Fresh peaches from Simons Bros. Vineyard tempt passersby at a roadside market in St. Andrews Parish in this black-and-white image—from the Agricultural Society of South Carolina’s collection—estimated to have been taken in the 1930s. Georgia may be known as the “Peach State,” however, South Carolina harvests more of the stone fruit annually—in 2020, a whopping 76,500 tons, according to the US Department of Agriculture—and has done so for decades. In fact, in 1984, the South Carolina General Assembly officially named it the state fruit. While the majority of our peaches are grown in the Piedmont, Charleston has its own juicy peach history. Read more about it in David Shields’s 2018 article “A Cling of the Past”.
