Behind the Bluff
Uncover best practices to participate in life on your terms. Every week, hosts Jeff Ford and Kendra Till guide listeners with short conversations on trending wellness topics and share interviews with passionate wellness professionals, our private club leaders, and additional subject matter experts offering valuable tips. Each episode conclusion includes Healthy Momentum, five minutes of inspiration to help you reflect and live differently. Subscribe now and discover the keys to living your greatest active lifestyle.
Behind the Bluff
Diving into the Rich History of Palmetto Bluff | Part 3
Uncover the hidden stories of resilience and transformation at Palmetto Bluff as we explore its history from the Reconstruction Era to modern development. Join us on a journey through time, as we, Jeff Ford and cultural expert Katie Epps, illuminate the struggles and triumphs of this region. Discover the personal success of Cyrus Garvey, a formerly enslaved person who defied the odds to become a landowner during a period marked by economic hardship and the oppressive sharecropping system. Through poignant stories and historical records, we piece together the lives of freedmen and their communities, offering a vivid picture of strength and perseverance.
Our exploration continues with the influence of influential families in shaping Palmetto Bluff's legacy. From the grand Victorian mansion of Estill to the modern innovations introduced by the Wilson family, we examine how these transitions impacted the region. With Marion Wilson's embrace of luxury and RT Wilson's modernization initiatives, including the introduction of electricity, Palmetto Bluff began its transformation while preserving its natural beauty. The Wilson family's acquisition of surrounding plantations further cemented their historical significance, and we delve into how their legacy continues to resonate today.
Finally, we explore the ongoing commitment to preserving the rich history of Palmetto Bluff. Learn about the aftermath of the 1926 fire, various ownership changes, and the cultural significance of local cemeteries. We reflect on modern developments spurred by International Paper Company and Crescent Resources, underscoring the importance of conservation and education in honoring this storied past. As we conclude, we express heartfelt gratitude to Katie Epps for her invaluable insights and to you, our listeners, for your support. We invite you to revisit previous episodes for a comprehensive understanding and to join us in future discussions that celebrate Palmetto Bluff's enduring legacy.
Are you ready to live an active lifestyle? Welcome to Behind the Bluff, where we believe every moment of your life is an opportunity to pursue wellness on your terms. I'm your host, Jeff Ford, and I am joined once again today with Katie Epps, Director of Cultural Resources for Palmetto Bluff Club. Today, we're gonna dive into our third and final segment of the history of Palmetto Bluff. Now, of course, these segments are brief and give you the clarity of these periods of time. There is so much more detail after today that you'll be able to dig into with the various programs that we offer here and just the resources and information that's out there. Now, Katie, I am excited to have you back for round three. How are you doing today?
Speaker 2:I'm doing well. How about you?
Speaker 1:Doing well, thank you. So the period of time that we're going to talk about is the historic period after the Civil War until modern development. Could you share with listeners the specific time span years that we're discussing?
Speaker 2:Sure, so we'll start off with Reconstruction Era, which overlaps a little bit with the Civil of time.
Speaker 1:Reconstruction era, those you know, few years, right after the war, what does it mean by Reconstruction, you know what starts to really take fold in that short period of time.
Speaker 2:Well, the nation was trying to recover from the Civil War. Unfortunately, reconstruction era did not. Wasn't fun, just as a nation really struggled. And then a lot of things that were like bills and laws that were passed during reconstruction, giving more freedom to freedom and rights to the formerly enslaved, were stepped back and were taken away after reconstruction.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Now the land and ownership of Palmetto Bluff potentially changes a lot. After the war and during these economic struggles, Head was taken over by the Union. A lot of the enslaved went to Hilton Head helped establish Mitchellville.
Speaker 2:Some served in the Union Army After the war. You see a lot of people return to. Palmetto Bluff. Some that have ties to Palmetto Bluff because they were formerly enslaved on the property, and then some that we don't know what their ties were. They might not have been, you know, it might have just been an opportunity for them and they returned to the property. Different plantations and a few become sharecroppers, which was a terrible system in itself.
Speaker 1:What's a sharecropper?
Speaker 2:Where they were really tied to the land. They were given a loan to work the land, but they never made enough. It was just perpetual debt.
