Santee, SC

Santee is an Orangeburg County town on the south side of Lake Marion, where an old agricultural landscape now meets one of South Carolina's biggest water-and-highway destinations. Santee Cooper built the reservoir as a hydroelectric project in the late 1930s and early 1940s, remaking the Santee River valley and giving the town a lakefront identity. Interstate 95 crosses a narrow arm of the lake on a causeway, so travelers see the water before they ever turn toward the golf courses, marinas, and state park.

Santee State Park and Santee National Wildlife Refuge make the lake more than a backdrop. The refuge covers 15,000 acres and includes the Santee Indian Mound, while Lake Marion's stumps, cypress, backwaters, and fish habitat keep anglers busy. Old Santee Canal Park adds a canal-and-swamp history lesson, and the Orangeburg County Library has a branch in town. Santee works because the pieces are all close together: interstate, lake, refuge, golf, park, and a library serving a town that grew from farm country into a recreation center.