Aerial.America.S02E03.South.Carolina
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00:00South Carolina. It may be the smallest state in the South, but it's played a giant role
00:07in the history of the nation. It was here where European settlers and African slaves
00:13turned marshes into fortunes of rice, where the first shots of the Civil War were fired,
00:20and where new industry has transformed a small northern town into the Detroit of the South.
00:28Central South Carolina journeys across landmarks of the Revolutionary War, through a vast cypress
00:34swamp that once was the refuge of a famous American freedom fighter, and down the colorful
00:40streets of what may be the most elegant city in the nation, to explore the true spirit
00:46and rich history of the South.
00:53From a stunning coastline, where hurricanes strike with deadly force, to a little-known
00:59island that turns new recruits into America's Marines.
01:07This is South Carolina.
01:23The
01:47coast of South Carolina is one of the most loved on the eastern seaboard. But it wasn't
01:53always this way. In 1562, twenty-seven French sailors were dropped off here with orders
02:01to start a colony. But life was difficult, and food supplies scarce. So the settlers
02:08attempted to flee back to France on a homemade ship. It was a horrific journey, on which
02:14many of the men perished, and others resorted to cannibalism to survive.
02:25The British had more success. In 1670, England's King Charles II gifted the land of the Carolinas
02:33to eight of his noblemen. Soon, a group of English settlers arrived on a storm-tossed
02:38ship named Carolina to start a colony here. They named their first settlement Charlestown
02:45after their king.
02:56Writer Pat Conroy has said that Charleston is a feast for the human eye, but also a dark
03:03city with secrets as powerful and beguiling as its elegance. Charleston may be an elegant
03:17city today, but it hasn't always been. In 1923, while working on the Broadway show Run
03:24and Wild, composer and pianist James P. Johnson made Charleston a household name around the
03:29world. The Charleston was one of the definitive dance tunes of the 1920s. But at the time,
03:39the city was already showing signs of its age. Many 18th century buildings, including
03:46these, which stood in the heart of Charleston's former commercial district, were falling into
03:51disrepair. After the Civil War, plantation profits plummeted, and many wealthy landowners
03:59had a hard time maintaining their properties. As a local saying goes, the owners became
04:06too poor to paint, but too proud to whitewash.
04:12In the 1930s, a preservationist named Dorothy Legge wanted to see if she could turn things
04:17around. She began restoring two of these historic buildings, which date from the 1700s. Soon,
04:26years followed. The owners decided to paint their houses the colors of the rainbow to
04:32help draw attention to Charleston's rich architectural history. Today, these iconic
04:39buildings are known around the world as Rainbow Row. From its earliest days, Charleston's
04:46history and many of its residents have been just as colorful as its streets.
04:56Charleston's location, surrounded by water at the mouths of the Ashley and Cooper Rivers,
05:02made the city and its port particularly vulnerable to invaders from the Atlantic.
05:09In the early 1700s, the infamous Blackbeard plundered vessels anchored in Charleston Harbor,
05:15holding their cargo and passengers for ransom. Blackbeard escaped capture in South Carolina,
05:22but another equally colorful pirate named Stede Bonnet wasn't so lucky. He was brought
05:28to justice here in Charleston's Battery Park, overlooking the harbor.
05:35Stede was an unlikely buccaneer. Some called him the Gentleman Pirate. He was once a wealthy
05:42landowner in Barbados, but legend says that marital problems drove him to a life of crime.
05:49He bought an old sloop, named it Revenge, and plundered vessels up and down the East
05:55Coast before he was finally captured in the Carolinas.
06:01On December 10, 1718, Stede was brought here to White Point Gardens to face the gallows.
06:09His body was left hanging for four days as a warning to others who might have been considering
06:14a life of piracy.
06:21In later years, forts were built to protect the city from pirates and the Union Navy.
06:28Starting in 1841, 70,000 tons of New England granite and other stone were sunk in Charleston
06:34Harbor to make Fort Sumter. It was one of a series of key fortifications along the eastern
06:40seaboard. Little did anyone know, the first attack on the fort would come from Charleston
06:47itself.
06:50On April 12, 1861, Confederate forces stormed Fort Sumter and fired the first shot of the
06:57Civil War, or as it's called in the South, the War Between the States.
