Givhans Ferry State Park and the Edisto River: Visitor Guide

Givhans Ferry State Park is 988 acres on a limestone bluff above the Edisto River near Ridgeville, in Dorchester County, about 35 miles from downtown Charleston. The land was given by the City of Charleston in 1934, built by the Civilian Conservation Corps, and opened in 1937. The river below it is the Edisto, which runs about 250 miles from the Sandhills to the Atlantic with no dam on it, which makes it the longest free-flowing blackwater river in North America. The gate is open daily, 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., later in summer, and admission is $6 for adults.

What is the Edisto River?

It begins as two forks, North and South, rising from springs under the Sandhills just below the Fall Line in west-central South Carolina. The forks join on the Orangeburg–Bamberg county line, and from there the main stem winds southeast, forming the boundary between Dorchester and Colleton counties, before splitting into two tidal channels around Edisto Island and reaching St. Helena Sound. The South Carolina Encyclopedia puts the whole run at about 250 unobstructed river miles and says the Edisto drains about a fifth of the state. With the Ashepoo and Combahee it makes up the ACE Basin.

The water is the color of strong tea, from tannic acid out of leaves and wood breaking down in the swamps, not mud. Wikipedia and the Encyclopedia call it one of the longest free-flowing blackwater rivers on the continent; the state park service drops the “one of.”

Pottery found along the river has been dated to more than three thousand years ago. The Kusso were here when Europeans and Africans arrived, a band of Natchez joined them in the early 1700s, and their descendants, the Edisto Natchez-Kusso, are still in the basin. The river carried upland cotton and timber to Charleston before the railroad took that trade, and in the late 1700s the tidal stretches were dug into rice fields by enslaved labor.

Who was Givhan, and where was the ferry?

Phillip Givhan ran a ferry across the Edisto here in the late 1700s. The crossing sat on the road between Charleston and Augusta. The park’s history page says the original ferry site is protected inside the park and that Givhan’s granddaughter, Mary Ford, is buried on the grounds.

The bluffs the ferry landed under are themselves a protected site. They are marl limestone laid down under an ancient sea, and the state holds them as a Heritage Trust site. Sinkholes in the park run six to eight feet deep.

The CCC built it

The City of Charleston donated the land in 1934. That same year, Civilian Conservation Corps Camp 2413, Company SP-2, began work on what was first called Edisto State Park; the name changed to Givhans Ferry after the state took it over, and it opened in 1937. The CCC’s River House and several cabins are still in use. The old community building, now Riverfront Hall, dates to 1934 and seats a hundred. One of the carpenters on the job was a man named Harry; his son, Rick Robertson, later managed the park. It is one of sixteen South Carolina state parks the CCC built.

Visiting Givhans Ferry State Park

Address: 746 Givhans Ferry Road, Ridgeville, SC 29472. Phone (843) 873-0692. Take S.C. 61 from Summerville or I-26 to Ridgeville.

Hours: 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. daily; extended to 9 p.m. during Daylight Saving Time. Office hours are 11 to noon and 4 to 5.

Admission: $6 adults, $3.75 South Carolina seniors 65 and up, $3.50 children 6 to 15, free age 5 and under.

Lodging: Four two-bedroom cabins on the bluff, built by the CCC, no pets allowed in or around them. Twenty-five full-service RV and tent sites in a shaded campground and ten hike-in sites for tents and hammocks. It is the closest state park to Charleston with overnight facilities.

Trails and the rest: The 1.5-mile River Bluff Nature Trail, open to hikers and bikes. Two picnic shelters for rent, a playground, volleyball courts, a park store, a boat drop for small craft, fishing rods for rent at the office. Elsewhere in the park, dogs go on a six-foot leash.

Current closures: As of this writing the cabin boardwalk and the stairs from the cabins to the river are closed for flood damage. Check the park page before you count on river access from the cabins.

Kayaking and the Edisto River Canoe and Kayak Trail

The park is the downstream end of the Edisto River Canoe and Kayak Trail from Colleton State Park. The state park service gives the paddle as 21 miles on one page and 23 on another, and calls the whole designated trail 56 miles. Figure a long day or an easy overnight. The current is slow, the banks are low, and the river in summer is shallow enough that tubing is the main business: Edisto River Adventures runs tubes out of Riverfront Hall from May through September, by reservation. The park schedules its own paddling programs in summer and a music festival, the Edisto Blackwater Boogie, each October.

The Edisto River Canoe and Kayak Trail group behind it is volunteer-run, works to keep the river clean, and teaches paddling; its instructors are American Canoe Association certified.

Does Givhans Ferry flood?

Yes, and regularly. The Edisto has no dam to hold it, so when a foot of rain falls upstream, the river leaves its channel and spreads a mile or more wide across the bottoms. The National Weather Service gauge for this stretch is “Edisto River near Givhans Ferry”; major flood stage there is 15 feet. During the October 2015 rains the river was still rising a week after the storm, with the crest not expected until October 11, and roads and bridges across the basin were closed. In August 2024, after Tropical Storm Debby, the gauge reached about 17 feet, two feet above major stage, and Canaan Road in Ridgeville went under. In November 2024 it crested at 14.7 feet, just short of major. The Post and Courier describes washouts on the Colleton–Dorchester stretch as semi-regular, lasting a few days to a few weeks.

The river comes up, takes what it wants from the low ground, and goes back. That is the oldest arrangement in the county.

The dispatches on this site keep returning to this water, starting with /the-edisto-keeps-its-own/. The county history page follows the ferry roads, and the county map marks the landing. See also /history/, /map/, and /dispatches/.