Speaker 1:Okay, okay.
Speaker 2:So there was no way to out to get out of that system.
Speaker 1:Basically a job, essentially.
Speaker 2:Without ever getting anywhere.
Speaker 1:So you were tied to having no 401k Right and it was definitely a form of oppression.
Speaker 2:Okay, it was definitely a form of oppression. There were many more that were renting land, and then there were quite a few actually that bought land out here, that were formerly enslaved on the plantations and then they bought anywhere from five to 50 acres out here. One of the most notable ones, who was a gentleman named Cyrus Garvey and he at one time after the Civil War he owned 50 acres out here on the Box Plantation.
Speaker 1:Cyrus Garvey.
Speaker 2:And you may know him from. If you've visited downtown Bluffton, you've seen the Garvey house by the oyster factory.
Speaker 1:That was his house. That was his house. Wow, so he owns 50 acres during this post-Civil War time.
Speaker 2:Yep and built that house in downtown Bluffton, did not own the land. We believe he had been enslaved by the Baynard family and the Baynard owned that property and his family also owned out here at Palmetto Bluff. So we think that's where the tie came in. Eventually he sold the property at Box Plantation and bought the land where he built his house in downtown Bluffton.
Speaker 1:Wow, now Box Plantation. What's the location there? What's that look like compared to?
Speaker 2:So that's on the main road that is north of the Mays Bend neighborhood. Okay, and so it was owned by Horace Box. When he passes he owns his wife. Esther Solomon Box owned the property and then their son actually marries a lady out here whose family owned Thayess Plantation. Oh, so there's a lot of connection between lady out here whose family owned the plantation.
Speaker 1:Oh, so there's a lot of connection between owners out here.
Speaker 2:There were and you can see that in a lot of the different documents the marriage and census and where they've known each other and they grew up and then you know yeah had a family and went from there. That's right, yeah.
Speaker 1:Now that's. That's a nice, nice pause. We're starting to see more documentation of what's happening here. I presume now, as an archaeologist and as someone who's attempting to learn the history of places, what's the type of documentation that we're looking at during this period of time? How does it get developed so that we understand these different purchases and these families taking hold of the plantations during this time?
Speaker 2:One of the main documents that we look at are the census records. They're invaluable. The census records change over. I mean, it's taken every 10 years, just like today, um, and it's it what the information that is asked changes.
Speaker 2:They just, you know, redefine the document a little bit and so the information is not always the same year, you know know, year after decade, year after decade yeah, but you can in general see the different neighbors where people are living based on the census records, because then you might have other documents, plats or maps too, that identify them. So you can see those different relationships through those documents Very cool very cool.
Speaker 1:Now, during this period of time, do we have any specific artifacts that have provided context to what's happening?
Speaker 2:We do. We see actually quite a few artifacts that date after the Civil War in between you know, 1865 and 1900 and large, there was a large settlement of freedmen that lived out on the south end of the property to freed enslaved men or a family freedman. Freed men, meaning freed enslaved.
Speaker 1:Freed enslaved. Freed enslaved, okay.
Speaker 2:And the island. The area was called Oak Island, named after an island nearby, but the plantation was not an island, but the Oak Island tract. After the Civil War was where quite a few of the freedmen had their homes and farms.
Speaker 1:Now, how were they able to inhabit that land? Did just plantation owners not know? Or were they, you know, protecting?
Speaker 2:their land.
Speaker 1:How'd that go about?
Speaker 2:So they rented and then some owned, but mostly a lot of they rented land from the plantation, former plantation.
Speaker 1:So very cool.
Speaker 2:And then, like I said, some, some purchased land as well.
Speaker 1:So maybe, moving into the early 1900s, what is a key event from this period of time that we have knowledge of?
Speaker 2:Well there, so everybody knows about Wilson. Not everybody might know about John Estill. So before Wilson owned the property, he bought it in 1902. He bought it from? He bought 10,000 acres in 1902 from John Estill. John Estill was the owner of the Savannah Morning newspaper.
Speaker 1:Very cool.