07:05Guarding the harbor today is the USS Yorktown, America's oldest aircraft carrier. It's docked
07:16here at Patriot's Point, one of the world's largest naval and maritime museums. Commissioned
07:24in 1943 and nearly as long as three football fields, the Yorktown is the fourth U.S. naval
07:30ship to bear that name.
07:33The previous Yorktown was lost at the Battle of Midway during World War II. This one was
07:41renamed in its honor and took part in several important Pacific theater campaigns, including
07:46the Battle of Iwo Jima and later in Vietnam, earning her a total of 16 battle stars.
07:55In December 1968, the carrier made history when she served as the recovery vessel for
08:00the Apollo 8 Command Module and her astronauts, who returned to Earth after completing NASA's
08:05first manned lunar orbital mission.
08:08On the Yorktown's deck stands an F-14A Tomcat, one of the most powerful fighters in the history
08:17of the U.S. Navy, and the E-1B Tracer. Dating from the 1950s, the E-1B is mounted with an
08:25early warning radar dome that was used by the plane's four-man crew to find and track
08:32enemy aircraft.
08:37Today, Charleston Harbor is also home to one of the busiest container cargo ports in the
08:46country, second only to New York on the eastern seaboard. The port is located inside the mouth
08:52of the Cooper River to help protect freighters from the hurricanes that batter the coast.
08:58With its wide, deep natural harbor and high-tech train system, this port can move cargo and
09:04ships faster than any other in the United States.
09:09But to get here, ships have to pass under this marvel of modern engineering. The Arthur
09:16Ravenel Bridge soars 570 feet above the Cooper River. Its road decks are suspended high off
09:24the water to make way for the world's largest freighters. Named after U.S. Congressman Arthur
09:30Ravenel, Jr., the bridge's main span is more than 1,500 feet long, making it the longest
09:37cable-stayed bridge in North America.
09:43Building the Ravenel was a major engineering feat. Its location makes it vulnerable to
09:49a host of potential catastrophes, so engineers had to take every measure to make it fail-safe.
09:57They drilled 240 deep shafts into the riverbed for the bridge's main footings, and they encased
10:03each support tower in a one-acre rock island built with more than half a million tons of
10:08stone. These features ensure that the bridge can withstand everything from 300-mile-per-hour
10:16winds to magnitude 7.4 earthquakes, and even impact collision with the world's largest
10:24ships.
10:26Today, the Ravenel is a crucial link in South Carolina's highway system. It offers travelers
10:32from Charleston fast access to some of the state's greatest treasures. The stunning beaches
10:38and barrier islands that line its coast.
10:44This 60-mile-long beach is called the Grand Strand, and stretches from Georgetown right
10:51up to the North Carolina border. At its heart is South Carolina's most famous coastal town,
10:58Myrtle Beach. It's home to just 30,000 winter residents, but to hundreds of thousands during
11:05the summer months. They turn this sleepy winter town into a vacation mecca, packing
11:12high-end hotels and golf courses and campgrounds.
11:20The pace of development on this stretch of beach has been rapid. Just over a century
11:25ago, it was largely uninhabited, and for good reason. Up until the end of the 19th century,
11:33swamps made it hard to even get to the coast, and sandy soil conditions and low crop yields
11:40made farming here difficult. To top it off, storms battered the beach.
11:49No one knew the difficulties of farming and survival here better than a family called
11:54the Withers. In the mid-1700s, they'd received large land grants along the coast, and cleared
12:01forests to make fields. But in 1822, the gift of that property turned to tragedy when
12:09a hurricane swept the home of Robert Withers into the ocean. Eighteen people had sought
12:15refuge in the house from the storm, but fourteen of them drowned. After Withers watched the
12:21storm carry away his wife and five children, he abandoned the land his family had held
12:27here for generations. Coastal forests reclaimed his fields, and the area remained largely
12:35uninhabited.
12:39That is, until a lumber baron arrived with a vision that would transform miles of pristine
12:44coastline into the popular towns and beaches they are today. It started after the Civil
12:52War, when a businessman named F.G. Burroughs built a lumber mill nearby. Burroughs logged
12:58the longleaf pine trees that still grow abundantly here. He started laying railroad tracks across
13:06the swamp to get his timber onto ships and transport it up the east coast. Burroughs
13:13died before the tracks were completed, but his sons finished his work. Soon, vacationers
13:21were hitching rides on the lumber trains to reach the beach.
