The Lumber River is a 133-mile-long (214 km) river in south-central North Carolina in the flat Coastal Plain. European settlers first called the river Drowning Creek, which still is the name of its headwater. The waterway known as the Lumber River extends downstream from the Scotland County-Hoke County border to the North Carolina-South Carolina border. Soon after crossing into South Carolina, the Lumber River flows into the Little Pee Dee River, which flows into the Pee Dee River, or Great Pee Dee River. Finally, the combined waters flow into Winyah Bay and the Atlantic Ocean.
In 1989, the river was designated as a "Natural and Scenic River" by the North Carolina General Assembly. In addition, it is the only blackwater river in North Carolina to be designated as a National Wild and Scenic River by the Department of Interior. In 2010, the Lumber River was voted one of North Carolina’s Ten Natural Wonders, the result of an on-line contest held by Land for Tomorrow, a coalition dedicated to supporting the preservation of North Carolina’s land and water resources.
In 2009, leaders of the state-recognized Lumbee tribe, based in Robeson County, North Carolina, passed an resolution asking the legislature to return the river to its ancestral name of Lumbee. The river is known to local American Indians as the Lumbee. In 1952, the tribe adopted Lumbee as its tribal name.
Read more about Lumber River: Recreation
Famous quotes containing the words lumber and/or river:
“The bookful blockhead, ignorantly read,
With loads of learned lumber in his head.
With his own tongue still edifies his ears,
And always listening to himself appears.”
—Alexander Pope (1688–1744)
“Is not disease the rule of existence? There is not a lily pad floating on the river but has been riddled by insects. Almost every shrub and tree has its gall, oftentimes esteemed its chief ornament and hardly to be distinguished from the fruit. If misery loves company, misery has company enough. Now, at midsummer, find me a perfect leaf or fruit.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)