Walhalla is a city in Oconee County, South Carolina, United States. It is located 16 miles from Clemson University, which is located in Clemson, South Carolina. The population was 3,801 at the 2000 census. It is the county seat of Oconee County^GR6. The current mayor of Walhalla is Lamar Bailes. Walhalla is known as "The Garden of the Gods" and the "Gateway to the Blue Ridge Mountains."

Walhalla was the terminus for the Blue Ridge Railway system that planned a route to Chattanooga, Tennessee before the American Civil War. Some people seem to think it was suppose to run through Knoxville, Tennessee but this is incorrect according to documents in the South Carolina Archives and railroad historians and much out of the way from the true intended route. Had the Knoxville (which was at that time a tiny backwater at that time compared to Chattanooga) route been chosen; it would have been easier and shorter to have taken the road from Greenville to Spartanburg and up to Asheville thence to Knoxville which the Southern railroad certainly did after 1870. The big problem in constructing any roads beyond the Piedmont before 1870 was that the Blue Ridge Escarpment made it very difficult to build roads of any kind over the Escarpment Walls. Another misconception was that the road was completely built by free white men. It was not; slaves both black and white (the so- called "poor white trash"), some of whom were indentured servants, were used to build the road until slavery was outlawed and continued to be used until the North over came the South in the American Civil War. Construction faltered with the Stumphouse Mountain Tunnel above Walhalla unfinished. The rail line to Walhalla was cut back by the Norfolk Southern to nearby West Union in the late 1990s. The railroad, however, is the mainline between Charlotte and Atlanta.

Walhalla and the Railroad

The original Blue Ridge railway was begun before the American Civil War and was the first Railroad in the upstate that ran from Columbia through Hodges(where it acquired a rumor and legend that Confederate President Jefferson Davis came through with mountains of Confederate Gold and buried it along the tracks---this is patently untrue. Davis did come through Hodges on his way to Abbeville but he came in a wagon train in from Chester, South Carolina on back roads less traveled. What gold he carried from Norfolk Banks was soon spent. Most of it was found and returned. Some is still missing and is thought to have ended up in a Charleston, South Carolina bank as the personal property of the bank's owner and founder), Belton,thence to Greenville,according to Mary Chestnut's diaries (Chestnut's husband was Aide de Camp to President Davis) who rode this railroad to Greenville during the Civil War from Charleston. When the route was planned from Wahalla the road branched off from Belton and ran to Anderson, Pendleton, Seneca and thence to Walhalla. The extension of the road from Columbia to Greenville which was built just before the Civil War around 1850. This part of the road was built and regularly used until about 1960 when Anderson and other parts of the road fell into disuse. The more direct route from Belton is still regularly used by another railroad. When the Blue Ridge Railroad went bankrupt; all of its physical assets were eventually acquired by the Southern Railroad of Norfork, Virginia. In the 1960s, most railroads in the United States either went bankrupt or nearly bankrupt. The Southern Railroad was then acquired by Norfolk and Southern which still runs the road. The last Steam Train came through in 1957 other than historical tour steam trains. Regular Passenger service which had been frequent before the 1960s came to a halt and in 2007 the only passenger service is Amtrack's run from Washington to Atlanta and New Orleans. Should enough interest today be drummed up; the original plans for the railroad to go through Stumphouse and reach it's destination in Chattanooga could be completed today with modern Engineering and equipment in less than 5 years. Stumphouse is now a town Park featuring the spectacular Issaqueena Falls, named supposedly for a Cherokee Indian Maiden who jumped to her death from them in a love affair gone wrong.

Walhalla began as a settlement of German immigrants who left from Hamburg, Germany and Bavaria with some English, Scots and Irish who came over in the same ship. Most of them were Roman Catholic as most Southern Germans are. Most came because of the railroad. Today, the Southern Baptist Church is the predominant religion of the town.

The town celebrates its German heritage annually by decorating its streets with both German and American flags during Oktoberfest. This festival is not quite like the ones in Germany because of the Baptist population who regard dancing, the consumption of alcoholic beverages et al as a violation of their religious values. They strongly objected to Octoberfest when the festival was first begun but are now more tolerant.

Bayreuth West Festival

Walhalla, South Carolina is the proposed site of Bayreuth West Festival which has been in the works for many years. The plan to bring Bayreuth to Walhalla was and is the dream of and first considered by William Rowland, a noted Symphonic composer, whose ancestors were some of the original inhabitants of Wahalla and who grew up in the Wahalla-Clemson area, who asked permission and was granted license and blessings in the 1970s from the Richard Wagner family descendents of Bayreuth, Germany and New York to bring the festival to Wahalla.

