Generations of history come together with miles of fun at Lake Greenwood State Recreation Area.

The park occupies a series of peninsulas on Lake Greenwood, which itself offers 212 miles of shoreline and 11,400 acres of boating and fishing opportunities year-round.

Lake Greenwood State Recreation Area is one of 16 state parks in South Carolina built by the Civilian Conservation Corps during the Great Depression. That history is captured in the park’s CCC museum, which also serves as a popular reception and meeting center.

CCC structures remaining at the park include picnic shelters, a boathouse, water fountain and lakeside terrace.

In addition to lakeside camping, picnicking and hiking, the park also hosts the South Carolina Half-Iron Man Competition, a popular endurance contest, each fall.

Site of one of the Confederacy’s last stands against General William T. Sherman’s sweep across the South, the still-intact earthen fortifications at Rivers Bridge State Historic Site bear silent witness to the fierce battle that raged there on Feb. 2-3, 1865.

The outnumbered Southerners held on for two days, marking the only major resistance the Union army encountered on its march from Georgia through South Carolina, which culminated a few weeks later with the burning of Columbia. The war itself ended soon after.

Today, Rivers Bridge is on the National Register of Historic Places and is the only state historic site in South Carolina that preserves a Civil War battlefield.

Rivers Bridge also preserves and interprets the Memorial Grounds where Confederate dead from that two-day struggle are interred. Ranger-guided tours and special programs help educate visitors about the battle and military life during the Civil War.