13:25In 1901, the Budding Resort had its very first hotel, the Seaside Inn. Long since demolished,
13:33the inn was at the center of what's now downtown. That same year, a contest was held to give
13:40the up-and-coming town a proper name. Burroughs' widow proposed naming it after the myrtle
13:46evergreen shrub that grew along the shore. She won the contest, and the name Myrtle Beach
13:54was born. At the turn of the century, empty lots here
13:58were purportedly sold for just $25 a piece. Today, they can be worth millions, even though
14:05the beach they're on is shrinking. Studies are showing that parts of the Grand
14:12Strand lose up to eight inches of beach every year to erosion. Every few years, the state
14:19spends tens of millions of dollars to replenish the beach. Offshore, a dredge gathers sand
14:25from the bottom of the sea and sends it to a pumping station. Here, giant pumps deliver
14:31the slurry of sand to shore via steel pipes. Once it arrives, bulldozers spread the new
14:38sand and shape the beach. An amphibious tripod armed with GPS known as the CRAB allows surveyors
14:47to map the shoreline and carefully determine how much new sand is needed. The replenished
14:52beaches cause storm surges to break safely far away from shore, protecting the beachfront
14:58property. South Carolina lies in hurricane action.
15:08Every June brings a new hurricane season. No one knows if and when the next big storm
15:16will hit, but when they do, the damage can be catastrophic. One hurricane system called
15:25the Great Storm of 1893 killed an estimated 2,000 people on the coast. In 1989, Hurricane
15:33Hugo was one of the most powerful recent storms to hit the state. Winds gusted up to 160 miles
15:45per hour and coastal waters surged 20 feet, causing $7 billion in damage and killing 35
15:54people. So far, this state has not yet been hit by a Category 5 hurricane, the most powerful.
16:03But every hurricane season, coastal residents in Myrtle Beach and other towns up and down
16:08the coast turn their eyes to the sea and track each new weather system that moves north,
16:14just in case the next great storm is headed their way.
16:22But it's not just the coast that can be hit hard by natural disasters. Southwest of the
16:33Grand Strand lies more than a quarter of a million acres of wild, swampy land and giant
16:39cypress trees. This is the Francis Marion National Forest. In 1989, Hurricane Hugo leveled
16:46more than 30% of the forest and stripped the leaves from the cypress trees, leaving them
16:53vulnerable to forest fires. But it remains a haven for wildlife, including the Canada
17:00geese that migrate here every winter. At the end of the American Revolution, the forest
17:08was home to a famous freedom fighter known as the Swamp Fox. When British forces took
17:15control of South Carolina in 1780, in what's known as the Siege of Charleston, many in
17:22the colony continued to fight for their independence. One of them was a plantation owner and soldier
17:29named Francis Marion, who rallied a band of fighters to launch hit-and-run operations
17:36on British regiments. The men were called Marion's Brigade. With the British hot on
17:43his trail, Marion took refuge in this swampy forest, just 30 miles north of Charleston.
17:50Unable to catch him, the British nicknamed Marion the Swamp Fox. To this day, historians
17:57debate whether Francis Marion was a terrorist or a hero in America's fight for independence.
18:05Some claim that he's the father of modern guerrilla warfare. With such colorful exploits,
18:12it's no wonder that filmmakers drew inspiration from Marion's life for the 2000 film The
18:18Patriot, starring Mel Gibson as the Swamp Fox.
18:35With so many hurricanes slamming South Carolina's coast, building anything here can be risky,
18:41unless it's engineered for disaster. A tower rises over one of South Carolina's coastal
18:49islands. This lighthouse was built with just three sides, for a reason. Its rigid triangular
18:56shape will enable it to survive winds up to 125 miles per hour, and help keep ships
19:03safely offshore. But once, Sullivan's Island was the port of call for many of the world's
19:12slave ships. Historians estimate that as many as 40% of the millions of African slaves that
19:19arrived on America's shores disembarked here. Those who survived the voyage from Africa
19:26were quarantined on the island before being sold in the slave markets of Charleston. It's
19:32why the area has been called the Ellis Island of Slavery. In 1989, the writer Toni Morrison
19:40noted that amazingly, there was no suitable memorial, plaque, or even wreath on the island
19:46to pay proper tribute to the hundreds of thousands of slaves who landed here.
