Bluff Road and Kingville Road
Kingville
An old railway town that disappeared with the decline of the railroad, this area just north of Congaree National Park, once included a post office, shops and a hotel in 1860. The town derived its name because of its prominent railroad junction and was established in 1840 as a station on the Charleston to Columbia line, which also connected travelers to Camden. In fact, during the Civil War, railroads through Kingville transported both soldiers and supplies across the South, contained a refugee camp that housed former slaves and a wayside hospital established by the Young Ladies’ Hospital Association. By the 1920s, new roads in the area made Kingville’s rail lines obsolete and residents began to move away from the town. All that remains of this once prosperous town is an historical marker and local memories.
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Detail from letter by B.S. Hill from Kingsville, South Carolina to his children, Ella and Edwin Hill, in New York, November 23, 1855. B.S. Hill papers, South Caroliniana Library, University of South Carolina, Columbia. Image courtesy South Caroliniana Library, University of South Carolina, Columbia
