A Lake in Transition

At its largest, Lake Conestee’s water surface covered about 130 acres – the area inside the colored boundaries shown on the four aerial photos. This was the lake created when the current dam at the mill was constructed in about 1892. As the City of Greenville grew upstream, sediment from development and industrial discharges gradually began to fill the lake. During World War II, the construction of Donaldson Air Force Base to the west, on Marrow Bone Creek, increased the rate at which the lake was filled by sediment. In the 1950’s, construction of I-85 to the north further accelerated the rate of sedimentation.

Before 1943, sedimentation occurred mainly where the Reedy River and Marrow Bone Creek entered the lake. The spot marked on the aerial photographs with the green asterisk, which designates the present location of the Park’s observation deck located just off the Blue Trail, was in the middle of the hourglass shaped lake. Between 1943 and 1955, sedimentation filled up much of the northern half of the lake, and the spot designated by the green asterisk was just to the west of the banks of the Reedy River as it re-emerged from the lake.

In 1970, the main channel of the Reedy River still passed just to the east of the spot designated by the green asterisk, but a new channel had already begun to emerge much further to the east against the hills. Sometime between 1970 and the late 1980’s, the course of the Reedy River completely shifted to its present location, over 400 feet to the east, and virtually the entire northern part of the lake and much of the southern part of the lake became land.

The trees in the low areas of the park have all grown since 1955 as the land emerged from the lake. As indicated by the many large dead trees in the wetlands, these wetland areas, which emerged from the former lake, also were once dry land. However, as beavers began constructing their dams here, the land became a wetland and the trees died, providing a new habitat for a diversity of wildlife.

As shown in the 2006 aerial photograph, since the 1980’s much of the southern half of the lake has been filled with sediment, which has now migrated all the way to the dam. Eventually the remaining portions of the open lake may be filled in with sediment.