![]() But plans came about in the mid-1930s, when the Works Progress Administration, an agency established during the Great Depression to create work for the unemployed, announced their intentions to renovate the condemned structure formerly known as Planter’s Hotel. The building was left abandoned for far too long, nearly 50 years. In any case this successful time period would be seceded by a calamity of unfortunate events.įirst the Civil War, and little to nothing went unschathed during the war, but this was especially so for any place in the south, and Charlestown was no exception.Īfter the war, the once luxurious hotel became a victim of the city’s strongly economy, and it faced further damaged as a result of the devastating 1886 Charleston earthquake. The events of the story unfolded one night after a performance, when for unknown reasons Booth became enraged, and attacked the hotel’s manager, almost killing the man. He was the father of ole John Wilkes Booth who murdered Abraham Lincoln, and one popular story told about the elder Booth, occurred during his stay at the Planter’s Hotel, around 1838. While the Dock Street burned down, it was replaced with another theatre, which remained opened for over 40 years, when it closed down in the 1780s, shut down in large part due to the construction of a new and more grand theatre, just around the corner.ĭuring the glory days of the Planter’s Hotel, it was known to play host to theatre groups, and one of the actors has a name that may sound a little familiar to some, Junius Brutus Booth. The first theatre was short lived, the exact cause of its demise is not clear, but most believe that it burned down in the Charleston Fire of 1740. Visitors, staff both on stage and off stage have several times been describing their interactions with ghostly apparitions, phantom voices and other otherworldly phenomena.įrom disembodied footsteps to mysterious moving shadows, these chilling recollections have been compiled over years of research and exploration of building’s many nooks and crannies. It’s location was not far from the current address of the theatre and, as the oldest surviving theater of its kind in the United States, has welcomed many famous names. ![]() Their endeavor was really more of a renovation of a cluster of buildings already located onsite, while the name of the hotel was an homage to its guests, as most of the people who stayed at the Planter’s were actually planters.ĭuring the horse racing season, these planters from the midlands of South Carolina would journey into city to catch the races.Īfter playing the ponies, many of the planters were too tired to trek back home, or were unable to travel the distance.īy the 1930s, Planter’s Hotel was gone, and the building in desperate need of repairs.Īs construction began, an additional structure was added behind the hotel, featuring both a stage and an auditorium, the city’s first ever theatre.īut the construction of the original Dock Street is believed to have commencend in the year of 1735, with the grand opening taking place on the 12th of February in the year of 1736. Alexander Calder, and It is also known as the last remaining “Antebellum” Hotel in Charleston. ![]() The building that is now the Dock Street Theater was built in 1809 in the French Quarter in downtown Charleston, originally known as Planter’s Hotel, by Mr. The haunted Dock Street Theater has plenty of centuries of eerie ghost stories to tell, and those who have passed by at night have seen the ghosts of lost souls gazing out from the windows.Īmerica’s first theater, is located in the historical and haunted city of Charleston in South Carolina, perhaps one of America’s most haunted cities.
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