‘She protects her buildings …’

Many consider Charleston the nation’s best-preserved city, and its extensive and diverse collection of historical architecture not only fuels its tourism industry but also defines its civic identity.

The thousands of homes, churches and other 18th-, 19th- and 20th-century buildings bear witness to Charleston’s boom and bust history — and to its ongoing interest in preserving its unique sense of place.

The city isn’t simply one of America’s oldest, but it also was a spectacularly wealthy one early on, as its slave-based plantation economy produced rice, cotton and other crops that made planters very rich men.

And they liked to show off.

The main house at Drayton Hall plantation, built around 1740, when George Washington was about 6 years old, reflects how successful colonists wanted to transplant the English notion of a landed gentry in the New World.

Today, thousands of homes, churches, warehouses and other buildings survive — partly because they were built well enough to survive the 1886 earthquake as well as blows from many tropical storms.

And they survive because they were built beautifully, cherished by generations for their quality, durability and aesthetics.

Finally, many also remain standing because after the South lost the Civil War, Charleston lacked the money to build the skyscrapers that transformed other significant early American cities, such as Boston, Philadelphia and New York.

The city’s preservation success also has stemmed from its long-standing ability to re-purpose buildings as times change.

Charleston City Hall, whose pediment contains the city seal and motto, “She protects her buildings, customs and laws,” originally was built as a bank.

The Dock Street Theatre was built as a hotel. The administration building at Ashley Hall school once was a grand residence.

The College of Charleston is one of the nation’s best urban campuses, largely because it has bought, preserved and reused dozens of historic buildings, such as the Blacklock House at 18 Bull Street and the Sottile Theatre.

The city’s churches, whose spires still define the skyline and undergird its “Holy City” nickname, reflect the diverse styles and time periods and architectural styles that can be found downtown.

They include the Georgian, Palladian grandeur of St. Michael’s Episcopal Church (circa 1752), several 19th-century Greek Revival and Gothic Revival examples and the Victorian era stylistic mix of the Central Baptist Church at 26 Rutledge St.

Charleston’s preservation ethic extends beyond the grand, high-style architecture to the more mundane. In fact, its contribution to the nation’s preservation movement largely has been the notion of preserving everything, not just the grand monuments of the past.

The modest Powder Magazine at 21 Cumberland St., considered South Carolina’s oldest secular public building, was among the city’s earliest preservation projects when it was restored around 1900.

And the row of slave cabins at McLeod Plantation have been the focus of as much preservation attention as any other buildings on James Island.

The city’s historic ambiance derives mostly from the thousands of well-preserved private homes throughout the Old and Historic District, which covers most of the peninsula south of U.S. Highway 17.

The homes’ exteriors are protected by the nation’s oldest preservation law, administered through the city’s Board of Architectural Review and scrutinized by both the Preservation Society of Charleston and the Historic Charleston Foundation.

Many of these homes are noted in the 1997 guidebook “The Buildings of Charleston.” But even though this book runs more than 700 pages, author Jonathan Poston still had to leave hundreds of historic buildings out.