Your Guide to Glendale Shoals: A Thousand Acres of Waterfalls, Historic Ruins, and Hiking Trails

Inside: A local family visits Glendale Nature Park and shares all the details on hiking, exploring the mill ruins, enjoying the waterfall, and more.

When we heard Spartanburg County gained 1,000 acres of nature to explore, we knew we had to check it out! We discovered family-friendly trails, towering ruins from Glendale Mill, and accessible water features along Glendale Shoals. Read on for everything you need to know about this new hiking spot on Spartanburg’s eastside!

A Brief History of Glendale Shoals

Tucked along the banks of Lawson’s Fork Creek in Spartanburg County, Glendale is a mill village with a mighty legacy. It’s where Revolutionary War battles once echoed, colonial ironworks fired hot, and the South’s textile industry rose and fell.

Glendale Mill—initially called Bivingsville Cotton Factory—was built in the 1830s with a small dam over Lawson’s Fork Creek, topping off the series of waterfalls and shoals that flow downstream from it.

The textile mill changed hands over the decades, and the dam was replaced in 1903 after a great flood. A new metal bridge was built over the dam in the 1920s that still stands to this day. The mill brought financial stability to the Glendale area for over 100 years as a center of industry, booming during World War II as it met wartime demands for cloth, but finally stopped producing textiles in the 1960s.

After that, Glendale Mill was used primarily for storage until 2004, when a massive fire destroyed the facility, leaving only the ruins we see today. But from the ashes, the mill village found new life: The historic property and its surrounding acreage was gradually acquired by a few different groups to preserve it as a greenspace for the entire community.

Conversion to Nature Preserve

The Mill Office, along with 3 adjoining acres, was donated to Wofford College not long after the fire, providing fertile ground for the launch of their Goodall Environmental Studies Center.

Spartanburg Area Conservancy (SPACE) had obtained 13 acres around Glendale Mill only a decade before the fire, creating the initial Glendale Shoals Preserve, also sometimes called the Mary Arrington Walter Preserve after SPACE’s first executive director. Then, in 2022, SPACE was able to purchase an additional 17 acres in the area, expanding Glendale Shoals Preserve to a beautiful 30 acres along Lawson’s Fork Creek.

Most recently, in 2025, the State of South Carolina purchased 945 acres from private owners and leased it to Spartanburg County, marking the creation of the new Glendale Nature Park.

Today, these greenspaces around Glendale Shoals offer almost 1,000 acres combined for families to explore and enjoy. Amenities include a pedestrian bridge over the old Glendale Mill dam, the Carolyn Fawcett Converse Garden maintained by students and volunteers from Wofford College, multiple picnic spots and access points to Lawson’s Fork Creek, and 3.5 miles of connected, natural trails with even more in the works.

Hike the Forest in Glendale Nature Park

Newly opened in June 2025, Glendale Nature Park offers a sweeping 945-acre woodland wonderland adjacent to Glendale Shoals Preserve. As the second-largest greenspace in Spartanburg County, it’s an exciting new destination for families to hike and discover nature together.

Hikers at Glendale Nature Park will be starting at the northern trailhead of the Glendale Shoals natural trail network. You’ll find a clean gravel parking lot with a large map, showing not only the trails in Glendale Nature Park but also those in the Glendale Shoals Preserve. You can take a picture of the map like we did, but you’ll also find the map conveniently posted at key junctions on the trails!

From the parking lot, you’ll start down the easy 1.1-mile Hunt Club Trail marked in orange. This trail is wide enough for several people to pass shoulder to shoulder, mostly level, and manageable with a sturdy stroller. However, pushing a stroller is probably not a good idea after rain, as the trail can get muddy.

About 3/4 of the way down the Hunt Club Trail, you’ll have the option to turn left onto the moderate half-mile South Knob Trail marked in purple. This trail is much narrower, only wide enough for one or two people through most of it, with some inclines and terrain that will get your heart rate going.