Speaker 2:You might be familiar with Estill, South Carolina.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I've heard of it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, not far from here, and the town was named after his family and he, in the 1880s, started buying up property.
Speaker 1:That sounds like it.
Speaker 2:And he bought some from people who had freedmen, who had purchased land, and then others from plantation owners, the Estill John Estill owned the land until he sold the property to Wilson, but he's sort of the first one to get the modern development. That's very broad, yeah, I know what you mean, though.
Speaker 1:So John Estill's the very first individual that's really starting to bring modern development into Palmetto Bluff.
Speaker 2:To the extent of going from plantation homes to a large home, built a Victorian house and had a beautiful you know a bowling alley had different.
Speaker 1:Really, you know he was and this was on property here.
Speaker 2:It was, yeah, and it was actually so. His house Victorian house was actually. It's under the ruins of the Wilson mansion, no way. So there was a house prior to that mansion there was and it was under the ruins wow, and it was a beautiful structure. Um, what's the?
Speaker 1:square footage in this time period like a victorian home, is it? I mean, is it like what we do today, like 2500 square feet is is big back then? Oh no, I mean that's this is a lot bigger than that, okay it wasn't as large as Wilson's mansion, but it was quite extravagant in size and decor.
Speaker 2:So he starts buying up property. He amasses about 10,000 acres but he decides to run for governor of Georgia and to make him seem more for Georgia than South Carolina, which was honestly pretty typical. A lot of people who are property owners, wealthy property owners. They owned land in South Carolina and Georgia because they could.
Speaker 1:They're right there, Right there yeah.
Speaker 2:He starts. He decides to sell his property in Bluffton and Palmetto Bluff. Okay, it wasn't called Palmetto Bluff at the time, he called it Estill land, which is very Disneyland.
Speaker 1:I know I was. That literally came right into my brain when you said that I'm like Estill land man. I feel like Mickey mouse might have lived there at the beginning.
Speaker 2:Fortunately, when Wilson purchases the land in 1902, um purchases the land in 1902. He names it Palmetto Bluff, so he's who we have to thank for naming it Palmetto Bluff the Wilson family, yeah.
Speaker 1:Wilson himself, rt Wilson. Okay, well, it's thrilling, honestly, to learn that there was someone before Wilson. I feel like most people don't know that there was a house, a mansion, before the mansion Right. And that leads us to the Wilson family coming into Palmetto Bluff, beginning their history here. Can you tell us about their influence and the development once RT Wilson purchases here?
Speaker 2:Yes, so he purchased the 10,000 acres from Estill and immediately starts amassing more land. He's the one who grew the property to 20,000 acres now to make it all palatable.
Speaker 2:Now he. When he purchased it he did not. He was not married. A few months after he purchased it he married Marion, and so then they have their family here. Months after he purchased it, he married Marion, and so then they have their family here. They use this as a winter retreat for them coming down from New York and they stay in Estill's mansion. Love the mansion. But Marion had a. She was not from as wealthy of a family as Wilson, but definitely embraced the lifestyle.
Speaker 1:That's a good way of putting it.
Speaker 2:And so we believe under her guidance, that is when they decided to replace Estill's beautiful Victorian mansion with their mansion that they built and they had a post office out here. Wilson brought electricity down here. This was the first area that had electricity in the surrounding area.
Speaker 1:Of the Bluffton downtown. Yeah, in general.
Speaker 2:In greater. Yeah, Wow man.
Speaker 1:So there's a lot of early roots in the vicinity of Bluffton in general with electricity and modernization on this property.
Speaker 2:Right yeah.
Speaker 1:Now, during this time, this transition, Wilson's starting to essentially develop things. We bring in a post office, we get electricity going. What other changes are part of modern development under Wilson's reign, if you will, on this property?
Speaker 2:Those were the main ones. He still. You know he wasn't. You know they had sawmills out here. They actually had sawmills out here in the 1800s as well. But he maintained the sawmill out here and really that was the main changes. He kept a lot of it pristine and secluded.
Speaker 1:What about roads and such? Do we start to see roads out here or is it pretty much just a private plan like plantation at this time?
Speaker 2:there were roads, but there were roads for all the plantations, so there were older roads.
