Barnwell State Park may be the best fishing hole in South Carolina that not many folks know about.

A traditional state park primarily serving the people of Barnwell County, Barnwell State Park offers camping and cabins, picnicking and playgrounds, and a community center long favored for meetings and reunions.

There’s also a nature trail that winds around a pair of nice-sized ponds that many locals know hold a good population of bream and bass, some of them surprisingly large.

Barnwell State Park is one of 16 state parks in South Carolina built by the Civilian Conservation Corps during the Great Depression to provide jobs for the men who built them and recreational opportunities for the people who live nearby.

Such as great fishing. Guess the secret’s out!

Several prominent families of Colonial and Antebellum South Carolina lived at Hampton Plantation, including Rutledges, Horrys and Pinckneys. Today, the mansion stands as a testament to the wealth and power of these families as well as the craftsmanship of the builders. Tours include a study of the architecture and evolution of the house, as seen in the open walls and unfurnished rooms, as well as personal insight into the people that called Hampton home.

In the late 18th and early 19th century, a small plot of land along South Carolina’s western frontier served as a military compound against attack from the Cherokees and later a trading post.

Today, that plot of land is Oconee Station State Historic Site.

The park just off S.C. 11 (Cherokee Foothills National Scenic Highway) contains two structures: Oconee Station, a stone blockhouse used as an outpost by the U.S. military from about 1792 to 1799, and the William Richards House, named for the Irish immigrant who built it as a trading post in 1805.

Beyond the park’s historic significance, there’s a fishing pond and 1.5-mile nature trail, the latter connecting to a half-mile trail that leads into Sumter National Forest and ends at Station Cove Falls, a 60-foot waterfall that’s considered one of the prettiest in the state.

Walk the trails during the spring wildflower show or as the leaves turn in the fall for a particularly visual treat.

A unique combination of history and mixed ecosystems makes Poinsett State Park a special place in the woods.

The rural Sumter County park’s setting in the High Hills of Santee where the Midlands sandhills meets the coastal plains has given rise to such unusual sights as mountain laurel festooned with Spanish moss.

The serene setting also offers camping, a fishing pond with coquina bathhouse built by the Civilian Conservation Corps in the 1930s, and clean, rustic cabins high atop a hill where often the only sound is the breeze through the trees.

The mix of steep hills and bluffs, pine and hardwood forests and Lowcountry swamp also is home to a wide range of plant and animal life.

Hiking is a favorite activity at Poinsett, where its own extensive trail system connects to the Palmetto Trail in adjacent Manchester State Forest.