19:55Sullivan's Island has also played an important role in the defense of Charleston and its
20:00harbor, thanks to Fort Moultrie. When it was built, the fort's walls were constructed of
20:08logs made from freshly cut palmetto trees. During the Revolutionary War, this wood proved
20:15to be surprisingly resilient against cannon shot, and helped colonial forces repel a British
20:21naval siege. It's why the palmetto tree eventually became the state symbol. It appears on the
20:29South Carolina flag.
20:36South Carolina has 187 miles of coastline, but that number can be deceptive. Behind the
20:44state's pristine beaches and barrier islands lie nearly 3,000 miles of shoreline. Much
20:52of it lies here, in one of the country's greatest waterways, the mouth of the Santee
20:58River. It's the largest delta on the eastern seaboard, mile after mile of twisting inlets
21:07and salt marshes, a haven for migrating birds.
21:12By 1690, one of the world's most desired commodities was produced here on the coast,
21:18a variety of rice called Carolina Gold. Slaves worked and shaped these marshes to create
21:26what were some of the largest rice plantations on earth. Growing rice here was back-breaking
21:34work. Slaves cut ditches and built embankments to control the salinity of the water, while
21:40trying to avoid alligators and poisonous snakes. Rice became South Carolina's biggest commodity.
21:50Georgetown County alone once produced close to half of all the rice grown in the U.S.,
21:57and at one point exported more rice than any other port in the world. It's been said that
22:03Carolina Gold was once the preferred rice of the Emperor of China. The end of slavery
22:09drove most of these coastal plantations out of business, but a few old structures remain
22:15in the swamp, like this house, built on stilts to protect residents from flooding and storms,
22:21a common practice to this day.
22:30While most of South Carolina's coastal rice plantations are gone, many other plantation
22:35houses inland remain. The first of these estates were built when British lords awarded large
22:42tracts of land here to English settlers in order to farm rice, cotton, and other cash
22:48crops. Powered by slave labor, the output of these once-giant farms was astounding.
22:54By the dawn of the American Revolution, plantations here had already produced a million pounds
22:59of the plant indigo, from which was produced a distinctive blue dye. Indigo exports helped
23:05make South Carolina Britain's wealthiest colony.
23:10During the first years of the colony, most English settlers came from Barbados, where
23:15they were young, ambitious farmers, eager to expand their opportunities. Among these
23:20early settlers were Thomas and Anne Drayton. Arriving from Barbados in 1679, they built
23:28Magnolia Plantation, but it was one of the Drayton's sons who established the family's
23:34greatest legacy. As the third son, John Drayton knew he wouldn't inherit his family's land,
23:42so in 1738, the 23-year-old purchased 350 acres of his own along the Ashley River. The
23:50river would provide a transportation network to carry his crops to the ports. He then set
23:57about building himself a new house on a grand scale.
24:02During the Civil War, Union soldiers torched many of the plantation houses along the Ashley
24:09River. Amazingly, Drayton Hall was one of only three that survived. Why it did is a
24:16mystery that has long puzzled historians. Some say that General Sherman spared the estate
24:22because he was in love with one of the Drayton women. Another theory is that the slaves working
24:27on the plantation were ordered to tell Union troops that the house was a smallpox hospital
24:34and should be spared. Today, Drayton Hall is considered the oldest and most splendid
24:40example of Georgian Palladian architecture in the United States. Luckily, it's not just
24:46the grand houses of plantation owners that have survived.
24:51On the nearby Boone Plantation, small slave cabins still stand on what's known as Slave
24:57Street. It was common at the time for slave cabins to be built in front of a plantation
25:02mansion as a public display of their prosperity. These historic sites provide stunning glimpses
25:11of the antebellum period and a chance to understand what life was like for enslaved Africans in
25:16South Carolina.
25:19As plantation profits grew, so too did the estates of their owners. The vast landscape
25:32gardens of Middleton Place are thought to be the oldest in the U.S. They were designed
25:38and planted so that there would be something in bloom every day of the year. Middleton
25:45Place was also the site of a farming experiment. In 1846, the owners imported water buffalo
25:52from Constantinople to see if, with their wide hooves and sturdy legs, they could outperform
25:58horses in tilling rice fields. But during the Civil War, Union troops burned the main
26:04house and slaughtered some of the animals for food. Many of the buffalo that were spared
26:10ultimately ended up in New York's Central Park Zoo.
26:15Today, Middleton Place is a National Historic Landmark. Its gardens were opened to the public
26:22in the 1920s. The Garden Club of America called them the most interesting and important gardens
26:28in the United States. From the air, it's easy to see why.
