Episode 299: The Orange Economy of Colonial Charleston

Charleston Time Machine

Orange trees and their delicious fruit are not native to North America, but they form a curious and poorly-remembered chapter in South Carolina’s early history. During the second quarter of the eighteenth century, British settlers planted thousands of orange trees in the Charleston area to capitalize on the fruit’s high commercial value. Although cold temperatures ended dreams of an orange bonanza before the American Revolution, vestiges of Charleston’s colonial citrus experiment survive on the modern landscape.