“C” is for Congaree National Park

“C” is for Congaree National Park. South Carolina's only National Park, Congaree is located on 22,000 acres in the Congaree River floodplain of lower Richland County. Congaree protects the last significant stand of old growth, bottomland hardwood forest remaining in the United States. The forest is the tallest in eastern North America and one of the tallest temperate deciduous forests in the world. Between 1890 and 1905 Chicago lumberman Francis Beidler purchased a huge, near virgin tract on the eastern bank of the Congaree River. In 1910 he ceased logging operations along the Congaree. When his heirs demonstrated a renewed interest in logging the tract in the early 1970s, a group of “wild-eyed, Earth Day-inspired” environmental advocates mounted a public campaign to save the Congaree’s primordial ecosystem. Congaree National Park is home to numerous trees of record size.