26:40Moving inland from South Carolina's coastline, a rolling landscape beckons. This is North
26:47America's largest intact area of old-growth floodplain forest. This fertile region once
26:54belonged to a Native American tribe called the Congaree. Periodically, nearby rivers
27:01flood the forest, supplying it with nutrients and sediment that create a rich ecosystem
27:07that's home to a wide variety of fish, reptiles, and insects.
27:14When European settlers arrived here, they brought smallpox, which nearly wiped out the
27:19Congaree. The few members of the tribe that remained were either imprisoned or killed
27:24by the colonists. There are no Congaree left today, but this vast stretch of their ancient
27:31land remains practically untouched. The Congaree National Park covers 27,000 acres and is
27:40home to nearly 100 species of trees and a canopy that rises higher than the Amazon rainforest.
27:51The dampness here is also what's protected it from people. In the early 20th century,
27:58a single logging company bought up nearly all this land. But the trees were so wet,
28:04they wouldn't even float downriver, and the company quickly abandoned their operations
28:09here, leaving the Congaree's floodplain forests intact.
28:16Twenty miles to the northwest, the floodplain ends, just before reaching Columbia, the capital
28:23of South Carolina. At the center of town lies one of the most notable buildings in
28:29the country, the South Carolina Statehouse. Its most unique feature is its dome, covered
28:37with 44,000 pounds of copper. But what's even more remarkable is that this statehouse
28:45is even standing. Construction of a new statehouse began in 1851, but the first structure had
28:54to be torn down because of major structural flaws. Major John Niernsey, a Vienna-born
29:01railway engineer, took over the project, but his structure was threatened by war. On February
29:0917, 1865, General William Tecumseh Sherman and his Union troops swept into Columbia.
29:17Fueled by abandoned barrels of Confederate whiskey, the disorderly soldiers pillaged
29:22and set fire to the city. A total of 84 blocks burned in a single night. Incredibly, the
29:31new statehouse, already under construction, survived the attack. But the fires did destroy
29:38all of the building's architectural plans, and with the state's coffers empty after the
29:43Civil War, the building wasn't completed until 1903. Its Corinthian columns are among
29:51the largest in the world. Each is carved from a single massive hunk of blue granite that
29:58slaves pulled from a quarry just south of the city.
30:02For nearly four decades, the Confederate flag flew atop the statehouse dome. It was
30:11raised in 1962 to mark the sacrifices of white South Carolinians in the Civil War, but many
30:18saw it as a symbol of the state's rebellion to the growing civil rights movement. In 2000,
30:25nearly 50,000 protesters marched up Main Street to the statehouse steps and demanded that
30:30the flag be lowered. Later that year, it was finally removed, making South Carolina
30:37the last state to officially fly the Confederate flag. But the Confederate spirit still cooks
30:44up controversy in Columbia. The same day that the rebel flag was removed from the statehouse,
30:51the owner of a popular barbecue chain raised Confederate flags over his nine local restaurants.
30:59Barbecue is always a contentious subject in the Carolinas. The question of mustard
31:04versus tomato-based sauces has been known to start duels. But the battle waged by the
31:09owner of Maurice's Piggy Park is a racial one. Maurice openly defends the former practice
31:16of slavery in the state. In protest, major store chains throughout the South have pulled
31:22all the company's barbecue products from their shelves. Heading north lies South Carolina's
31:30backcountry. These forests were once home to the Cherokee Trail, a key Native American
31:37trade route that once stretched from Charleston all the way to Tennessee. European settlers
31:44used the trail to expand west and trade their weapons, rum, and gunpowder for pelts. In
31:511748 alone, the skins of 160,000 deer were exported from South Carolina to Europe to
31:59make pants, gloves, and hats. Deer skin was South Carolina's biggest commodity until the
32:06arrival of rice cultivation. By 1775, a settlement with 12 dwellings and a courthouse was established
32:14on the Cherokee Trail near a plentiful spring. It was named 96 from the mistaken belief that
32:21it laid 96 miles away from the Cherokee capital, Kiwi. The village has since been reconstructed
32:29along with a stockade fort built in 1781 to protect the spring.
32:38Nearby, an odd form appears on the ground below, points of a star pushing up from the
32:45earth. These are the remains of Star Fort. British loyalists built the fort here in 1780
32:53with slave labor to defend themselves against rebel forces. The fort was designed with eight
33:00points to help the loyalists better see their enemy and fend off the attack. In 1781, 1,000
33:10patriots attacked the fort. The ensuing battle became the longest siege of the American Revolution.
