North Augusta, South Carolina — North Augusta’s Living History Park is bringing the 1700s back to life, more than a year after Hurricane Helene devastated the area.
Families gathered this weekend for the park’s annual Colonial Times event, which included historical re-enactments, demonstrations, tales, and traditional food to commemorate the CSRA’s Colonial past.
While the park hosted events last Christmas and on July 4, much of the property remained shuttered following the September 2024 storm.
“A beautiful barn built from reconstructed materials that are hundreds of years old still has a thirty-by-twenty-foot hole in the roof,” Bob Kaltenbach, a blacksmith at the site, explained.
“We’ve not recovered. The road you’re standing on was virtually impassable to get to the park.
According to Kaltenbach, fallen trees, some of which were at least a hundred years old, obstructed access to many of the site’s roadways and required months to clean.
Adding to the park’s difficulties, founder Lynn Thompson died on July 4th, 2025.
“About the time she passed away, they set off the fireworks down at the ballpark, and it was a proper sendoff,” said her husband, Jerry Murrell.
“She was the only consistency in the park. I had a lot of people come and go, but she was the one who remained steady.”
Organizers and volunteers said they hope to carry on Thompson’s legacy by reconstructing the historic town and educating future generations about the region’s history.
The Living History Park is planned to be fully operational for field excursions and public activities in March 2026.
