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Hilton Head Island Luxury Hotels, Vacations, Experiential Tours and Hilton Head Travel Packages


Hilton Head, Harbor Town Marina Photo

Summer Days in Hilton Head

Visit Hilton Head Island to enjoy beautiful weather and the pleasures of summer far into the fall days. Play world-class golf courses among lush landscapes and coastal beauty. Unwind with a stroll down pristine beaches and an afternoon at the spa. Savor gourmet flavors and a palate of arts and cultural events. We think you'll give our special fall packages a very warm welcome.

Hilton Head Island or Hilton Head is a town (located on an island of the same name) in Beaufort County, South Carolina, United States. It is 20 miles (32 km) north of Savannah, Georgia, and 95 miles (153 km) south of Charleston. The island features 12 miles (19 km) of beachfront on the Atlantic Ocean and is a popular vacation destination. In 2004, an estimated 2.25 million visitors pumped more than $1.5 billion into the local economy. The year-round population was 33,862 at the 2000 census, although during the peak of summer vacation season the population can swell to 275,000.Over the past decade, the island's population growth rate was 32%.

The island has a rich history that started with seasonal occupation by native Americans thousands of years ago, and continued with European exploration and the Sea Island Cotton trade. It became an important base of operations for the Union blockade of the Southern ports during the Civil War. Once the island fell to Union troops, hundreds of ex-slaves flocked to Hilton Head, which is still home to many 'native islanders', many of whom are descendants of freed slaves known as the Gullah (or Geechee) who have managed to hold onto much of their ethnic and cultural identity.

The Town of Hilton Head Island incorporated as a municipality in 1983 and is well known for its "eco-friendly" development. The Town's Natural Resources Division enforces the Land Management Ordinance which minimizes the impact of development and governs the style of buildings and how they are situated amongst existing trees. As a result, Hilton Head Island enjoys an unusual amount of tree cover relative to the amount of development. Approximately 70% of the island, including most of the tourist areas, is located inside gated communities. However, the Town maintains several public beach access points, including one for the exclusive use of town residents, who have approved several multi-million dollar land-buying bond referendums to control commercial growth.

Hilton Head Island offers an unusual number of cultural opportunities for a community its size, including Broadway-quality plays at the Arts Center of Coastal Carolina, the 120 member full chorus of the Hilton Head Choral Society, the highly-rated Hilton Head Symphony Orchestra, the largest annual outdoor, tented wine tasting event on the east coast, and several other annual community festivals. It also hosts the Verizon Heritage, a stop on the PGA tour which is played on the Harbour Town Golf Links in Sea Pines Resort.

Early History of Hilton Head
 
Baynard Mausoleum, oldest intact structure on HHI (built in 1846).An ancient Shell Ring can be seen near the east entrance to the Sea Pines Forest Preserve. The ring, one of only 20 in existence, is 150 feet (46 m) in diameter and is believed to be over 4,000 years old. Archeologists believe that the ring was a refuse heap, created by Native Americans that lived in the interior of the ring, which was kept clear and used as a common area. Two other Shell Rings on Hilton Head were destroyed when the shells were removed and used to make tabby for roads and buildings. The Shell Ring is listed in the National Register of Historic Places and is protected by law.

Since the beginning of recorded history in the New World, the waters around Hilton Head Island have been known, occupied and fought for in turn by the English, Spanish, French, and Scots.

A Spanish expedition led by Francisco Cordillo explored the area in 1521, initiating European contact with local tribes.

Fort Walker, Battle of Port Royal November 7, 1861.In 1663, Captain William Hilton sailed on the Adenture from Barbados to explore lands granted by King Charles II to the eight Lords Proprietors. In his travels, he identified a headland near the entrance to Port Royal Sound. He named it "Hilton's Head" after himself.[16] He stayed for several days, making note of the trees, crops, "sweet water" and "clear sweet air".

In 1698, Hilton Head Island was granted as part of a barony to John Bayley of Ballingclough, County of Tipperary, Kingdom of Ireland. Another John Bayley, son of the first, appointed Alexander Trench as the Island's first retail agent. For a time, Hilton Head was known as Trench's Island. In 1729, Trench sold some land to John Gascoine which Gascoine named "John's Island" after himself. The land later came to be known as Jenkin's Island after another owner.

In 1788, a small Episcopal church called the Zion Chapel of Ease was constructed for plantation owners. The old cemetery, located near the corner of William Hilton Parkway and Mathews Drive (Folly Field), is all that remains. Charles Davant, a prominent island planter during the Revolutionary War, is buried there.

Dock built by Union troops on Hilton Head Island. April 1862.He was shot by Captain Martinangel of Daufuskie Island in 1781.[16] It is also home to oldest intact structure on Hilton Head Island, the Baynard Mausoleum, which was built in 1846.

