If you’ve read enough of my posts, you will have sorted out that I like to understand why places are named what they are. Naturally, I asked myself this question when researching Lake Warren.
What I found couldn’t have been more timely.
I realized that Lake Warren’s full name is Lake George Warren. Who was George Warren you ask? He was a lawyer legislator in SC, serving in the first half of the twentieth century. Most notably, however, he helped create the 14th judicial district and served as its 1st circuit solicitor.
Now, before this year, that fact would have had little significance to me; however, if you’re a true crime buff, or if you’ve paid attention to SC crime news the past few months, you would probably recognize the 14th district as significant.
Why is that? Well, after Warren served for four years as solicitor, for the next 86 years, the one who would serve in that seat would be one of three Murdaughs, the last of which being Alex Murdaugh’s father. The second Murdaugh was Alex’s grandfather, and it was his painting in the Walterboro County Courthouse that was removed as Alex was on trial.
As it turns out, the route from Rivers Bridge to Lake Warren takes you quite close to many place names mentioned in the Murdaugh trial. When I realized this, we took a slight detour to drive by the Moselle property where the unfortunate murders took place. Definitely a somber moment.
Almeda (where Alex’s mom was living) is just to the east of Lake Warren, and we drove by on our way out. Driving down the road, we passed another business called Murdaugh Auto Sales, or something like that. I wonder how their business has been. On our way back from the coast, we drove through Walterboro to see the courthouse where the trial happened.
Anyway…I digress. Back to our visit to Lake Warren.
Our primary activity here was a picnic lunch. Once we had satisfied our hunger, we walked down to the lake, where the little pavilion that is on the stamp is located. There was a man fishing, and the girls loved seeing what he had caught.
We walked up to another small pond and saw some beautiful lily pads. We kept our eyes out for any gators, but we didn’t see any. The cooler temperatures and overcast skies may have kept them hidden!
And the girls can hardly resist a playground. We had a few minutes to spare, so they were able to get some energies out, as we say.
It was a brief visit, but we then hopped back in the car towards the coast, where we would visit our final state park–Hunting Island!
Beavers in the Park 