Laing School

The profile of town residents became increasingly white, professional, and conservative. Indeed, South Carolina’s first Republican governor since Reconstruction, James B. Edwards, hailed from Mount Pleasant. However, Mount Pleasant’s rapid growth also sparked concerns over suburban sprawl and strip development.

Created by an act of Congress in March 1865, the bureau grew out of efforts by northern Republicans and reformers to bring the free labor society and culture of the antebellum North to the post-emancipation South.