City Directories and History: “Cook’s Mountain was named for the Tory Captain James Cook, who received a royal grant for four hundred acres in 1770. In 1932 William Spencer Murray of New York (for whom Lake Murray on the Saluda River above Columbia is named), acquired a tract of land of about eight thousand acres including Cook’s Mountain.
On his property he built a comfortable one-story house and a studio for Mrs. Murray and he had a dam and power plant constructed on Mountain. He developed it as his private estate, calling it Bohemian Manor. There are two possible explanations for the name; he may have been thinking of the mountains in the countries of Bohemia and Bavaria or because of the fact that his wife was an artist, he may have selected it as typifying an informal artistic retreat. Colonel’s Creek. He often spoke of his estate as the “Little Lake Murray project.”
In recent years the property has been sold and a small part of the development is known as the Lake Dogwood Corporation.
Please enjoy this structure and all those listed in Roots and Recall. But remember each is private property. So view them from a distance or from a public area such as the sidewalk or public road.
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