Speaker 1:As we look at the maps, over time roads change quite actually frequently, especially probably during this period of time, there were yeah um, and as his needs changed. You know he had the, the labor force to, you know to have to modify the land as he needed he had his priced sheep out here, he had his racehorses oh cool so you know and he had a stable and everything was it in the same location as longfield is today, or probably, yeah, probably I don't think it was that far away, just Just based on photographs.
Speaker 2:I think it was closer yeah very cool.
Speaker 1:Now, just for clarity's sake, the property was split up even prior to Estill, and now we have Wilson. What happens with the plantations? It just sounds like Wilson continues to oversee everything. What does that look like?
Speaker 2:He buys up the rest of the plantations.
Speaker 1:So they're his at this time. Yeah.
Speaker 2:So there were some families that held out and did not sell to Estill. But eventually, by the time you know, wilson sells the land in 1926, he has purchased all of the land out here.
Speaker 1:Okay, okay. Well, very interesting to hear about the transition from Estill to Wilson. Let's go ahead, go a bit further in this span of time. What other key events happened?
Speaker 2:So you know, the mansion burned in 1926. It was devastating. Three months after the mansion burned, wilson sold the property Three months after Three months. He actually died three years later. It was very devastating for him.
Speaker 1:Like emotionally, like he just didn't want to be on property anymore after this mansion left.
Speaker 2:They never returned. The family never returned, except for one daughter. She returned and actually ended up purchasing property near Victoria Bluff what's Victoria Bluff today by the Waddell Center. So he sells the property to JE Varn, and JE Varn is the owner of the Varn Turpentine and Cattle Company, and that was in 1926. They only held on to the land for about 10 years before selling the land to Union Bag and Paper, and at that time it was owned by Alexander Calder.
Speaker 1:Alexander Calder. Alexander Calder.
Speaker 2:Okay, calder Park.
Speaker 1:Oh, I'm starting to hear the connections now. Now, let me pause you real quick, katie. Just to go back to the fire. That is a historic, iconic icon, if you will, of that section of our property and it's talked about heavily. For those who aren't as familiar as we are, how did the fire start? Like what was that scene? Like what happened?
Speaker 2:So he had enough forethought to have firefighting equipment and of course there's plenty of water. You know he had an actual water tower, but also you push comes to shove you at the may river good point um, but they did not have enough water pressure to put it out to put it out.
Speaker 2:So the fire burned for days. Now, what started it? Everyone, you know, had a different opinion, unfortunately. One person said it was an electrical fire. Another one said a maid left an iron on. We do know it was a very cold night and someone said that it was possibly an ember from a fireplace okay so we or a lightning strike, we don't know. You know like we ever will, because number of stories out there.
Speaker 1:All of them seem reasonable, and this was a fire that you could see from the town of bluffton with how much it was burning, right it was.
Speaker 2:People actually in the town of bluffton brought chairs out and watched it burn. I mean they just said along the blank.
Speaker 1:It's like something to do in the early 1900s it was.
Speaker 2:You know, they don't have internet, didn't have internet, you know. So it was an event that they all remember.
Speaker 1:So how did the fire finally go out?
Speaker 2:It just burned it all the way through.
Speaker 1:Okay, yeah, well, well, thanks for taking a step back there and explaining that further. It's um interesting. It's very iconic. If you've ever been to Palmetto Bluff, you, you see the ruins it's. It's just one of those parts of property that you're like, wow, something happened here. Now we're all the way up to Palmetto Bluff changing hands. A couple of times Mr Calder has taken over.
Speaker 2:Yes, yeah, he owned the Union Bag and Paper Company, and when Varn Turpentine and Cattle Company owned it before him, they of course utilized the land.
Speaker 1:For the livestock mostly.
Speaker 2:Livestock. They had livestock out here. They harvested the timber. They also had turpentine stills out here where they were producing turpentine Now.
Speaker 1:I'm going to ask maybe a not-so-smart question what is turpentine? Now I'm going to ask maybe a not so smart question what is turpentine?
Speaker 2:It is a material that is made from trees, so the turpentine itself. It's paint and paint thinner it's in a lot of different solvents products Understood, you know so they were, and it's a nasty process but they.
