ACE Basin National Wildlife Refuge
National Wildlife Refuge · Hollywood, South Carolina
A refuge of about twelve thousand acres inside the ACE Basin — the Ashepoo, Combahee and Edisto rivers, and one of the largest undeveloped estuarine systems left on the Atlantic coast. The open water and marsh you are looking at were rice fields: the impoundments, the dikes and the wooden trunk gates that still control the water were built by enslaved people in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and the birds now using them are using infrastructure that a rice economy left behind.
Hollywood, South Carolina, United States
FREE. Refuge lands are open daily from dawn to dusk, year round. ⚠ THE REFUGE IS IN TWO SEPARATE UNITS — Edisto and Combahee — and they are not connected; confirm which one you want before setting off. THE GROVE PLANTATION HOUSE at the Edisto unit is the headquarters and keeps limited weekday office hours; the grounds and trails around it are open daily regardless. PORTIONS CLOSE SEASONALLY for wintering waterfowl and for nesting, and some impoundment dikes are closed to foot traffic entirely. Hunting is permitted in designated areas under South Carolina rules and refuge-specific permits.
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