat) and Morris Island and Castle Pinckney, plus we went inside and to the top of the Morris Island Lighthouse. Very scary and dangerous, with rickety, rusted stairs, but exciting.
I remember at the top lots and lots of dead bird skeletons..(!)
Battery Jasper was the scariest and funnest to explore, with the narrow passages winding down to the magazine. You could only move though them by walking sideways, and we were skinny kids then too.
The 90mm AA gun that is now on Jasper used to be across the street from Moultrie when the NPS brought it to the island; we would sit and play on it in the morning while waiting for the bus to school.
A room below the then SEASEF station to the W of Jasper had plastic replica cannon used in the 1961 centennial reenactment that had long before been smashed to pieces by vandals before we snuck in there once. I remember being really mad because I wanted one to put in my yard!
Several times an uncle came to visit in his Cessna and flew into Isle of Palms airstrip.
We flew over the islands, you could still see the distinctive WWII camouflage pattern paint on the forts next to Sullivans Island Elementary, now on Google Earth very overgrown and no paint visible.
The battery W of the elementary school still had cold war relics laying around from the "atom bomb" scare era, late 40's and the '50s. Civil Defense ration boxes and cans of water were laying around in some of the rooms, along with different papers and civil defense manuals. All the islanders were supposed to seek cover in the forts in case of nuclear attack and they must have had some drills back then.
Around 1967-8 the Marines staged an "invasion" of Sullivan's Island, with landing craft!
For 4-5 days the blue and red teams fought a battle for the island, firing blank ammo constantly and prowling everywhere at night!
Everyone at school was very excited and telling wild stories about what they saw and heard.
Some kid brought a whole belt of blank 7.62 mm machine gun ammo he found to school and thought he was hot stuff.
And he didn't even get in trouble!
We also had C-rations and other cool stuff we found.
Little did we know that these soldiers probably went straight to
Vietnam right after that and many were probably killed or wounded.
Sitting in class at Sullivan's Island Elementary we would almost daily hear massive sonic booms from jets breaking the sound barrier that would shake the building and rattle the windows of the school.
It was only many years later, researching on the net, that I learned these were from F-4 Phantoms racing to intercept and "escort" Soviet TU-95 "Bear" bombers doing recon missions up and down the east coast right on the edge of our national airspace.
Once we had our own private "honeycomb hideout" in one of the magazines at Battery Logan, with a combination lock on the door.
One day the Park Service came and cut it off with bolt cutters.
We got scared and stayed away from that spot for a while after that.
I could tell a million stories about living there.. ;-)
My last visit to Butler/Capron was in 1999 with my g/f ;I took some video on my Hi8 videocam of Moultrie, Butler/Capron (the pits and the bamboo forest on the west side, another favorite hangout), Jasper and driving over the OLD Charleston bridge.
Unfortunately I don't have a Hi8 cam now and it wont display properly in my old regular 8mm (I use digital now). If I can convert it I would love to put some clips on the web; maybe soon.
Best wishes,
Michael C.
Tempe, AZ
Post a Comment
<< Home