'Beaufort County Moment' traces the county's 19th-century phosphate boom

Larry Roland closed the program's recorded segments with a 'Beaufort County Moment' on the county's phosphate industry. Roland said phosphate was discovered in the Charleston area in 1867 and that between about 1870 and 1900 Beaufort County became "the primary source of phosphate in The United States," employing as many as 3,000 people at the industry's height. He said local river rock was about 60% pure phosphate in the 1870s and that richer Florida deposits discovered by 1888 shifted the economics, culminating in industry decline by about 1905.

Roland also cited the great hurricane of 1893 as a turning point that wrecked the phosphate fleet and accelerated the industry's demise, and he encouraged listeners to consult the Beaufort County Library's local history resources to learn more.