ACE Basin: A 'Last Great Place' turns 25

It has no town square, no dot on the map, no mayor or executive director.

The ACE Basin, one of the “last great places” on Earth as described by The Nature Conservancy, has none of those things because it never needed them.

The collection of properties, mostly private and totaling 217,000 acres, have been voluntarily preserved forever against development. Each is a piece in an unfinished conservation puzzle in the rural expanse between Beaufort and Charleston, a place where the everlasting value is called love of the land.

Its datelines are Green Pond, Walterboro, Jacksonboro, Adams Run and Edisto Beach. The closest thing to an attraction is the Edisto Island Serpentarium, run by brothers Ted and Heyward Clamp, who have hunted snakes in these woods for more than half a century.

It is where the bald eagle made its comeback.

It is gospel choirs and duck blinds, arrow heads and john boats, university researchers and political activists, the Tomato Queen and Geechie Boy grits.

It is white shrimpers’ boots for sale on shelves next to a sleeping Labrador at B&B Seafood at Bennetts Point.

Its rivers echo the names of Native Americans, and the squawks of egrets.

It is a scenic byway, a roadside stand and miles of crackling salt marsh.

Resting between its busy bookends — Charleston and Hilton Head Island — the ACE Basin is something because it is nothing.

Click here for the rest of our special presentation on the anniversary of the ACE Basin. Also, pick up a copy of the Nov. 16, 2014, edition of the Island Packet or Beaufort Gazette for a gorgeous printed companion.

This story was originally published November 13, 2014 at 10:39 PM with the headline "ACE Basin: A 'Last Great Place' turns 25."