Old 96 District

The Old 96 District covers the rolling Piedmont country in the western interior of South Carolina, the upcountry agricultural belt running from the Savannah River along the Georgia line north to Laurens County. The region is named for the colonial-era frontier settlement of Ninety Six (so called because it was 96 miles from the Cherokee village of Keowee). The terrain is gently rolling — pine-and-hardwood forest, peach and cotton country, and the broad reservoirs of Strom Thurmond Lake and Lake Greenwood. Six counties cover the region. Greenwood holds Greenwood (the largest city); Abbeville holds Abbeville (with its preserved 1908 Opera House and the Burt-Stark Mansion where the last Confederate Council of War met in 1865); Laurens holds Laurens; Edgefield holds Edgefield (the home of the National Wild Turkey Federation); McCormick holds McCormick and the Hickory Knob State Resort Park; Saluda holds Saluda. Strom Thurmond Lake (the largest reservoir east of the Mississippi when it was built), Lake Greenwood, and Sumter National Forest’s Long Cane Ranger District cover the public lands; Ninety Six National Historic Site preserves the Revolutionary War frontier post. Most trips here run history-and-lake focused. Ninety Six National Historic Site handles the colonial-and-Revolutionary itinerary; Abbeville’s Opera House and Confederate history anchor a small-town weekend; Strom Thurmond Lake pulls fishermen and houseboaters.