Washington Square is a park in downtown Charleston, South Carolina . It is located behind City Hall at the corner of Meeting Street and Broad Street in the Charleston Historic District . The planting beds and red brick walks were installed in April 1881. It was known as City Hall Park until October 19, 1881 (the centennial of the Yorktown surrender), when it was renamed in honor of George Washington . The new name was painted over the gates in December 1881.
8-580: The Fireproof Building , also known as the County Records Building , is located at 100 Meeting Street, at the northwest corner of Washington Square , in Charleston, South Carolina . Completed in 1827, it was the most fire-resistant building in America at the time, and is believed to be the oldest fire-resistant building in America today. After an extensive renovation, the building reopened in 2018 as
16-562: The National Register of Historic Places in 1969, and declared a National Historic Landmark in 1973. The building is currently the home of the South Carolina Historical Society . In 2016-17 the society completed a major renovation intended to modernize all systems, to provide a secure, climate controlled environment for the storage of historic documents, and to provide both an events venue and modern museum space. In
24-572: The South Carolina Historical Society Museum. The Fireproof Building is a two-story masonry structure, set on a tall stone basement with an arcade of round-arch openings and built out brick that has been stuccoed to resemble stone. The building is in the Greek Revival style, with Doric porticoes north and south, and achieves a sophisticated appearance with clean and crisp lines, and relatively little ornamentation. Inside,
32-466: The Confederate general in charge of the city's defenses in 1862-1864. In 2004, the monument had repair work performed to correct a lean that had developed. In May 1901, a bust of Henry Timrod was unveiled in the park. On November 10, 1950 a plaque dedicated to Francis Salvador was dedicated in the park during Charlestons Jewish Bicentenial celebration. In the center of the park is a memorial to
40-732: The Washington Light Infantry. The memorial is made of Carolina gray granite and is a miniature version of the Washington Monument in Washington, D.C. The memorial is about forty-two feet high and is inscribed with the names of important military battles and the names of the unit's dead from the War Between the States. It was unveiled on February 23, 1891. A statue of William Pitt the Elder
48-410: The building has an oval stair hall lit by a cupola. The stone stairs are cantilevered through three stories. The building was built to house the office and records of Charleston County . The contractor, John G. Spidle, built it in 1827 to the design of Robert Mills , the nation's first domestically-trained architect and an early advocate of fire-resistant buildings. The Fireproof Building was listed on
56-461: The summer of 2018 the society reopened the building as a museum dedicated to the history of South Carolina and to the history of the Fireproof Building itself. Washington Square (Charleston) The location of Washington Square once was the site of Corbett's Thatched Tavern. The city square was opened in 1818. Along the east wall of the park is a monument to Gen. Pierre Beauregard ,
64-635: Was once located in Washington Park. The statue was moved to Washington Park from the Charleston Orphan House on Calhoun Street in 1881 and placed on a new pedestal of Fairfield County granite. The statue suffered repeated damage, including a decapitation from a falling tree branch in November 1938, before being moved to the County Courthouse. A statue of George Washington was later installed on
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