The problem thus far has been financial(an estimated 60-million dollars needs to be raised for the infrastructure) and the current lack of adequate theatrical space (Opera House) to do so. However, when financial problems are overcome; an Opera House, Symphony Hall and theater complex are planned especially for the presentation of all of Wagner's Operas as well as other music and Operas as well as the plays of notable playwrights such as James Rasheed, who lives in the area. Both the state of the art and science Opera and Symphony Hall are planned to seat between 3000 people, have an 80 to 120 rank pipe Organ, and an indoor Carillon of 61 bells (as well as a regular outdoor one in a tower) to be housed and enclosed in the upper reaches of the ceiling/attic whose volume will be controlled by Baffles which will admit the sounds of the bells, according to volume needed, into the auditorium space. Bass Bells, of which the lowest and a largest will be tuned to 8-foot pitch C such as those heard in the Riverside Carillon in New York are planned to be incorporated into the building as well; so as to perform real bell sounds as heard in Tannhauser and other works by Wagner as Wagner originally intended — not to mention the Symphonies of Mahler etc. are planned as part of both the Opera House and Concert Hall. In addition to the Bayreuth West festival; which is planned to be coordinated with Oktoberfest, — a J. S. Bach festival is also planned along with the American Composer's Festival, in which only the music of American composers, both living and dead, will be played with more emphasis placed on living composers and new music. Each of the four initial buildings are to be built and designed with superb acoustics so that microphones et al are not necessary no matter where one sits. The Concert Hall and Opera are expected to have 6 seconds natural reverberation. The campus of the Bayreuth West complex is to be landscaped with water features in a park like setting. These Festivals are expected to employ most of Wahalla's inhabitants in one or another jobs that can be found for them along with artists from the world over.

Geography

Walhalla is located at (34.767263, -83.064321)^GR1.

According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 9.7 km² (3.8 mi²). 9.6 km² (3.7 mi²) of it is land and 0.1 km² (0.1 mi²) of it (1.33%) is water.

The town is built on mostly granite based rock and being close to the Mountains is subject to Earthquakes. Earthquakes do not often occur but when the do; they attract a good deal of attention even for small ones that would go unnoticed in California. The last major quake in the area hit Newry, South Carolina in the 1970s with a 5.0 quake. Newry is an Oconee County former mill town, now mostly under water, named for Newry, Ireland. This quake was felt for approximately 30 miles around from the epicenter which was Newry with stronger shocks being felt the closer one was to the epicenter. Most quakes in this part of South Carolina seldom are more than 3.0. The cause of the Newry quake was a slippage of the Brevard Fault and other faults in the area aided by the building of Lake Hartwell Dam. Before the Hartwell Dam was built; quakes were almost an unknown.

Demographics

As of the census^GR2 of 2000, there were 3,801 people, 1,558 households, and 1,028 families residing in the city. The population density was 395.6/km² (1,023.8/mi²). There were 1,705 housing units at an average density of 177.4/km² (459.2/mi²). The racial makeup of the city was 83.19% White, 6.92% African American, 0.32% Native American, 0.32% Asian, 0.18% Pacific Islander, 7.66% from other races, and 1.42% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 15.36% of the population.

There were 1,558 households out of which 30.9% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 45.2% were married couples living together, 16.7% had a female householder with no husband present, and 34.0% were non-families. 30.9% of all households were made up of individuals and 15.6% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.40 and the average family size was 2.98.

In the city the population was spread out with 25.7% under the age of 18, 8.3% from 18 to 24, 27.7% from 25 to 44, 22.5% from 45 to 64, and 15.7% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 36 years. For every 100 females there were 91.6 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 82.8 males.

The median income for a household in the city was $29,063, and the median income for a family was $34,184. Males had a median income of $28,445 versus $21,106 for females. The per capita income for the city was $15,691. About 14.1% of families and 17.2% of the population were below the poverty line, including 21.2% of those under age 18 and 15.0% of those age 65 or over.

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Oconee County is a county located in the U.S. state of South Carolina. The 2000 census recorded its population to be 66,215. In 2005, the U.S. Census Bureau estimated that its population had reached 69,577.^[1] Its county seat is Walhalla.
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Walhalla, South Carolina

Information about Walhalla, South Carolina

Walhalla and the Railroad

Bayreuth West Festival

Geography

Demographics

External links

Units

Biological population densities

See also

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