Poinsett State Park (SC21 – Wedgefield)

For the past three years, Sage has been going to a school out in the Horrell Hill area, off of 378 headed towards Sumter. I knew that Poinsett State Park was down 378 a few miles, so after picking up Sage this Friday afternoon, we kept going down to the community of Wedgefield to find our 21st state park.

Researching before we went, I learned about the High Hills of the Santee. While the Midlands aren’t renowned for big, rolling hills, these hills by the Wateree River are about 150 feet higher than the level of the river. So, while it’s no trip to the mountains, this cool, crisp fall afternoon dictated that we went somewhere mountain-like. 🙂

If you haven’t learned by now, this type construction is a giveaway that this is a CCC park.

One of the 16 parks in SC built by the CCC, Poinsett State Park gets its name from Joel Poinsett, who is the namesake of the poinsettia flower. Poinsett was a politician from SC, buried near the park, who served as the first U.S. Minister to Mexico in the 1820s. It was there in Mexico that he saw the flower and sent it back to the U.S. (Thanks, Wikipedia, for this info.)

Going back to the geology of the area, the region more broadly is known as the Sandhills. This is because millions of years ago, what is now the middle of SC used to be the edge of the ocean. Millions of years of sea creatures left their shells in the soil. Then, in the 1930s, when the CCC was building Poinsett State Park, they took the soil, laden with these ancient shells, and constructed many structures that we can now see. If you look closely, you can see the tiny shells in the bricks, which is known as coquina.

Up close look at the coquina building blocks of the main park building

We found the foundation of an old grist mill, played on the playground, and as the sun was setting, we headed up to find a geocache. We parked our car near the geocache, where we saw one other person at a structure overlooking the lowlands below. Turns out, it was one of our good friends from church! She just happened to be there camping for the night. Love a good serendipitous meeting!

We didn’t have a lot of time at the park, but it’s close enough that we’ll be back. It’s got a wide variety of topography, from hills to wetlands. There are a lot of trails to hike, which will become more of a draw once Sage is a little bigger. We look forward to coming back!