City history books don’t tell much about the daily lives of early 1900s citizens. We can’t prove they jumped in the Edisto to cool off, but you know they did – the men, anyway.

In the more than 90 degrees F. heat, the boys and even old guys couldn’t resist finding a secluded spot, skinning off shirts and pants and crashing into that smooth, cool, water.

But many of the era’s ladies and some of the men disliked swimming in the swamp’s colors.

According to Reese Earley, retired public works director, the cry for a public pool grew, and in the early 1920s, City Fathers acted. By the summer of ‘21, the parking lot across from what is today Edisto Memorial Gardens held a 50-foot by 100-foot concrete swimming pool. It sat above the ground with a long, covered pavilion on the street side.

Young and old splashed, raced and played tag. Bikinis were a half century away, but the style for women did reveal legs protruding from upper-thigh-length pants and shoulders from wide button straps. No bare chests had ever appeared except in Orangeburg High boxing rings. Men’s “suits” also covered the upper torso and hips.

Hundreds came every summer day for 10 years, but the slightly colder and constantly flowing river continued to appeal to some locals, Reese says. They kept going down to the banks, where the Art Center is, for Sunday picnics or a cool dip.

At last, a river beach

Eventually, the City Council realized the inevitable, creating Edisto Bathing Beach about 1925. A wide sandbar was spread along the shore of the little curved inlet below the site of the Art Center. They painted the shady cypress trunks white to keep bugs away and built wooden benches, where mamas, fathers and nurses sat to watch children.

Gene Atkinson, who has researched and collected extensive local history, tells how a handsome, white, two-story Pavilion stood above the beach by 1928. By 1930, the old pool sat abandoned.

More improvements came to the river every year, including a broad sandbar ideal for sunbathing about 100 yards upstream, a platform across from the Pavilion that proved a challenge against the current for new swimmers and a rope under the bridge at the end of the area. Many swam across to the platform, jumped off the nearby diving board, then floated to the rope. There, they hung on to let the swift current massage their bodies.

Every year more motor boats passed through daily, obeying the only traffic law – to slow down in the bathing area. Oh, how the drivers reigned from their throne-like perches as they putt-putted by!

World War II called away hundreds of mature swimmers, but the fun and frolic went on.

Post-war fun and changes

During the war, the river’s popularity (free admission always) proved a godsend for gas-rationing adults who might have driven their families to the shore. H.A. “Hinchie” McGee, local businessman and lifetime River Beach lover, holds it in loving memory.

“I rode my bike down there to play ‘half rubber’ ball every day. We lined up spread apart, then dug little holes in front and placed small half balls in them. One guy was ‘it.’ He would dash up, snatch your ball, then as you tried to run, throw it at you. If it hit, you became ‘it,’” McGee said.

At the war’s end, the wooden Pavilion had been stomped nearly to ruin. The City hauled the old boards away and in 1950 built a stately white masonry building in its place. In these years of segregation, another beach park especially for African Americans was developed on a long stretch of shallow water just on the other side of the 301 bridge.

McGee also tells about Mrs. Skip Mulch, wife of Harry, who opened a home bakery here in the early ‘60s. An accomplished swimmer and instructor, she started classes for youngsters less than a year after arriving from New Jersey.

“She tolerated no nonsense,” McGee recalls. “The five or six pupils per class had to stand facing her as she taught us to float on our backs. ‘Little kids have little fat and don’t float well,’ she would say sharply. She would hold her hands under our heads a few seconds, tell them how to arch our faces and backs, then slowly take her hands away.”

“By the end of a week, she had us dog paddling. Two weeks, we were swimming across the river and back. By the end of the third week, we were breast stroking and even frog stroking,” he added. “If a child didn’t learn fast enough, she worked with him or her after class.”

“Skip kept at this 25 years. There must be a thousand Orangeburgers who can recall her lessons,” McGee said.

Big, big news

The 1970s brought improved streets, lighting, recreation, etc. to the city. Organized baseball and other sports flourished. In contrast, the great popularity of the river began dwindling. Reese says many swimming pools opened at clubs, in towns and through organizations. Swimming down at the river gradually lost all popularity. The City closed it down in 1975 and soon began development of the Arts Center.

But local love of the sport did not die. In fact, the $9 million Orangeburg County Aquatic Center is now under construction on 10 acres Orangeburg County owns just past the Municipal Golf Course on St. Matthews Road.

“Fabulous” may not be too strong a word to describe what it will offer – three swimming pools, including one for tots; a heated indoor, Olympics-size pool; and a major pleasure pool with two water slides. An outdoor stream will wind off the major pool with little floats to ride to the tots’ pool.

Other sports facilities planned include a full-size gymnasium for basketball and other games, a fully equipped, state-of-the-art fitness room and group exercise room. If you want to go swimming without your small children, a “child watch” service is to be available. A membership fee will cover regular attendance, and a ticket for one day will also be offered.

The Aquatic Center is being financed by Orangeburg County’s penny sales tax, and the facility is expected to be paid for when it opens next April. The Columbia YMCA has been contracted to operate it.

No question, the county’s 100 years of public swimming has grown to amazing possibilities. Get ready to enjoy it all.

T&D Correspondent Thomas Langford can be reached by phone at 803-534-2097. Discuss this and other stories online at TheTandD.com.

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