Things to Do in St. George SC: Museum, Theater, River, Festival

St. George, South Carolina, is the Dorchester County seat, a railroad town of about 1,800 people at the crossing of I-95 and I-26, roughly an hour from Charleston. In town you can see a free museum in an 1890s store, a restored 1920s theater, a three-faced bank clock that plays Westminster chimes on the hour, and a courthouse that holds the county archives. Within 20 to 40 minutes you can reach the Edisto River at Givhans Ferry, the old-growth cypress at Beidler Forest, and the ruins of Colonial Dorchester. The World Grits Festival takes over downtown the second weekend of April, April 9–11 in 2027, and the Indian Field camp meeting fills the first week of October.

Everything downtown is on or within a block of Parler Avenue, which is also US 15. You can walk it in fifteen minutes.

What is there to see in downtown St. George?

Klauber Building and town museum. 225 Parler Avenue. Open 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday, no charge. It was built around 1894 by Judge Leopold Klauber as a mercantile store for a town that lived off the railroad, and it has been restored to hold the St. George visitor center, the town museum, and the regional chamber of commerce. A touch-screen kiosk inside covers the South Carolina National Heritage Corridor, which runs through here. Start here. The people behind the desk know what is open.

Lourie Theater. 206 North Parler Avenue. David Gavin built it in the 1920s as a movie house. It closed briefly at the start of the Depression, reopened, got a mid-1950s remodel, and finally went dark in the early 1980s when the multiplexes arrived around Charleston. The St. George Development Corporation formed in 1988 to bring it back, with an endowment from the family of state Senator Isadore Lourie, and it now runs as a live performance venue. A 2005 fire took three century-old buildings beside it. The theater stood. Box office: 843-563-7262. Check the schedule before you come; it is not open on a walk-in basis.

The town clock. 129 North Parler Avenue, at the center of town. An electric, three-faced clock first mounted on the Farmers and Merchants Bank, later moved to its own pedestal, run from a master clock inside the bank building behind it. It has stood on this spot since June 1955 and plays the Westminster chimes on the hour. The clock keeps good time. That is the official position of the town, and it is nearly always true. There is a dispatch about it, Whatever Hour It Strikes.

Old Dorchester County Courthouse and archives. Ridge Street. The county’s History and Archives Center moved into the old courthouse in 2015 and has digitized more than 20,000 documents. Hours are not posted online; call ahead or ask at the Klauber Building.

The railroad. The town grew up on both sides of the South Carolina Canal and Railroad Company line, one of the first railroads in the country and the first to run scheduled steam passenger trains. The tracks still cut Parler Avenue in half. You will wait on a train at some point. Everyone does.

What happens here each year?

The World Grits Festival, second weekend of April, downtown at 110 South Parler Avenue. Free admission, a parade at 11 Saturday, Rollin’ in the Grits at 1. I have a full page on the festival dates and schedule.

The Indian Field Camp Meeting, first week of October, a few miles north on US 15. A ring of 99 wooden “tents” around an open tabernacle, in use since 1848. It is a worship week, not an attraction, and visitors are welcome at services if they act like it. Details on the camp meeting page.

What is within a short drive?

Givhans Ferry State Park, about 20 minutes southeast. 746 Givhans Ferry Road, Ridgeville. Open 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., until 9 p.m. during daylight saving time. $6 adults, $3.75 SC seniors, $3.50 ages 6–15, under 5 free. A limestone bluff over the Edisto, the longest free-flowing blackwater river in North America, with CCC-built cabins from 1937, a mountain bike trail, river access, and tubing through an outfitter from May to September. Bring your own boat; the park does not rent them. The river gets its own dispatch, The Edisto Keeps Its Own.

Audubon Center at Francis Beidler Forest, about 25 minutes north in Harleyville. 336 Sanctuary Road. Open Wednesday through Saturday 9 to 5 and Sunday 11 to 4, closed Monday and Tuesday. $12 adults, $7 ages 6–12, free under 5 and free on second Saturdays. A 1.75-mile boardwalk through old-growth cypress and tupelo in Four Holes Swamp, a forest Audubon says has stood unchanged for more than a thousand years. Barred owls, prothonotary warblers, otters, snakes. Arrive by 3 to finish the loop.

Colonial Dorchester State Historic Site, about 40 minutes southeast toward Summerville. 300 State Park Road. Open 9 to 6 in daylight saving time, 9 to 5 otherwise. $3 adults, $1.50 SC seniors, $1 ages 6–15. The brick bell tower of St. George’s Anglican Church, built 1751, and a tabby fort from 1757–60 that the park service calls the best-preserved tabby fortification in the country, on a town site settled in 1696 or 1697 depending on the source. The tower is the subject of The Tower with No Bell.

Colleton State Park, about 10 miles south on US 15, is the head of the Edisto River canoe trail. The 21-mile paddle from there to Givhans Ferry is the popular one.

Where to eat in St. George

Downtown has two places I can vouch for existing, by their listings. Bistro 221 at 221 North Parler Avenue, next door to the Klauber Building, serves lunch and dinner Wednesday through Saturday and lunch Sunday, closed Monday and Tuesday. Nannie’s Kitchen at 307 North Parler Avenue is the breakfast-and-sandwich place, open from 6 a.m. Tuesday through Saturday and closed Sunday and Monday. Out at the I-95 exit there is a Georgio’s II pizza and family restaurant, a Denny’s at the Flying J, and the usual fast food. Hours change. Call before you drive.

Where to stay

There is no lodging downtown. The motels cluster at I-95 exit 77 on West Jim Bilton Boulevard, Motel Drive, and Winningham Road, about three miles from the clock: a Red Roof Inn, an Econo Lodge, a Days Inn, and a few others. They book up for Grits Festival weekend. If you want a town with restaurants to walk to after dark, stay in Summerville, about 35 minutes east, and drive in.

Getting here

From I-95, exit 77, then US 78 East about two miles to US 15 South. From I-26, exit 172, then US 15 South about eight miles. From Charleston, allow an hour. From Columbia, allow about an hour and a half.

The county map marks all of this, and the dispatches are set on these streets, starting with the barbershop in Almost Here.

Things to do in St. George, SC (and within a 40-minute drive)