33:17Inside the fort lie the remains of a well that British forces dug hoping to sustain
33:23themselves throughout the long siege, but they never reached water.
33:32Heading towards the northwest boundary of the state, the Blue Ridge Mountains beckon.
33:38This used to be Cherokee country. A legend of the tribe says that a giant spirit used
33:45to sit on one of these mountains and eat from the top of another.
33:54Table Rock, as it's called, is located in Table Rock State Park, a protected wilderness
34:00that covers more than 3,000 acres.
34:03It's also home to Pinnacle Mountain. At more than 3,400 feet, it's the highest peak that's
34:11entirely within the state of South Carolina.
34:20East of the Blue Ridge Mountains lies Gaffney. It was once a thriving textile mill center.
34:27Today, it's a sleepy town, but one with enormous pride. Enough to erect a four-story,
34:33one-million-gallon water tank to celebrate it.
34:37Locals call it the Peachoid. Peaches were originally brought to America by Spanish explorers
34:44in the 1500s, and when English colonists arrived 100 years later, they found Native Americans
34:52cultivating the fruit, leading the settlers to believe that peaches were actually native
34:57to South Carolina.
35:00Built in 1981, the water tower was designed as a giant peach to let the world know that
35:06South Carolina produces more peaches than the so-called Peach State, Georgia.
35:12In fact, South Carolina now officially calls itself the Tastier Peach.
35:22Another small upstate South Carolina town is home to a unique American success story.
35:29As in Gaffney, textile mills thrived in the town of Greer, but by the 1970s, competition
35:36from Asia sent the region into decline.
35:40Then, in the early 1990s, BMW opened its first and only plant in the United States, right
35:48here in the small town of Greer.
35:52This state-of-the-art factory covers four million square feet, an area the size of nearly
35:5770 football fields.
36:00Inside, 7,000 workers produce about 600 vehicles every day, one out of every six that the company
36:07makes.
36:09After they roll off the assembly line, these luxury cars are shipped across the U.S. and
36:15from the Port of Charleston into 130 markets worldwide.
36:20Today, many call the region around Greer the Detroit of the South.
36:30Traveling south of Greer is a trip back in time to a place where pioneers settled their
36:35differences with blood.
36:39Today, Edgefield is by all appearances peaceful and quaint.
36:44But in the early 19th century, this town and the surrounding county had one of the highest
36:49murder rates in the country.
36:52Local legend says that blood has been spilled over every square foot of this town center.
36:57Accused criminals were tried here at the Edgefield Courthouse.
37:02One of the most colorful trials of the day was that of a young beauty named Becky Cotton.
37:08She had murdered her first husband with a large needle, poisoned her second, and put
37:14an ax through the skull of her third.
37:16But surprisingly, she was acquitted on all charges.
37:21Some say she used her beauty to win over the jury.
37:24And perhaps they're right.
37:26Becky Cotton went on to marry one of the jurymen.
37:29But before she could kill him, her own brother murdered her first.
37:34And he did it right on the Edgefield Courthouse steps.
37:42Today, Edgefield County is better remembered as the birthplace of ten South Carolina governors,
37:47five lieutenant governors, and a number of state senators, including the oldest and longest
37:53one to serve in the state's history, Strom Thurmond.
37:57West of Edgefield, these peaceful waters have been named in Thurmond's honor.
38:02Strom Thurmond Lake covers 71,000 acres and is surrounded by a 1,200-mile shoreline.
38:10It's one of the largest inland bodies of water in the South.
38:14And while it may not look like it, the lake is entirely man-made.
38:21It was created when the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers built the Strom Thurmond Dam
38:26on the Savannah River in order to stop flooding in communities downstream
38:30and to provide power for the state.
38:39The Savannah River stretches over 300 miles from the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains
38:44all the way to the Atlantic.
38:47The river divides South Carolina from Georgia to the south.
38:52Lying in the midst of this seemingly pristine wilderness
38:56is a vast, once top-secret industrial complex that covers 300 square miles.
39:04The Savannah River site was built by the U.S. Department of Energy in the 1950s.
39:10For decades, up to five giant reactors produced 40 percent of the plutonium
39:16used to build the nation's nuclear weapons.
39:20Today, the reactors and the site's other processing plants have been shut down.