William Elliott II of Myrtle Bank Plantation grew the first crop of Sea Island Cotton in South Carolina on Hilton Head Island in 1790.

Fort Walker was a Confederate fort in what is now Port Royal Plantation. The fort was a station for Confederate troops and its guns helped protect the 2-mile (3 km) wide entrance to Port Royal Sound, which is fed by two slow moving and navigable rivers, the Broad River and the Beaufort River. It was vital to the Sea Island Cotton trade and the southern economy. On October 29, 1861, the largest fleet ever assembled in North America moved South to seize it. In the Battle of Port Royal, the fort came under attack by the U.S. Navy, and on November 7, 1861, it fell to over 12,000 Union troops. The fort would be renamed Fort Welles, in honor of Gideon Welles, the Secretary of the Navy.

 
U.S. General Hospital, HHI. March 23, 1863.Hilton Head Island would have tremendous significance in the Civil War, becoming an important base of operations for the Union blockade of the Southern ports, particularly Savannah and Charleston. The Union would also build a military hospital on Hilton Head Island with a 1,200-foot (370 m) frontage and a floor area of 60,000 square feet (6,000 m2).

Hundreds of ex-slaves flocked to Hilton Head Island, where they could buy land, go to school, live in government housing, and serve in what was called the First Regiment of South Carolina Volunteers (although in the beginning, many were "recruited" at the point of a bayonet). A community called Mitchelville (in honor of General Ormsby M. Mitchel) was constructed on the north end of the island to house them.

The Leamington Lighthouse was built in the 1870s on the southern edge of what is now Palmetto Dunes.

On August 27, 1893, the Sea Islands Hurricane made landfall near Savannah, Georgia with a storm surge of 16 feet (5 m) and swept north across South Carolina, killing over a thousand and leaving tens of thousands homeless.

Hilton Head 20th century
 
Mitchelville "refugee quarters" 1864.An experimental steam cannon guarding Port Royal Sound was built around 1900 in what is now Port Royal Plantation. The cannon was fixed but its propulsion system allowed for long range shots for the time.

In 1931, Wall Street tycoon, physicist, and patron of scientific research, Alfred Lee Loomis along with his brother-in-law and partner, Landon K. Thorne, purchased 17,000 acres (69 km2) on the island (over 63% of the total land mass) for about $120,000 to be used as a private game reserve.[27][28]

On the Atlantic coast of the island are large concrete gun platforms that were built to defend against a possible invasion by the Axis powers of World War II. Platforms like these can be found all along the eastern seaboard.

"The Beach Pounders" - U.S. Coast Guard Mounted Beach Patrol training on HHI during World War II.The Mounted Beach Patrol and Dog Training Center on Hilton Head Island trained U.S. Coast Guard Beach Patrol personnel to use horses and dogs to protect the southeastern coastline of the U.S.

In the early 1950s, three lumber mills contributed to the logging of 19,000 acres (77 km2) of the island. The island population was only 300 residents.[15] Prior to 1956, access to Hilton Head was limited to private boats and a state-operated ferry. The island's economy centered on shipbuilding, cotton, lumbering, and fishing.

The James F. Byrnes Bridge was built in 1956. It was a two-lane toll swing bridge constructed at a cost of $1.5 million that opened the island to automobile traffic from the mainland. The swing bridge was hit by a barge in 1974 which shutdown all vehicle traffic to the island until the Army Corps of Engineers built and manned a pontoon bridge while the bridge was being repaired. The swing bridge was replaced by the current four-lane bridge in 1982.
 
The Liberty Oak in Harbour TownThe beginning of Hilton Head as a resort started in 1956 with Charles Fraser developing Sea Pines Resort, with the center piece being Harbour Town. Fraser was a committed environmentalist who changed the whole configuration of the marina at Harbour Town to save an ancient live oak.[10] It came to be known as the Liberty Oak, known to generations of children who watched singer and song writer Gregg Russell perform under the tree for over 25 years. Fraser was buried next to the tree when he died in 2002.

The Heritage Golf Classic (now the Verizon Heritage) was first played in Sea Pines Resort in 1969, and has been a regular stop on the PGA tour ever since.

Also in 1969, the Hilton Head Island Community Association successfully fought off the development of a BASF chemical complex on the shores of Victoria Bluff (now Colleton River Plantation). Soon after, the Association and other concerned citizens "south of the Broad" fought the development of off-shore oil platforms by Brown & Root (a division of Halliburton) and ten-story tall liquefied natural gas shipping spheres by Chicago Bridge & Iron. These events helped to polarize the community, and the Chamber of Commerce started drumming up support for the Town to incorporate as a municipality. After the Four Seasons Resort (now Hilton Head Resort) was built along William Hilton Parkway (derisively referred to as "stack-a-shacks" by some Town residents), a referendum of incorporation was passed in May of 1983. Hilton Head Island had become a town.

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