The final trail is the moderate 1-mile Box Turtle Trail marked in white. This trail starts at the very end of the purple South Knob Trail and continues with much the same terrain until it hits the Glendale Shoals Trail in Glendale Shoals Preserve. The easier Hunt Club Trail marked in orange ends right at the halfway point of the white Box Turtle Trail.

Our favorite route is to walk the full Hunt Club Trail, turn left (east) onto the Box Turtle Trail—walking half of that trail, and then following the South Knob Trail back to the Hunt Club Trail. That route is roughly 3 miles and takes us less than an hour and a half at a pretty leisurely pace, and it’s a good mix of easy hiking at the start and finish with a little challenge thrown in the middle.

If you look closely at the trail map, you’ll notice the outlines of some more trails yet to come. A lot of clearing work still needs to be done on these trails, and they are not considered safe until they are officially opened to the public. Be sure not to venture down any unmarked trails on your visit, and stick to the ones with clear trail markers corresponding to their colors on the map!

Wander the Ruins at Glendale Shoals Preserve

Smaller but rich with character, Glendale Shoals Preserve offers just under 30 acres of historic, waterside beauty for families to explore—and it connects seamlessly into the trail system at Glendale Nature Park. You can hike straight into Glendale Shoals Preserve from Glendale Nature Park’s Box Turtle Trail!

If you prefer to drive, you can just put “Glendale Shoals Preserve” into your map app, and it will most likely lead you to the southernmost parking option off Emma Cudd Road. You’ll find limited roadside parking here, and a set of stairs leading down to a shaded, grassy area by the water. There is a small picnic pavilion with two tables, where you can look out on a calmer section of Lawson’s Fork Creek. You can access the water from this side of the preserve, but none of the trail system is accessible.

The next option is to park at Wofford College’s Goodall Environmental Studies Center on the northern side of Lawson’s Fork Creek. We highly recommend this option! There is more parking here, and easier access to all the amenities offered by both the Goodall Environmental Studies Center (more on that later!) and the larger Glendale Shoals Preserve.

Glendale Shoals Preserve offers two fantastic hiking trails—each with a different but beautiful view!

When you enter the preserve from the parking lot in front of the Goodall Environmental Studies Center, you can follow the path straight ahead to start on the Glendale Shoals Trail. This easy, half-mile trail is wide, grassy, and mostly level, but there are many narrow trails splitting off it towards the water! From the moment you enter the preserve, you can branch off to your right on just about any little path you see and find the best views of the shoals!

When the water level is low enough, you can even walk out on the rocks! Just watch your footing, as these rocks can get very slippery, and you do not want to take a tumble in water like this. Exercise even more caution after rainfall, when the water level will be higher and the current will be stronger.

The second trail is the easy, half-mile Glendale Greenway Trail. Some maps show the trail starting on the parking lot side of the Goodall Environmental Studies Center, but in our experience, there is usually a locked gate on this side of the building. Instead, go directly through the entrance to Glendale Shoals Preserve from the parking lot, and then cut through the gardens around the back of the building to get to the trailhead.

The Glendale Greenway Trail is also wide and grassy, but has more inclines along the way. The major highlight of this trail is right at the beginning, as it leads you directly past the ruins of the old Glendale Mill! There are a few different towers left behind, and you can get pretty close to them and even go inside one or two of the structures. There are a couple paved areas with one picnic table in each, but as of this writing, parents should be advised that there is some colorful graffiti in this area, and throughout the rest of the ruins.

The Glendale Greenway Trail and Glendale Shoals Trail do connect to one another, but you can also follow the Glendale Greenway Trail to a dead end and turn back or branch off the Glendale Shoals Trail onto the Box Turtle Trail, taking you into the larger Glendale Nature Park.

Pay careful attention around these intersections, as trail markings are not as clear here, and there are also some older trails in need of maintenance in the area. We recommend using a hiking map like AllTrails, or when in doubt, just retrace your steps back the way you came!