MYSTERY PHOTO: Lowcountry dawn

Try to figure out where the photographer stood when taking this photo of a sunrise in Charleston.  Alternatively, what’s the photographer looking at through the lens? Extra credit: Answer both. Send your guess to:  editor@charlestoncurrents.com. And don’t forget to include your name and the town in which you live.

Our previous Mystery Photo

Our Nov. 25 mystery, “Interesting brick building,” has been known as the Waring Historical Library since 1969.  Located on Ashley Avenue on the campus of the Medical University of South Carolina, the building originally was the Hoffman Library, erected in 1894 as a gift to Porter MIlitary Academy by the Rev. Charles Frederick Hoffman, rector of All Angels Episcopal Church in New York.  In 1964, Porter merged with the Gaud School for Boys and the Watt School to become Porter-Gaud.

Congratulations to several alert readers who knew what the building was, including Charlestonian Legare Clement who figured it out when walking by the library last week.  Hats off also to:  James McMahon and Steven Stuckey, both of Charleston; Allan Peel of San Antonio, Texas; and George Graf of Palmyra, Va.

Peel also shared more history about the octagonal building:  “According to the library’s web site, its mission is ‘to collect, preserve, and promote the history of the health sciences in South Carolina” and was “named for Joseph I. Waring, Jr., a local pediatrician and medical historian and the first director of the Historical Library.’. Apparently, the library houses some pretty fascinating (and gross!) artifacts, including amputation saws, a box of artificial eyes, bone scrapers, and other horrifying sounding surgical tools like an ‘Artificial Urethral Sphincter’ and a ‘Bermingham Nasal Douche.’ The library also includes the Macaulay Museum of Dental History, which features a collection of dental memorabilia, dental chairs and a traveling dentist’s chest of the Civil War era.

“The site of the building in the photo was originally the Charleston Arsenal, a U.S. Army facility that was seized by South Carolina State Militia at the outbreak of the American Civil War. According to Wikipedia, the Arsenal ‘was constructed in 1841 and served as a storage place for weapons, ordnance, and ammunition for the U.S. Army in antebellum days. The Charleston Arsenal produced a considerable amount of artillery and small arms ammunition during the Mexican–American War and up to the Civil War. During the Civil War, Confederate troops from South Carolina seized the arsenal in late December 1860, and held it for much of the war until it was finally retaken by Union troops when Charleston fell in 1865.’”

• 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.