Qualla: ACE Basin https://qualla.com/ace-basin en-us © 2026 Bendyline Mon, 20 Jul 2026 10:21:14 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/d/j/y/9/ace-basin-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: ACE Basin https://qualla.com/ace-basin ACE Basin: Introduction https://qualla.com/ace-basin/ Photo credit The original uploader was Cdamgen at English Wikipedia., Public domain. From the air, the ACE Basin looks like the coast forgot to build anything. Three hundred and fifty thousand acres of salt marsh, tidal creek, hardwood forest, and barrier island stretch between Charleston and Beaufort with almost nothing vertical breaking the horizon. No resort towers, no subdivisions, no marinas bristling with white hulls. The Ashepoo, Combahee, and Edisto rivers -- the A, C, and E that give this place its name -- braid through the Lowcountry and empty into St. Helena Sound, carrying the tannin-dark water of the interior out to the Atlantic. It is one of the largest undeveloped estuaries on the eastern seaboard, and it nearly did not survive the twentieth century.

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Image: The original uploader was Cdamgen at English Wikipedia. | Public domain

]]> Tue, 10 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/j/y/9/ace-basin-wp/djy9-ace-basin-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full ACE Basin: Plantation Country, Emptied https://qualla.com/ace-basin/ Photo credit The original uploader was Cdamgen at English Wikipedia., Public domain. Before the Civil War, rice plantations lined the rivers of the ACE Basin, their impounded fields engineered by enslaved laborers who understood tidal hydrology well enough to flood and drain thousands of acres on schedule. The war destroyed that system. Only three plantation home...

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Image: The original uploader was Cdamgen at English Wikipedia. | Public domain

]]> Tue, 10 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/j/y/9/ace-basin-wp/djy9-ace-basin-plantation-country-emptied.mp3 0:06 2 full ACE Basin: The Developers at the Gate https://qualla.com/ace-basin/ Photo credit The original uploader was Cdamgen at English Wikipedia., Public domain. That isolation could not last. By the 1970s and 1980s, coastal development was eating through the South Carolina shoreline at an alarming pace. Hilton Head had transformed from a quiet sea island into a resort destination, and developers began eyeing the ACE Basin's waterfront ac...

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Image: The original uploader was Cdamgen at English Wikipedia. | Public domain

]]> Tue, 10 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/j/y/9/ace-basin-wp/djy9-ace-basin-the-developers-at-the-gate.mp3 0:06 3 full ACE Basin: A Web of Wild Places https://qualla.com/ace-basin/ Photo credit The original uploader was Cdamgen at English Wikipedia., Public domain. The ACE Basin is not a single park but a patchwork of overlapping preserves. The Ernest F. Hollings ACE Basin National Wildlife Refuge covers 11,815 federally protected acres across two units along the Edisto and Combahee rivers, with its headquarters in the historic Grove Planta...

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Image: The original uploader was Cdamgen at English Wikipedia. | Public domain

]]> Tue, 10 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/j/y/9/ace-basin-wp/djy9-ace-basin-a-web-of-wild-places.mp3 0:06 4 full ACE Basin: Water Roads and Boat Landings https://qualla.com/ace-basin/ Photo credit The original uploader was Cdamgen at English Wikipedia., Public domain. The principal highway through the ACE Basin is U.S. Route 17, locally known as the ACE Basin Parkway, which skirts the northern edge of the protected lands and connects Charleston, Beaufort, and Savannah. But the real roads here are made of water. Twenty-three boat landings dot t...

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Image: The original uploader was Cdamgen at English Wikipedia. | Public domain

]]> Tue, 10 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/j/y/9/ace-basin-wp/djy9-ace-basin-water-roads-and-boat-landings.mp3 0:06 5 full