Isabelle Michaux Davis (Jan. 25, 1880-Sept. 26, 1967) of Lancaster was one of South Carolina's pioneer women photographers.

She wasn't the only photographer in Lancaster. There were a number of photographic studios run by men, who did nice work. Isabelle, however, stands out because all of her surviving work is of outdoor scenes, not formal studio photographs.

She photographed events such as the unveiling of the Confederate monument in front of the court house, wagon loads of cotton passing down Main Street, hundreds of onlookers viewing a parade of elephants and a circus performer riding a trick bicycle.

The Main Street pictures were taken from the second-floor porch of the family home, long known as the Davis Building, that was on Main Street (catty-cornered to the courthouse). Isabelle's parents, Thomas Huey Davis and Rebecca Cooper Price Davis and her brother, Walter Pickens, lived over the store rooms.

The five large square posts that supported the second-floor porch had bullet holes in them from the riot of September 27, 1882. A picture of the building shows kerosene street lamps.

At various times the Davis Building store rooms housed a bakery, a Chinese laundry, a combination butcher shop and ice house and several different grocery stores. Prior to being demolished in 1967, the building housed the Crescent Restaurant.

The whole structure was originally a cotton gin owned by William McKenna, who died in the 1850s. Thomas H. Davis acquired the "Crossroads Gin House" in 1866 and converted it into his residence and store rooms.

Isabelle's mother died in 1895 and Isabelle became the housekeeper for her father and brother. However, she left Lancaster long enough to complete a course in violin music at the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music in June 1901.

Isabelle showed her artistic nature in other ways. There are a number of her paintings and baskets that survive. There is a 1921 picture of her sitting on stage at the exhibit hall of the State Fair in Columbia with an unfinished basket in her lap.

One Lancaster native recalled how Miss Isabelle (whose family teasingly called her "Miss Citybelle") would teach catechism to Lancaster children every Sunday afternoon. Others recalled her singing in a local opera performance. She was described by one as a "free spirit."

Isabelle lived with her father until his death in 1931. By the mid-1940s she had moved to a cabin in Spruce Pines, N. C., coming back to Lancaster occasionally to look after her property. On these visits she usually stayed with her nephew James Davis who operated a hardware store on Main Street.

Thomas H. Davis, Isabelle's father, also had cause to be remembered. He had a large garden behind the Mittag Inn which was directly across the street from the courthouse. It is only a speculation but it is likely that he sold fresh vegetables to local restaurants.

In 1880 Tom Davis noticed an okra plant that was different from all the others. The pods were spineless. Davis saved the seed and planted them the following season. A number of the okra plants exhibited the same lack of spines. He saved those seed and so on down a number of years.

In 1930, Miss Dora Walker of Winthrop College, which then housed the S. C. Extension Service, sent some of Davis' okra seed to R. A. McGinty at one of the S. C. experiment stations for agricultural products. Further experimentation was done with the spineless okra plants. When they were certain that the seed would faultlessly develop into spineless plants, the seed became available to the public.

There is a plaque on the corner of Main and Dunlap Streets in Lancaster that reads: "Honoring Thomas H. Davis-Site Where His Forty Year Selection (1880), of Okra Led to the Nationally Known Variety of 'CLEMSON SPINELESS OKRA' 1939."