The Reconstruction Era Monument in Beaufort officially became a national park on Tuesday after a Congressional lands bill was signed into law. according to an article in the Post and Courier. Another was officially established in Charleston for Fort Moultrie and Fort Sumter.
The new law establishes the Reconstruction Era National Historical Park in Beaufort. It had been designated as a national monument and was already managed by the National Park Service.
In Beaufort, the new law will also establish a network of historic sites. The national park in Beaufort will serve as a hub for a Reconstruction Era National Historic Network, which would connect other sites around the country that are important to the period of U.S. history following the Civil War.
“It’s going to allow us to link all these stories related to Reconstruction,” park service spokesperson Dawn Davis told the newspaper. “This story is way bigger than one park.”
The new legislation makes it easier for the park to possibly expand, too, Davis said.
At the statewide Governor’s Conference on Tourism and Travel hosted last month in Columbia, U.S. Rep. Jim Clyburn, D-SC, praised the park developments in Beaufort. He described its potential for tourism growth in the state as “unlike any since golf.”
Duane Parrish, director of the S.C. Department of Parks, Recreation and Tourism, had echoed Clyburn, saying that Reconstruction “could be to Beaufort what civil rights is to Selma.”
The U.S. Senate overwhelming passed the bill — which includes other National Park Service designations, protects more than a million acres of wilderness and reauthorizes the Land and Water Conservation Fund — on Feb. 12. The bill then passed the U.S. House of Representatives handily late last month before it went to the president, who signed it into law.
