This is my Grandfather -- from
the first time that I could understand what he did for a living I
wanted to be a cop. He started with the Highway Patrol in the
1930's. The car above is one of the first marked cars that the
Patrol had. This is a 1952 Ford. This picture was taken in
Charleston, S. C. and soon after that, he was promoted to Lieutenant
and transferred to Greenwood County. In the center grill was mounted
a Red light -- this model Ford came with a bullet there, and a Red
light in the back window. Highway Patrol was written on the Hood and
also across the roof above the Back glass. You see how "Hi-Way" was
spelled! After a while, and a lot of letters from an English teacher
telling them that it was incorrect, they changed it.
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The South Carolina Highway Patrol was originally organized as a division of the S. C. Highway Department. During the first year, there were sixty members of the Highway Patrol including a Captain, an assistant to the Captain, seven Lieutenants, forty-nine officers and eleven license inspectors. Today the Highway Patrol comes under the Department of Public Safety, and they have more than 900 commissioned State Troopers and 160 communication and civilian support personnel. |
The first vehicle that my Grandfather had was a Motorcycle with a sidecar. This is a picture of my Mother sitting on his Motorcycle. |
This is a picture of the first Highway Patrol Class. |
This is a picture of me (The one with the curly hair. Sure wish I still had that hair) with my Grandfather, and some young girl, at a football game in Charleston, S. C. |