Gadsden Green

Front: The neighborhood of Gadsden Green, also called Fiddlers Green or Back da Green, began around 1852. In that year, landowner and prolific slave trader Thomas N. Gadsden subdivided a tract currently bounded by Cannon St., President St., and Gadsden Creek. The marsh at that time extended several blocks further inland along Line St. By 1900 the area was a racially diverse but mostly Black community with 1- and 2-story homes, small grocery stores, a shipyard, wharf, and sawmill. Reverse: In 1938 the neighborhood was damaged by tornadoes. Over the protest of local residents, the City of Charleston subsequently demolished much of the neighborhood to build Gadsden Green Homes, a segregated public housing complex opened in 1942 and expanded in 1968. From 1954 to 1970, the City filled Gadsden Creek and 100 acres of saltmarsh with municipal waste and soil for a City dump and urban development, in what had been a popular fishing and swimming spot.