The reason Table Rock State Park is so special to me: Field Notes with Dennis Chastain
The moment you step inside the lodge at Table Rock State Park, you get a whiff of the nostalgic aroma of old wood. Examine the hand-hewn log walls and you can still see the hatch marks of the Civilian Conservation Corps workers, who, with nothing more than a broad ax, shaped the square logs cut from chestnut and white oak trees felled on the park property.
The CCC built three state parks here in the Upcountry: Table Rock, Oconee and Paris Mountain, along with Wildcat Wayside Park near Cleveland. Wildcat Wayside Park was one of six experimental small roadside parks catering to the “motoring public.”
The two guiding principles of the CCC state parks were use of local native materials, and use of the building techniques and tools of a bygone era — which came to be known as “government rustic.”
Each of these CCC-era state parks has its own story and collectively constitute an honest-to-goodness treasure of natural and cultural resources, but I have always had a special place in my heart reserved for Table Rock.
Back when I was a little kid, any time my family went to Table Rock, my father would remind me, “Dennis, our family used to own part of Table Rock.” He pointed out that his mother grew up at the old master’s homeplace (now known as Grant Meadow), and that their barn was “right where White Oak Shelter is now.”
He would also take me to the nearby Chastain homeplace. I could sense the emotion in his voice as he took me on a room-by-room tour of the unoccupied “old house” where he grew up. The “new room,” as he described it, was built with lumber from the old Table Rock Hotel, which his father and two of his older brothers had helped disassemble.
He also was delighted to show me the old rock quarry where most of the granite was quarried for use in the buildings, walls and the dam at the state park. You can still see the drill holes where the “CCC boys” used the primitive hand tools of an earlier time to cut and shape large blocks of granite into building stones.
He loved to tell the story of how his father struck a deal with the CCC whereby it would build him a spring house and an outhouse with a concrete floor. With a slight grin, he revealed, “That outhouse was a real source of pride for your grandpa. People would say, ‘Oscar Chastain’s got a fancified outhouse with a concrete floor. Ain’t that something?’”
The spring house is still there and it’s a real piece of work. In the floor of the expertly crafted concrete building is a spring box where Grandma kept buttermilk, along with shelves where she stored her home-canned vegetables.
My cousin, Michael, got the rock quarry listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and his brother Evan owns the Old House now, which is still supplied with water pumped from that spring house built by the CCC in 1937. My family and I cherish our long-established connections with the CCC and the historic Table Rock State Park.
Dennis Chastain is a Pickens County naturalist, historian and former tour guide. He has been writing feature articles for South Carolina Wildlife magazine and other outdoor publications since 1989.
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