ABSTRACT
To get to Hampton Plantation State Historic Site, you drive north from Charleston, South Carolina, along U.S. Highway 17 for about half an hour. On a sunny August morning, all four lanes of the “coastal highway” are crowded with cars. It is the height of the tourist season, and the ocean-front hotels and resort condominiums in Myrtle Beach are overflowing. But Myrtle Beach is yet another fifty miles north and lies at the center of a sprawling region of golf course developments, strip malls, and amusement parks. This stretch of highway, however, runs dead-straight through miles of unbroken pine forest. On your left is the Francis Marion National Forest, and on your right are the salt marshes and sea islands of the Cape Romain National Wildlife Refuge. No oceanfront hotels. No golf resorts. No country-music halls. You are experiencing the longest stretch of undeveloped coastal land in South Carolina.
