Gohper Hill Festival - Ridgeland, South Carolina

GOPHER HILL FESTIVAL
Ridgeland, South Carolina

Many towns in the southeast owe their genesis to the presence of a railroad during the 1800's. When the railroad was being planned, the nearest town to today's Ridgeland was Grahamville, a quiet village about one mile east. Grahamvillians, not wanting the noise, smoke, and smell of a railroad, turned "thumbs down" on routing the "line" through their settlement, never dreaming that they would one day be a suburb of the town that formed as a result of the railroad and its "depot."

Originally named Gopher Hill by the Plant System, which built the railroad in the mid 1800's from Charleston to Savannah, and incorporated under that name in 1894, the town officially became Ridgeland in 1902 when the Atlantic Coastline Railroad took over the "line" and built a new depot about one mile north of the original "station." The name, Gopher Hill, was derived from the "gopher tortoise", which was once indigenous to the area but that name was not considered sophisticated enough for a new railroad station. Since the town was located on the highest elevation between Charleston and Savannah it was renamed Ridgeland.

The Town, which is near the geographic center of Jasper County today, and is its county seat, straddled the county lines of Beaufort and Hampton Counties when it was first settled. Jasper County was formed in 1912, with Ridgeland selected as its County Seat. A Courthouse was built in 1915. (This large and beautiful structure is now listed on the National Register of Historic Places.)