These structures make up one of the largest collection of surviving pre-Civil War railroad depot facilities in the United States.

[3] The Aiken House is located at the corner of King and Ann Streets on the west side of the main section.

It is an 1807 Federal Adamesque wood-frame house, two stories high, with a two-story porch extending across its southern facade.

It is where the South Carolina Canal and Rail Road Company was founded in 1827, with William Aiken, an Irish immigrant, as its first president.

Construction of the railroad line took place between 1830 and 1833, marred by the death of Aiken when horses drawing his carriage were frightened by construction-related noises, overturning it, and also by the explosion of the Best Friend of Charleston, the first American-made steam locomotive.