Speaker 1:Sounds like it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and we actually have still remains of a turpentine still on the property today.
Speaker 1:Wow, that's one of the artifacts that y'all have collected.
Speaker 2:Yeah Well, we call it a feature when it's not movable. So it's a feature left behind behind that was formed through human activity, the Wilson Ruins.
Speaker 1:that's a feature Feature through human activity, so not technically an artifact.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:Now the remnants of the turpentine. You're not going to share that location, right, you don't?
Speaker 2:want folks going out searching. It's because, yes, behind gates and we don't want people traveling in areas where construction.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's very interesting, though I'm sure not a lot of us were aware of that. So it seems that more and more action is happening. If you will, there's different products and um industry here.
Speaker 2:Take us from the calders taking control um what happens next well, alexander realizes the potential of the land, he visits it, sees how beautiful it is and realizes that he can't strip it. He can't go through with, you know, just take all the trees out.
Speaker 1:Like that's not a smart move, right? Well, thank you, I know yeah.
Speaker 2:His conservation approach was really based on an emphasis of you know exporting pleasures hunting, you know fishing. They're the ones. The Union Bag and Paper Company are the ones who built the hunting lodge.
Speaker 1:Ah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that was where the cottages are today.
Speaker 1:The montage cottages as part of the end.
Speaker 2:Okay, and we had future presidents out here. Jimmy Carter was out here before he was a president. We had people from all over the presidents out here. Jimmy Carter was out here before he was a president.
Speaker 1:We had people from all over the world out here, and were they coming out for the sporting activities, for what the land offered?
Speaker 2:They were.
Speaker 1:And this to just make sure we have the time period correct for our listeners 1950s Right around here.
Speaker 2:Okay, no, 1950s, I mean Union still owned the company. 1950s, I mean Union still owned the company In 1957, they merged with Camp Manufacturing Company.
Speaker 1:Okay, and it became Union Camp Is that how we got Camp Road.
Speaker 2:It is. So Camp Road actually Camp 8 Road is actually where the turpentine still is. But there was turpentine camps, because when you're trying to make turpentine, you need a large workforce, and so they actually had houses down there for the workers.
Speaker 1:That makes sense, and it's a significant amount of land. I would imagine too it was yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:So we've got presidents starting to visit Jimmy Carter's here. What starts to take fold next?
Speaker 2:They continue I mean they really continue with preserving the area In 1979, charlie Bales, if y'all Bales, lake Bales.
Speaker 1:Lake Bales Lake. That's a lake on property.
Speaker 2:Here it is yep so Bales, charlie became the land and wildlife manager and he ran it for Union Camp and then I think he retired in 2015.
Speaker 1:No way. So Charlie Bales is here for a significant period of time protecting the land and he brought Jay on. Jay Whaley, our current lead at the Conservancy. Yes.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And Jay's been here about 20 years. Did I have that right, maybe?
Speaker 2:more, I think 32, approximately 32. Yeah, somewhere around there.
Speaker 1:Cool. Now, during this time, preservation of the land and the protection of it, like. What strategies are they putting in place? Is it really just making sure some of these sites are not built on and the property lines are drawn in the correct way? Could you walk us through just how we preserved the property during this time, or the early roots of it?
Speaker 2:So all the cemeteries are preserved and Union Camp actually did a phenomenal job because they walked the land. They have a lot of documents from that time period. They recorded every cemetery out here.
Speaker 1:Sounds like that's rare for this period of time, or they did a really good job, is what I'm hearing, right.
Speaker 2:They did a fabulous job recording those, because then they recorded the location, but then they also wrote down, you know, transcribed the headstones for the cemeteries, every single name that they found.
Speaker 1:Yeah, now how many cemeteries do we have on property Behind Palmetto Bluff Gates are 12 cemeteries.
Speaker 2:There are 10 on that the conservancy. Overseas yeah overseas, and five of them were cemeteries that were started for enslaved people and then used into the 20th century. There are six that were cemeteries that were started for enslaved people and then used into the 20th century. There are six that were cemeteries that were for the plantation owners and their families and then the dock cemetery for the Wilsons?
