Hunting Island
South Carolina's most-visited state park, and a lighthouse you can climb.
- State park
- 5,000 acres, since 1935
- Lighthouse
- 136 feet
- Visitors
- About 1.2 million a year
- Tides
- Two highs, two lows a day
Then
- 1850s
A lighthouse is built on the island. Confederate forces destroy it early in the Civil War.
- 1870s
About ten years after the war, a new lighthouse goes up. It is later moved inland, away from the eroding beach.
- 1935
Hunting Island becomes a state park, developed by the Civilian Conservation Corps.
- 1993
Most of Forrest Gump's Vietnam scenes are filmed on Hunting and Fripp islands.
Now
Visitors can climb the 136-foot lighthouse to its viewing deck. Erosion has eaten away the north beach since 1980, leaving a “Bone Yard” of dead trees, and loggerheads lay 60 to 130 nests a year.
A fishing pier at the Nature Center reaches into Fripp Inlet, across from the resort community on Fripp Island.
On the water
From NOAA's predictions for Johnson Creek Bridge, Hunting Island, SC over the next 365 days. Heights are in feet above mean lower low water (MLLW).
- Pattern
- Two highs and two lows a day, close in size
- Typical daily range
- 6.1 ft
- Biggest swing
- 8.6 ft on Jan 23
- Smallest swing
- 3.9 ft on Mar 31
- Highest high
- 7.6 ft, Oct 27 at 9:18 AM
- Lowest low
- −1.6 ft, Jan 23 at 2:25 AM