Named after the city in France, Abbeville County has a rich historical and cultural heritage. The town of Abbeville, the county seat, is known for its tree-lined square with bricked streets, the historic Opera House and Courthouse, Trinity Episcopal Church with its soaring spire, and Victorian homes such as the Burt-Stark Mansion, a National Historic Landmark. Due West is home to the nineteenth-century Erskine College campus, a school founded by the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church in 1839 and known today for high academic standards. The county's natural resources support outdoor recreation at Richard B. Russell Lake, Calhoun Falls State Recreation Area, and Parsons Mountain in the Sumter National Forest. Trinity Episcopal Church, a pink stuccoed brick Gothic Revival structure built in 1860, is known for its stained glass windows and working 1860 Baker Tracker Organ. Richard B. Russell Dam was begun by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in 1976 to control flooding on this section of the Savannah River, and the 26,650-acre lake reached full pool in 1984. In Abbeville, the Old Bank Building now serves as the county welcome center, Abbeville Square is surrounded by the Opera House and Courthouse complex, the Belmont Inn, and an early twentieth-century commercial district, and the Grange was built from local stone in 1935 as a WPA project for the Patrons of Husbandry.