News

Alexia Jones Helsley is guest speaker at Saluda Train Tales

By Lightning Reports, Published: August 15, 2022

SALUDA — Alexia Jones Helsley, historian, archivist and author, will be guest speaker at 7 p.m. Friday, Aug. 19, at Train Tales presented by the Saluda Historic Depot and Museum at the depot.

Helsey is currently senior instructor in history and university archivist at the University of South Carolina Aiken. Prior to joining the USCA faculty, she worked with the S.C. Department of Archives and History. The daughter of Dr. George A. Jones, a proud son of Saluda, she has long loved and explored the town and its history. Her recent publications include The Lost History of Aiken County, a chapter on Dr. Daniel L. Smith, a pioneer pediatrician, and his baby hospitals in Recovering the Piedmont Past II and a chapter titled “A Boy, a Girl & a Train” in the award-winning Our Prince of Scribes: Writers Remember Pat Conroy. Among her favorite publications are Beaufort: A History; Wicked Columbia: Vice & Villainy in South Carolina’s Capital; A History of North Carolina Wine; and Wicked Edisto: The Dark Side of Eden.

A recipient of the Governor’s Archives Award, Helsley chairs the South Carolina Old Exchange Commission and serves as president of the South Carolina Historical Association and the Pace Society of America. She also serves as an adviser to the Historic Flat Rock Foundation.