Horse-drawn streetcars and electric trolleys might seem like quaint vestiges of the obsolete past, but the debut of Charleston’s street railway in 1866 marked the beginning of a golden age of local mass transit. Since traffic is currently a major issue in the Lowcountry, and May is Mobility Month, let’s take a spin through history on a streetcar named “Progress.”

Today marks the centenary of one of the biggest public disturbances in Charleston’s history—the “race riot” of 1919. Late on Saturday, May 10th, young white sailors fueled by racial hatred roamed the city, smashing property and spilling blood as they went. It was an ominous beginning to what became known across the United States as the “Red Summer.”

The human remains discovered at the Gaillard Center construction site in February 2013 are returning to an earthly repose this weekend. As celebrations commence to honor those thirty-six people of African descent, let’s review the history of that burial site in search of clues to help us understand who they were and how their final resting place was forgotten.

In the climax of his dramatic story, Abraham’s efforts to bring hope to the garrison at Fort Loudoun ended in tragedy and despair. While assisting his comrades at Fort Prince George, Abraham dodged Cherokee bullets and flying tomahawks, and then rode like the wind through a gauntlet of Indians to carry news of frontier violence to the provincial government in Charleston.

Once a remote and desolate beachfront, Sullivan’s Island has developed into a bustling and chic destination since the first summer residents camped there in 1791. That transformation could not have happened without the aid of ferries, mule-powered street cars, and electric trolleys that carried weary people from the mainland to the invigorating island surf over the past two centuries.

Following the colonial army’s stinging, chaotic battle with the Cherokee in late June, 1760, Abraham carried devastating news back to the provincial government in Charleston. Over the next several weeks, he shuttled repeatedly between the capital and the frontier as South Carolina struggled to continue its war against the Cherokee and to find a means of rescuing the distant garrison trapped at Fort Loudoun.

Have you ever wondered what it was like to ride a steamboat from Edisto Island to Charleston around the turn of the twentieth century? Today we’ll board the steamer PilotBoy and make that journey with a young man who later wrote a charming description of the sights, smells, and sounds of that by-gone experience once treasured by generations of islanders.

As South Carolina shudders between the extremes of peaceful diplomacy and bloody warfare in the summer of 1760, the epic travels of Abraham the express rider continue along the knife edge between safety and danger. His great skills as an intrepid backwoodsman may have secured his freedom, but now they threaten to propel him into the vanguard of the frontier violence.

The death of Ellen O’Donovan Rossa, a poor Irish widow, in Charleston in 1870 might have gone unnoticed by the world, but for the international notoriety of her, incarcerated son, Jeremiah. His reputation inspired local Irishmen to memorialize Rossa’s mother as an expression of respect and solidarity. Their efforts were thwarted by the hands of time, however, as Ellen’s grave remains unmarked today.

Stricken with smallpox, Abraham convalesced in Charleston in the late winter of 1760 before embarking on another round-trip journey carrying official messages through the dangerous Cherokee territory. Having witnessed grotesque scenes of death and misery both in town and among the frontier forts, Abraham returned to Charleston to see the wheels of government slowly turning towards the legal confirmation of his freedom from slavery.