East Cooper Skatepark - Mt. Pleasant SC

More commonly known as "Mt. Pleasant."

Charleston's skatepark boom of 1977 yielded four parks, none of which appear to have had an official name that stuck.  This park was referred to most commonly by the name of the city in which it was built, but it was also referred to as "East Cooper," after the tributary of Charleston Harbor.

It was constructed as a mogul-style dish - 230 ft long and 80 feet wide with a 15 foot high maximum rise. There were plans to add a 40 foot long 8 foot wide slalom track and 15 foot deep “coffee bowl.”

The park lasted two years, by the summer of 1979, it was done. Dwayne Sneed and J.E. Periano were two of the four co-owners of the park, and they shed some light on the life of the park after its closure.

"There was another park west of The Ashley [ie Charleston Skateboard Park] that was doing quite well at the time, and we felt with proper planning to detail, we’d enjoy the same success," said Sneed.

Though Mount Pleasant kept up with its competition, the decline in skateboarding knocked all the parks out at the same time.

“It was a mistake in one sense, a success in another," Periano said in 1980. "Obviously I went in it to make money. But I also got involved in it to help give kids something to do. I can’t put a price tag on the value of the friendships I built with local kids. To me, the loss wasn’t as great as this success. But I’d probably be a good bit more cautious about involving myself in any similar enterprise now that I have a wife and two children.”