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, that's a really cool split and to know how they were set up in that way and the locations aren't very close together, like, how spread out are they on the 20,000 acres?
Speaker 2:So max, there's two on that were on each plantation. Not every plantation had a cemetery. Some of these families had other plantations and then they would bury those who passed on those plantations. You see that it's fairly common and then some were later moved. You know some people that had ties plantations on Palmetto bluff, actually a plantations on the fusky, and then they're later moved to cemeteries in Savannah. So that happened.
Speaker 1:There were options. There were options. Yeah, Wow, that's it's. It's probably quite rare in all parts of Bluffton like this surrounding area.
Speaker 2:There's not a lot of properties with this amount of preservation and lot of cemeteries that are out there they're all protected and anyone who has family in those cemeteries have to, by law, be given access to visit those cemeteries.
Speaker 1:Now I know this is a big part of your work here. You give regular education across each um each, each cemetery and three main ones. Do I have that right?
Speaker 2:or you visit different ones, depends on the tour you're giving yeah, they're sort of grouped so we do a wilson village tour which includes the screvin hip cemetery, which is by the canoe club. Uh, we visit the the ruins, and then the dog cemetery and then octagon cemetery right by the cottages, the cottages, and then we also do a tour of the two cemeteries in Moreland. We do in March a tour of the two cemeteries at this, yes.
Speaker 1:Where is?
Speaker 2:this is South of Moreland. It's an undeveloped area and it's really in the woods. So we we encourage people, let them know what you know they're going to. Yeah, you know, wear boots and be prepared be prepared and and we also do a cemetery tour on Veterans Day. Actually, oh wow, For a property that is behind our gates but owned by the Campbell family, and that is Refrome Cemetery and that is an active cemetery.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's really interesting to hear that there is so much outreach and bringing people to see these different cemeteries that we have here. Now, as an archaeologist, is it helpful to have cemeteries as part of like your research and define like understanding history?
Speaker 2:Oh, it is phenomenal to be able to have that information. Unfortunately in Beaufort County death records were not. Unfortunately in Beaufort County death records were not started until 1915. So anybody before then. If we don't have a headstone for them, we a lot of times don't know who's buried there. The cemeteries for enslaved people before the Civil War they were not buried with permanent markers. Even after the cemetery and this is or even after the civil war, even in the cemeteries for for the white people, we don't always have headstones to mark who is there understood but sometimes you'll have a daughter, an adult daughter, who passed away, and then the mother dies five years later and there she had erected a nice stone for her daughter.
Speaker 2:But when she dies, wanted to be next to her we know she's there but thanks to the death records if it's the times lineup. But she doesn't have a marked yeah, yeah, no, that's.
Speaker 1:That's interesting, because I'm sure there's a lot of variables that, um you know, make it difficult to understand fully um the, the families and such.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:So a lot goes on here. I mean I think the Wilson family coming in uh brings a lot to the table. And so putting a bow on um, where we are today, obviously we didn't take this through the millennium up until the years we're in. What happens in the very late 1990s, like what are we seeing there? Does the hotel come in? Like obviously we know it's a resort type plantation at this period of time, with presidents and all that, but what else can you add to the latter years of this era?
Speaker 2:So Union Camp is bought out by International Paper Company in 1999. And in 1999, they purchased the land and then in 2000, they sell it to Crescent Resources. Okay, and that starts modern development.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So it happens very quickly right there at the end of the you know, return of the century. And then, you know, by starting in 2000, they start doing archaeological excavations out here. 2004, I believe, is when the inn was built and you know, and for those of you who may not know, that's not where it currently is located, it's where the river house is. That was the inn. That was the original, where everyone checked in for the cottages. Oh wow, yeah.
Speaker 1:So even during that brief period of time, there's a lot of change in the utilization of the inn and how it's set up, wow. And it does sound like conservation, preservation efforts continue to increase. It just continues to get more specific, because not only did the earlier owners understand the beauty of Palmetto Bluff, but at this time it's pretty clear and pretty known that this is a special property.
Speaker 2:It is yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Great Katie. Well, I've really appreciated the rundown interesting details to what happened after the Civil War. I wanted to ask, before we close up here, a couple more questions Looking ahead, how do you see Palmetto Bluff continuing to evolve while staying true to these historical roots?
