Did you know that there are more than 80,000 properties listed in the National Register of Historic Places, and South Carolina is home to 1,300 National Historic Places? Charleston County is home to over 175 of those sites on the National Register of Historic Places.

The National Register of Historic Places is “the official list of the Nation’s historic places worthy of preservation. Authorized by the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966, the National Park Service’s National Register of Historic Places is part of a national program to coordinate and support public and private efforts to identify, evaluate and protect America’s historic and archeological resources.”

There are more than 80,000 properties listed in the National Register, and nearly every county has at least one place listed. To qualify for this status, the site must be at least 50 years old and must still look the way it did when it was built. Additionally, the site must have historic significance associated with events, activities, developments or architecture.

The Cigar Factory has been on this list since 1980. Here’s the full description for the Cigar Factory…

The Cigar Factory is significant as a largely intact example of a late nineteenth century industrial plant built in the Victorian commercial style. Also important for its contributions to Charleston’s economy from post-Reconstruction through the Great Depression and on into the 1970s, the firm was incorporated as the Charleston Manufacturing Company in 1880 and has been in operation since construction of the building was completed in 1882. Originally built as a textile factory, the building became locally known as the

Cigar Factory when the American Cigar Company purchased the property in 1912. The main building is five stories of brick in common bond with a flat metal roof, and central six-story brick water tower, which also houses an elevator. Immediately adjacent to the water tower is a four-story masonry addition without windows, which was part of the cooling and dehumidifying system added during the Cigar Factory period (1912-1973). The property also includes a ca. 1885 two-story brick addition, a two-story brick office building used originally as the picker house, two two-story brick engine houses, and a one-story brick boiler house. The boiler house also has an associated five-story brick chimney. The building is also one of the few surviving large-scale industrial buildings from the Victorian era in Charleston. Listed November 25, 1980

Interested in other National Historic Places in Charleston? Check out a few prominent sites below.

• (West Point) Rice Mill
• Dock Street Theatre
• Boone Hall Plantation
• Greek Orthodox Church of the Holy Trinity
• USS Yorktown
• Morris Island Lighthouse
• HL Hunley
• Magnolia Cemetery
• United States Customshouse
• US Post Office and Courthouse (corner of Broad and Meeting Streets)
• College of Charleston
• Charleston Towne Landing
• Fort Sumter