Pacolet River Heritage Preserve in Spartanburg County, South Carolina, covers 278 acres along the Pacolet River and protects a landscape valued both for its natural features and its deep human history. Native American people stopped here on seasonal migrations between the coast and the uplands, and between 3000 and 1100 B.C. early residents came to quarry soapstone for bowls, pipes, and other necessities. The preserve contains two protected Native American soapstone quarries, part of a broader chain of outcrops associated with the King's Mountain Shear Zone, a geologic boundary formed during the Ordovician period between 490 and 443 million years ago. During the Archaic Period, Native American people quarried soapstone for hunting tools, jewelry, cooking slabs, and bowls because it resisted thermal shock and could be carved into portable objects, making it especially valuable before pottery became the predominant cooking technology in the Late Archaic Period. Soapstone objects from this tradition have been found far beyond their natural source areas, suggesting trade or migration between upland regions and distant parts of the Southeast. In 1969, Terry Ferguson and students from Wofford College documented the soapstone outcrops within the preserve, and the area remains protected because disturbing artifacts and outcrops damages the evidence needed to understand prehistoric life. The preserve also shelters uncommon plant species, including a moss and a leafy liverwort, as well as pine and hardwood forests that support migrating songbirds, reptiles, and amphibians. The river corridor also recalls the Great Flood of 1903, when heavy rain caused the Pacolet River to rise 40 feet within an hour, devastating the Pacolet and Clifton mills, sweeping away nearly every bridge across the river, scattering cotton, cloth, machinery, homes, and other debris along the banks, leaving 3,500 people temporarily unemployed and 15,000 temporarily homeless, and washing out a rock and concrete bridge whose abutments still remain.