Unfinished stone wall in South Carolina stands as poignant memorial to Pearl Harbor

The 79th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor Monday also marked the anniversary of an unusual monument in South Carolina: An unfinished stone wall.

It sits at the entrance of Lake Greenwood State Park, about 65 miles northwest of Columbia, and state officials say the wall’s odd status reflects the moment a Civilian Conservation Corps crew heard of the attack in Hawaii.

“Workers at Lake Greenwood began construction on the entrance wall to the park in the fall of 1941, but ... as word of the attack reached the park, the men of the CCC stopped their work,” S.C. State Parks posted on Facebook.

“The country had entered World War II, and the CCC boys building the rock wall at Lake Greenwood were deployed to fight. They traded their axes and shovels for rifles and ammunition.”

The war continued through 1945 and 407,316 American service members died during the war, according to the National World War II Museum.

“The CCC never returned to finish their work at the park, and until this day, the rock entrance wall remains unfinished — a symbolic reminder of what happened that day,” park officials wrote.

The Civilian Conservation Corps was part of the federal government’s New Deal Program, to get men ages 18 to 25 back to work during the Great Depression, according to the National Park Service.

Lake Greenwood State Park is one of 16 state parks CCC workers built in South Carolina, the state says.

This story was originally published December 8, 2020 at 1:46 PM with the headline "Unfinished stone wall in South Carolina stands as poignant memorial to Pearl Harbor."