MYSTERY PHOTO:   Stately building with lots of bricks

This stately building should look familiar to some people across South Carolina. Send your guess to editor@charlestoncurrents.com with “Mystery Photo” in the subject line.   Please make sure to include your name and contact information.

Last issue’s mystery

The Feb. 26 mystery, shown at right, is the Dillon County Courthouse, an ornate building smack in the middle of a rural Pee Dee county.

Hats off to several sleuths who correctly identified the building, constructed just over 100 years ago:  George Graf of Palmyra, Va.; Chris Brooks of Mount Pleasant; Tom Tindall of Edisto Island; Cheryl Smithem of Summerville; Bill Segars of Hartsville; and Jennifer Bozard of Charleston.

Tindall provided some background, excerpted from a 1981 nomination for the building to be put on the National Register of Historic Places:  “Dillon County was created in 1910 and this is the only courthouse it has ever had.  It was designed in the Classical Revival style by Darlington native William Augustus Edwards.  He and his firms maintained a successful practice by concentrating on schools, collegiate buildings, and courthouses. Among his major commissions in South Carolina were sixteen standard public school designs prepared for the State Board of Education as part of a statewide program of public-school construction. In addition, his firms designed nine new courthouses—including those in Abbeville, Calhoun,  Darlington, Dillon, Jasper, Kershaw, Lee, Sumter, and York.”

Segars added, “J. A. Jones was the contractor for the beautify building that cost $100,000 when it was completed on October 30, 1911.”

Graf, who correctly identifies just about every Mystery Photo (we can’t remember the last time he didn’t get it right), particularly enjoyed the architecture of the Dillon County Courthouse. He writes, “In my opinion, it is the most eye pleasing edifice that Charleston Currents has used in the mystery photo annals. Whoever was charged with contracting this facility to be built should be in the Dillon County Hall of Fame (if there is one).

“According to dilloncounty.sc.gov, Completed in 1911, the building is one of the few remaining examples of Beaux Arts style and is on the National Register of Historic Places.  According to wikizero, Dillon prospered when the town’s founding fathers granted the railroad to have access through it. Little Rock, a smaller, neighboring town, was the original choice, but residents believed the railroad would do more harm than good.’

• Send us a mystery:  If you have a photo that you believe will stump readers, send it along (but make sure to tell us what it is because it may stump us too!)   Send it along to  editor@charlestoncurrents.com.