The Open Space Institute, a conservation organization, has acquired 47 acres of privately owned land in the middle of Kings Mountain State Park.
The South Carolina Department of Parks, Recreation, and Tourism and the South Carolina Conservation Bank partnered with OSI to conserve this land for park use.
The parks department said that the Institute will convey the land as an addition to Kings Mountain State Park by this summer. The property consists of the ancestral lands of the Catawba and Cherokee Indigenous peoples. The state park is adjacent to the Revolutionary War battleground at Kings Mountain National Military Park.
“This is a beautiful tract, and it’s only appropriate that it is forever protected and available to the public,” said Patrick Moore, OSI’s associate director of Land for the Southeast.
The property has served as a wedding venue, and the park plans to continue using the venue as such initially. The land includes grasslands, mature forest, and a two-acre pond.
The Northern Bobwhite Quail roosts on the land, a species that seeks habitat where woodlands, pastures, and old fields meet. Four bat species also call the woodlands home, contributing to the South Carolina Conservation Bank’s designation of the parcel as a “high conservation priority.”
“My family has owned this land for years and have had many happy years there,” said landowner Greta Metker. “It fills my heart to know that children will be able to play and people will be able to fish and enjoy the sunshine here for generations to come.”