39:25They were too old to operate without expensive repairs.
39:30And the site is now contaminated with tens of millions of gallons of radioactive waste.
39:36The plan is to entomb the old reactors and seal off the waste.
39:41But that's expected to take a vast amount of cement,
39:44enough to fill four Home Depot stores right up to their roofs.
39:56Sixty miles up the coast from the mouth of the Savannah is Wadmalaw Island,
40:01home to a unique agricultural experiment.
40:05In the late 19th century, the American Department of Agriculture
40:08was searching for new, financially viable crops.
40:12Until then, almost all of America's tea came from Asia.
40:18They discovered that South Carolina's humid climate and sandy soil
40:22could be perfect for growing high-quality tea.
40:26But the labor cost of picking the tea leaves in South Carolina
40:30was eight times more expensive than it was in China or India.
40:34And after just four years, the venture was shut down.
40:39However, another tea plantation was founded nearby in 1888,
40:44producing award-winning teas until its owner's death in 1915.
40:49Then, the tea plants grew wild until they were transplanted
40:53and cultivated by the Lipton Tea Company in 1963.
40:58Fearing the instability of the Third World countries that produced so much of its tea,
41:02Lipton wanted to experiment with creating its own working tea farm.
41:06The company eventually sold the venture.
41:09But today, the tea plantation remains in operation
41:12as the country's only commercial tea garden.
41:15The American classic brand of tea that it produces
41:18is the official tea of the White House.
41:24Southwest is another barrier island that once produced the finest cotton in the world.
41:32Hilton Head Island covers more than 40 square miles
41:36and is one of the largest barrier islands on the coast.
41:40It's had many inhabitants over the centuries,
41:42including Native Americans and Spanish explorers.
41:46But it wasn't until the British cotton planters arrived here around 1800
41:50that the island developed into an economic powerhouse.
41:54By the start of the Civil War, more than 20 plantations had sprung up,
41:59including the first in America to grow extra-long staple cotton,
42:03better known as Egyptian cotton.
42:07Cotton may no longer be king here, but the island is still an economic powerhouse.
42:13Every year, tourists pump roughly $1.5 billion into Hilton Head's economy.
42:21Just north of Hilton Head lies one of the toughest places on Earth.
42:27Paris Island has been home to the U.S. Marine Corps since 1891.
42:34It's here where newly enlisted recruits are turned into Marines in just 13 weeks.
42:41Today, drill instructors train an estimated 19,000 men and women at Paris Island each year.
42:50The humorist Art Buchwald, a former Marine who got his training at Paris Island,
42:55described his experience there as a very painful one,
42:59which is exactly how the Marines intended it to be.
43:03Its purpose, he said, was to break you down and then rebuild you up
43:06into a soldier who will never question an order,
43:09who will always worry about their buddy,
43:11and who someday will walk as tall as John Wayne.
43:20In March 1971, Joe Frazier became a household name around the world
43:25when he knocked down Muhammad Ali in round 15 at Madison Square Garden.
43:30Frazier was born here in Beaufort, South Carolina's second oldest town.
43:36Its quaint historic streets and houses have made this town an ideal movie set.
43:41Films like Forrest Gump, The Big Chill, and Prince of Tides were all shot here.
43:46Celebrities often stay at the Red House Inn on Craven Street,
43:50a classic 1820 plantation house turned luxury hotel.
43:55During the Civil War, Beaufort was more fortunate than many of its neighboring towns.
44:01Wherever they went, northern troops left a path of destruction.
44:06But the Army spared Beaufort, using it instead as a Union headquarters.
44:11As a result, many of the city's historic antebellum buildings have been preserved.
44:19From its barrier islands, along its pristine beaches,
44:24and inland, across its giant floodplain forest,
44:29South Carolina is as much defined by its wild spaces
44:34as it is by the history woven into its earth.
44:38To see South Carolina by air is a chance to explore the true spirit of the South.
44:44From the elegant streets of Charleston,
44:47to the rough frontier villages of early pioneers,
44:51to the giant plantations that built some of America's biggest fortunes,
44:56and the stories of those who were brought unwillingly to its shores.
45:01Aerial South Carolina travels across America's vast land,
45:05Aerial South Carolina travels across America's smallest southern state,
45:10whose stories are as big as the nation itself.
45:35South Carolina
45:40South Carolina
45:45South Carolina
45:50South Carolina
45:55South Carolina