Episode 303: The Granite Roadways of Gilded-Age Charleston

During the twilight years of the nineteenth century, radical changes to local thoroughfares helped the City of Charleston evolve from a declining seaport into a tidy modern metropolis. Uniform blocks of durable granite displaced most of the city’s lumpy cobblestone streets during the 1880s, after which the municipal government achieved mixed results with trials of several curious paving compounds.