Well, here we are again. Welcome to the abode, have a seat—no boots on the couch please.
Are you wondering why we’ve gathered here today? That’s simple. We’re continuing the proud tradition of State Facts and Tidbits.
And you thought I’d be here with some bad news.
So sit back, relax, and we’ll continue where we left off. Today’s topics: Mississippi and South Carolina.
State Facts (Mississippi)
In 1902 while on a hunting expedition in Sharkey County, President Theodore (Teddy) Roosevelt refused to shoot a captured bear. This act resulted in the creation of the world-famous teddy bear.
Elvis Presley was born in Tupelo, on January 8, 1935.
Dr. Emmette F. Izard of Hazelhurst developed the first fibers of rayon. They became known as the first real synthetics.
Friendship Cemetery in Columbus has been called Where Flowers Healed a Nation. It was April 25, 1866, and the Civil War had been over for a year when the ladies of Columbus decided to decorate both Confederate and Union soldiers’ graves with beautiful bouquets and garlands of flowers. As a direct result of this kind gesture, Americans celebrate what has come to be called Memorial Day each year, an annual observance of recognition of war dead.
In 1834 Captain Isaac Ross, whose plantation was in Lorman, freed his slaves and arranged for them to be sent to Africa, where they founded the country of Liberia. Recently, representatives of Liberia visited Lorman and placed a stone at the Captain’s gravesite in honor of his kindness.
The first football player on a Wheaties box was Walter Payton of Columbia.
Mississippi suffered the largest percentage of people who died in the Civil War of any Confederate State. 78,000 Mississippians entered the Confederate military. By the end of the war 59,000 were either dead or wounded.
Mississippi has more churches per capita than any other state.
The International Checkers Hall of Fame is in Petal
S.B. Sam Vick of Oakland played for the New York Yankees and the Boston Red Sox. He was the only man ever to pinch hit for the baseball great Babe Ruth.
State Facts (South Carolina)
The City of Myrtle Beach is in the center of the Grand Strand, a 60-mile crescent of beach on the South Carolina coast. In the last 25 years, Myrtle Beach has developed into the premier resort destination on the East Coast.
The first battle of the Civil War took place at Fort Sumter.
Every few years, Irmo has a sighting of some kind of water monster that inhabits Lake Murray. The monster first ‘surfaced’ in 1973 when residents of Irmo and Ballentine saw a cousin of the Loch Ness Monster. It was described in The Independent News in 1980 as “a cross between a snake and something prehistoric.”
Bomb Island on Lake Murray each spring and summer is the home of a very unusual event. Each year thousands of Purple Martins return to this island to roost for the summer. The island has been declared a bird sanctuary and it is quite a sight to watch these birds return to Bomb Island each day around sunset.
Housed in a 100-year-old freight depot, the Cowpens museum is a showplace for relics belonging to the crew of the USS Cowpens, a famous World War II aircraft carrier.
During the Revolutionary War, the almost legendary figure Francis Marion (the Swamp Fox), contributed to the British retreat. Marion and his men would hide in the swamps and strike out in surprise at British troops, only to vanish again into the unwelcoming swampland. British forces finally withdrew from Charleston in 1782.
South Carolina was the first state to secede from the Union. The Civil War began in 1861 at Fort Sumter as South Carolinan troops fired on Federal troops.
Johnston is known as the Peach Capital of the World.
In February 1852 William Burkhalter Dorn discovered the second richest vein of gold in SC history on the site of the present town of McCormick.
Sumter has the largest Gingko farm in the world.
On Nov 2, 1954 Strom Thurmond became the first US senator elected by write-in vote. Thurmond received 139,106 write-in votes to win his seat. He defeated Democratic nominee Edgar Brown, who received only 80,956 votes.