Speaker 2:I think increasing education you know education is very important. There's a unique opportunity coming up at some point where Thais will be developed and we have the two cemeteries out there and I think, looking ahead, it's a great opportunity to have a park out there and I think, you know, looking ahead, it's a great opportunity to have a park out there and like the land sets up really nicely. It does. It's beautiful property. It's very serene, yeah.
Speaker 1:And, for the record, we're not committing to a park right now. So it's serene. Yeah, it gets more serene the further out we go towards Anson.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's beautiful and, I think, staying true to telling the story, not hiding anything, palmetto Bluff's excellent for that.
Speaker 1:And just education, educating people and trying to conserve and preserve areas for people to enjoy for the future, that this has given you even more uh pride for where we get to live, where we get to spend our days and uh to know more about uh how it all began and where we are today. Uh. So, katie, obviously myself and my team we're more the wellness folks on campus. I know this is a hard left turn digging into your definition of wellness, and I wanted to ask you anyway. So what does wellness mean to you?
Speaker 2:Wellness means having a healthy mind, means having a healthy mind. For me, education, learning. I think to grow as a person and to be as happy physically and emotionally, you have to learn continuing education, not just sit up, hole up somewhere you know. Get out there, learn, take advantage of it, get out of your comfort zone a little bit and go learn about a topic that you've you know, whether it's history or nature or fitness, whatever. I think that's important is just to to do something.
Speaker 1:Yeah, lifelong, lifelong learning, I can say of all the guests we've had on answering that question, that angle has not been shared. It is a very good one, though, because learning it can feed our soul. I know, just in our three segments of here, I got a private tour essentially of Paul Meadow Bluff's history in a short amount of time. So I'm so grateful to have learned about this and and for us to be able to share this with um, um folks who who do want to know more, um. So that brings us to the end of all three parts. Katie, great job.
Speaker 2:Thank you. Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1:You're so welcome and listeners. If you enjoyed listening in, please leave a comment. Let us know what you thought about the three-part series. We'd love to know if you want to hear more about the rich history of Palmetto Bluff, because this honestly scratches the surface of the experts we have here on campus who can share, and just so grateful for you listening in and prioritizing your learning. So, with that takes us to the end of our time today. Feel free to hang around with me for a few more minutes and get your healthy momentum for the rest of your week.
Speaker 1:Have you ever been driving in your car by yourself? Listening to uplifting music and positive emotion completely floods your thoughts. If you're like me, when I'm by myself and I actually take the time to slow down and pay attention to my thoughts, I try to reflect and fill my heart with gratitude. Honestly, I get overwhelmed with thankfulness for my family and I get into an appreciative headspace for my team and our members here at Palmetto Bluff. Plain and simple, my cup overflows with gratitude.
Speaker 1:As we move into the holiday season, I can't think of a better time to make sure that we are all slowing down and paying attention to our thoughts. We get so caught up in the what's next that we forget about the what's now. Getting caught up in the what's next means that what we have is not enough, who we have is not enough and where we are is not enough. The what's next mindset is like a basketball getting caught in the hoop. It's like a rope you trip on. Every single time it happens, you scrape your knee. It's like the word you keep misspelling.
Speaker 1:So for this week, I want you, I want us, to pause the what's next. Take tomorrow, thanksgiving to be in the what's now headspace. What's now means that you are present with your family, you're present with your friends. What's now is when you give appreciation for all you have and everything you've already accomplished. And, most importantly, what's now means that you don't care about what's next.
Speaker 1:That brings us to the end of our third segment today on the rich history of Palmetto Bluff. If you didn't have the opportunity to listen in on part one and part two, I recommend you go back and learn more about the early years. We are so grateful that Katie Epps gave us so much time to share everything that has happened in the past here at Palmetto Bluff, and we look forward to future conversations that dig even deeper into the roots of this beautiful property. Until next week, we hope you have a very happy Thanksgiving and we are so grateful for you listening in every week. And please take care, continue from this healthy momentum with the what's now mindset and we look forward to more episodes with you in the future. Thanks everyone, thank you.
