Francis Marion Hotel

When the Francis Marion Hotel opened in 1924, its height changed the view across Marion Square. Designed by New York architect W. L. Stoddart and financed by local investors, the steel-frame hotel rose above Charleston’s lower skyline and was described at the time as the largest and most luxurious hotel in the Carolinas. Its name reached further back than its architecture: Francis Marion, the Revolutionary War officer remembered as the Swamp Fox, gave the new enterprise a local historical identity.