The creek systems behind Sullivan’s Island have changed greatly over the years. In regard to the Jan. 9 article in Island Eye News, “Dredging Cove Creek,” I would like to offer my recollection of this waterway.
In all my 79 years on the island, I have never heard it called Cove Creek until recently.
My concern is not so much the dredging itself, but the changing of time-honored, familiar names that should not be lost to history.
Government Cut ran from Cove Inlet at Station 9 to the old post quartermaster’s dock at Station 16. Dredging work on this “cut” began in 1915 and was maintained by the Army to allow deep-draft boats to ferry supplies and ordnance to the dock.
From there, the stream turns east and flows behind Station 19, the old town dump. Miller’s Creek, as this winding waterway has been known for years, once connected to Breach Inlet through what was known as the “Sullivan’s Island Narrows” before the causeway (Highway 703) was completed in 1945.
Miller’s Creek’s flow was then cut off.
In Edgar Allan Poe’s 1843 story The Gold-Bug, he describes this creek, writing, “Sullivan’s Island is separated from the mainland by a scarcely perceptible creek oozing its way through a wilderness of reeds and slime.” This area of reeds and slime now abuts the backyards of multimillion-dollar homes.
By the way, when spoken or in print, it is Sullivan’s Island — never the abbreviated “Sullivans.” Good grief!
Hal Coste
Board member, Battery Gadsden Cultural Center