Securing Our Building’s Future
Did you know?
Aiken, South Carolina, has a long, storied history with trains and railroads that dates back to the early 1800s. It all began when Captain William White Williams, a cotton merchant from Charleston, South Carolina, built a house in western South Carolina where Aiken is today. He began looking for a fast, cheap way to get his cotton back to Charleston and with his business associates, created the South Carolina Railway and Canal Company. The goal was to have a railroad that would go from the cotton fields in Hamburg straight through to Charleston.
The surveyors for the future railroad determined that it was impossible to get any closer than 15 miles out from the cotton fields due to the surrounding steep grade. Captain Williams would still have the additional expenses of hauling his cotton across land by wagon to the train. Luckily, as local legend has it, one of the surveyors was smitten with Captain Williams’s daughter and in order to win her hand in marriage, he found a way to get the railroad directly to Captain Williams’s cotton fields. At the time it was completed in 1833, the railway that traveled from Charleston, South Carolina through Aiken and ending in Hamburg was the the world’s longest railway.
As the town grew, so did it’s recognition around the country as a wonderful place to go during the winter. Aiken became known as the “Winter Colony,” and the place for wealthy New York socialites to travel to to escape their brutal northern winters in the late 1800s. These socialites that traveled to Aiken championed and supported the building of newer, bigger train depot and in 1899, an elaborate and beautiful one was built in the middle of town.
More and more visitors began to flock to Aiken during the winter months, all traveling down to South Carolina by train. One of the most popular visitors along this railway was President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who often passed through Aiken on his way to Georgia for polio treatments. Roosevelt had a mistress who lived just blocks away from our hotel, and when he’d travel down south, he’d have his presidential train stop on the tracks just behind our hotel where he’d get off the train and check in to his favorite suite in the hotel.
Although the railway adjacent to our hotel is no longer used by the presidential train or by the northern socialites of the 1800s, there is still plenty of activity along these train tracks. You may have noticed the work happening along the railroad bed behind The Willcox. The trees and greenery that were on the bank of the railroad tracks have been removed and manmade support was added to the embankment that our hotel sits on. This work, completed by Johson, Laschober & Associates, is work that was vital to the stabilization of our building and to securing it’s future for years to come. Thanks to the City of Aiken and the Historic Railroad Cut Stabilization Project, we can rest assured that our hotel is sitting on the most stable ground possible and is in no danger.
Railroads have a long, storied history in our town and we’re pleased to know that they, like our building, will be in Aiken for years to come. Learn more about the history of railroads in Aiken by visiting the Aiken Railroad Depot—a replica of the original depot that’s located in the exact same spot as the one built in 1899.
