Barnwell State Park

Barnwell State Park was built in the 1930s by the Civilian Conservation Corps, the New Deal work program that put young men to labor on public lands across the country during the Great Depression. They dammed streams to create the park's spring-fed lakes and raised the shelters, cabins, and stonework using local materials and hand tools.

That heritage is still visible in the park's rustic character, the fitted stone, the heavy timbers, the simple, sturdy buildings. Like several South Carolina parks of the same vintage, Barnwell is as much a piece of Depression-era history as it is a recreation area, a monument to a time when public work reshaped the land.

The park's two lakes are its centerpiece, fed by cool springs rather than a muddy river, which keeps the water clear and refreshing. Anglers fish from the banks and a dock for bream, bass, and catfish, and paddlers can put in a canoe or kayak for a slow circuit of the shoreline.

In the warm season a designated area opens for swimming, a welcome thing in the hot Midlands summer. Because the park is small and quiet, the lakes rarely feel busy, and a morning here can pass with little more company than a heron working the shallows.

Barnwell offers rustic cabins tucked among the pines, some of them original to the park's early days, which make it a favorite for a quiet lakeside getaway. There are campsites as well for tents and RVs, and picnic shelters for day visitors. The cabins are popular enough that they are often reserved well in advance.

Short nature trails wind through the pine and hardwood woods around the lakes, easy walking that suits a stroll after breakfast or before dinner. This is not a park for long or strenuous hikes but for gentle time outdoors, and it does that beautifully.

The park sits between the small towns of Blackville and Barnwell, in a rural stretch of the western Midlands near the Savannah River. Blackville is known for a local artesian spring long reputed for its cold, pure water, and the surrounding country is quiet farmland and pine forest.

Because it is off the main tourist tracks, Barnwell rewards travelers who like to find the calm places between the famous ones. It makes an easy overnight or a restful break on a route between the coast and the Upstate, a small, well-kept park that asks nothing more than that you slow down.

The closest Boutel™ stays, so you can turn this stop into an overnight. Each is an independently owned, editorially selected place to stay.