Southwest Boundary Dike
National Register Listing
Street Address:
Address Restricted (Richland County)
NRHP Nomination
Record Number:
S10817740122
Description and Narrative:
The Southwest Boundary Dike is significant for its ability to yield information about settlement patterns in the region. Beginning in 1730, small farmers moved into the backcountry of South Carolina to find fertile farmland and to create “buffer zones” between the backcountry and the heavy coastal settlement centered around the city of Charleston. After the end of the Cherokee War in 1761 and the establishment of the state capital at Columbia in 1786, wealthy planters moved into the Congaree River valley to introduce the plantation system to the region. Settlers built dikes in an effort to control the periodic flooding of the Congaree River and utilize the fertile swampland on its border to grow crops. The cost of building and maintaining large earthen dike systems using slave labor in the disease-ridden swamp discouraged the efforts of most land owners and led to the decline of large-scale farming in the area. The dike is a 3-to-4-foot high earthen dike running northwest to southeast for approximately 650 feet, interrupted by a gut of water, and continuing for approximately 1300 to 1400 feet. The structure is covered with mature hardwood trees and other vegetation. Listed in the National Register November 25, 1996.
Period of Significance:
1740 – 1900
Level of Significance:
Local
Area of Significance:
Agriculture;Archeology: Historic - Non-Aboriginal
National Register Determination:
listed
Date of Certification:
November 25 1996
