The town created by Henry Shultz turned out to be as ephemeral as the man himself.

Don’t go looking for Hamburg, South Carolina, because you’ll be sorely disappointed. At best what remains is a ghost town, unoccupied since 1929 after several floods came through. Perhaps the most notable one was in 1911, after which nearby cities built levees to protect themselves, but there wasn’t enough of Hamburg remaining at that point to bother building one there.

For all that, Hamburg was a very big deal in Henry Shultz’ day. It was a little bit of a spite project on his part, meant specifically to compete with Augusta, Georgia, on the other side of the Savannah River. And for a long while it did quite well, largely because it was the terminus of a railroad line. But further expansions of the railroads and the completion of the Augusta Canal added up to a big drop in cargo passing through, and that was the beginning of the end.

If you visit North Augusta, you can see a road bridge across the river, which is in the same place as the bridge Mike discusses in the episode. Parallel to that bridge you’ll see some broken piers, which are remnants of the South Carolina Rail Road, which operated in that area until 1908.

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