Photo of the Day: May River Glory, Bluffton, SC, Fall 2014

This is not the first time I included a picture of the May River on this site (see this prior post). But memory draws me back to this waterway, more than a year and a half after I first visited it, the way that locals and so many other tourists like me come back to what is often referred to as “the last true coastal village of the South.”

There are all kinds of neat galleries and historic homes just a short walk away, but many prefer to buy or catch fish—or, as Bob Dylan once sang, “watching the river flow” — by this Lowcountry waterway that bounds Bluffton, SC.

Photo of the Day: May River, Bluffton SC

As I mentioned in a prior post, the town of Bluffton, S.C. has become known for its restaurants and art galleries. But the great, beating heart of the community remains, as it has going back to the antebellum era, the May River. (The town, in fact, takes its name from its location, a bluff along the waterway.)

You really should see this when the sun is out but the temperatures aren’t too high—the situation when I took this photo last month while on vacation in nearby Hilton Head. It’s easy to see, on days such as these, how the Lowcountry seeps into the soul.

Photo of the Day: Church of the Cross, Bluffton, SC

This Episcopal church, like so much of lowcountry South Carolina, where I vacationed two weeks ago, is filled with beauty and history. Though the community itself dates back to 1767, when a church was built nearby, this particular cruciform Gothic structure was constructed in 1854. Its rose-colored glass windows came from England.

The church survived two disasters: one in 1863, when Union troops spared it from the torch to which they put most of the rest of the town, and the other in 1898, when a hurricane damaged the building. (Repairs were made within two years.) The Church of the Cross has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places since 1975.

Photo of the Day: Bluffton Oyster Co., Bluffton SC

You’re looking at one of the last examples of a thriving local industry. With five different operations, oysters gathering represented the principal business of Bluffton, S.C., until the 1930s. The Bluffton Oyster Co. is a proud, enduring remnant of those times. The shell stock is unloaded on the docks of the May River, washed with fresh water, and put on shucking tables.  All oysters are harvested and shucked by hand.

Photo of the Day: Art Gallery, Bluffton, SC

A trip across the bridge from Hilton Head, S.C. (where I’m vacationing this week) took me to the Lowcountry town of Bluffton. Its location on a bluff atop the May River not only gave this community its name, but its origin as a resort for antebellum plantation owners escaping the humidity and diseases in cities such as Charleston. These days, it’s a community thriving with picturesque accommodations, restaurants, and art galleries, such as the Society of Bluffton Artists Gallery, an establishment on the town’s commercial center, Calhoun Street that I photographed on Monday.