Folly once Served as a refuge for families fleeing typhoid outbreaks
Charleston’s early colonists used Folly Beach as a quarantine island (hence its old moniker, “Coffin Island”), but during the 1920s, it served a nearly opposite purpose — as a refuge for Charleston families fleeing the outbreaks of typhoid and influenza that occasionally plagued the city during that era.
This photograph of Miriam Garfinkel Kohn, who grew up on Line Street in downtown Charleston, was taken during the early 1920s while she was a student at Memminger High School, perhaps during one of the times when her family fled downtown to the beach to avoid an outbreak. Kohn’s granddaughter, Rachel Segal, found this photo after her grandmother passed away. The man — the likely owner of the car — is unidentified, but the setting in front of the Folly Pavilion is a priceless image from the first years of Folly Beach’s original tourism hay day.
Many images like the one below are included in Stratton Lawrence’s book, Images of America: Folly Beach. To purchase your own personalized signed copies, delivered to your home on Folly Beach, or to share a photo and story for next month’s Folly Flashback column, you can email Stratton at strattonlawrence@gmail.com.
