Walk through history: Rebuilding the infamous Sullivans Island Palmetto Log Fort

The Town of Sullivans Island is in early conversation to restore an integral historic Revolutionary War site to its former glory.

When you take a drive down Middle Street, you can clearly spot the grounds of Fort Moultrie and Battery Jasper, Logan and Gadsden. In the distance, Fort Sumter sits among crashing waves. Each stands tall in a stack of brick or mounds of dirt.

The infamous Palmetto Log Fort is one historic structure not visible to the eye.

For years, conversations among historians, residents, friends and colleagues have garnered piles of documents and photographs showing how the site has changed.

Resident and former Battery Gadsden Culture Center President Hal Coste’s photos compare how the fort’s shoreline has grown over two and a half centuries. When the structures were first built, they were exposed to the ocean and shoreline. Compare this to the broad expanse of land, which can now be seen and walked on by visitors.

“The high water mark was a lot closer then. Even in the last 100 years since the Civil War, it’s been excreted by sand being trapped from the Charleston jetties. It trapped all the sand coming down from the North and it started bulging out the island a bit,” Coste said.

The center claims the fort, made completely of sand and palmetto tree logs, was abandoned shortly after the end of the Revolutionary War. Exposure to the elements eventually left nothing behind.

“Storms, tides and winds. It was not even here in 1791 when President George Washington came through on his so-called ‘Southern tour.’ It has basically been washed away,” Center President Mike Walsh said.