Some see it as the old city library, others as office space, but when Larry Rowland looks at the Carnegie Building, built in 1916, he sees a "symbol of the progressive era in Beaufort."
"At that time, things were looking up, and the building is a symbol of that optimism," said Rowland, professor emeritus at the University of South Carolina Beaufort.
City officials have emptied the historic building at the corner of Carteret and Craven streets and want to give the Carnegie Building and The Arsenal new roles that attract more visitors downtown.
The Arsenal, also on Craven Street, was completed in 1799 and was a militia headquarters and arsenal for the Beaufort Volunteer Artillery. It is now the site of Beaufort Museum and is undergoing a restoration of its exterior.
Main Street Beaufort USA will sort through suggestions for both buildings, decide which will best benefit Beaufort and offer the city's redevelopment commission a proposal next month.
Beaufort history pours from the buildings' walls, Rowland said.
Before the Carnegie Building was on the lot at the corner of Carteret and Craven streets, the old Town Hall stood there. In 1907, a fire swept through downtown Beaufort and destroyed many structures, including the Town Hall and the Scheper Building, where the Clover Club, a women's literary and social group, housed its lending library.
Many of the club's books survived the fire, and between 1910 and 1915, the group hunted for money to build its collection a new home, Rowland said.
State Sen. Neils Christensen, a former owner of The Beaufort Gazette, helped the city secure a $7,500 grant from the Carnegie Foundation, which was established by steel magnate Andrew Carnegie and which helped fund about 2,500 libraries worldwide from the 1880s through the 1920s. The Clover Club donated its book collection to the city and Beaufort's Carnegie Library was born, Rowland said.
In the mid 1960s, city officials moved into the building while the library moved to its new location, which previously held city offices, Rowland said.
New ideas are rolling in for the two historic structures, said Main Street Beaufort USA Chairman Hall Sumner.
The Beaufort-Port Royal Convention and Visitors Bureau has submitted a plan that would keep the Carnegie Building as a cooperative office space for non-governmental organizations, while creating a new visitors center and meeting spaces in The Arsenal that could be rented for occasions such as weddings and parties.
The bureau also secured a grant to create a 15-minute movie of Northern Beaufort County's history that could run in a new visitors center, sales marketing manager Chad Dally said.
Others have suggested creating a new museum and converting the Carnegie Building back to a library.
The Carnegie Building probably will remain office space because of limited handicap accessibility, Sumner said, but The Arsenal offers more opportunity.
The key is having something that will create enough revenue to sustain the buildings while drawing in more tourists, said Mayor Billy Keyserling.
"People walk down Bay Street and think they've seen Beaufort," he said. "If people were to start their trip at The Arsenal and work their way through the rest of the city, the rest of the city gets a leg up."
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