Initially, the area that is now Congaree National Park in South Carolina was part of the homeland for several Indigenous groups, with European settlers arriving in the 18th century, keen on farming the land.
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the old-growth forests of the Congaree River floodplain in South Carolina were heavily logged. However, due to the difficulty of accessing some of the swampy area, the largest tract of old-growth bottomland hardwood forest in the United States was mostly spared.
By the late 20th century, people began to recognize the ecological significance ...
