Issaqueena Falls

Visiting Issaqueena Falls

Not every waterfall has a story to tell, but when they do, it’s usually a humdinger. The legend of Issaqueena Falls is no different filled with forbidden love and adventure culminating in a daring escape. (For more about the legend click here).

Issaqueena Falls is in the same park as Stumphouse Tunnel and shares the same parking lot, admission, and facilities. There are plenty of picnic tables and restrooms on site.

From the parking lot follow short path (roughly 15 minutes) to the viewing platform. Overall, Issaqueena Falls is a more or less 100 feet tall cascading waterfall. Park admission is $5.00 and can be paid via a drop box near the park entrance.

The Legend of Issaqueena Falls

A legend has grown up around this elegant hundred foot waterfall near Walhalla in Oconee County South Carolina. Like all legends, it’s hard to tell what’s real and what’s fiction. As the first written accounts come over 100 years after the events depicted, you can imagine that many facts have been changed and embellished over the years.

The most popular version of the legend comes from JW Daniel’s epic poem “Cateechee of Keowee” written in 1898. Here he tells the story of Allen Francis, who moved to Old Cambridge, SC (now called Ninety-Six, but we’ll get to that later) in the 1790’s. Once there his father set up a mercantile and established trade routes with the Cherokee people in the village of Keowee.

Allen enjoyed accompanying his father on expeditions to trade with the Cherokee, and on one of these trips he met and fell in love with an Indian maiden. She was a young Choctaw woman captured in war and adopted my the Cherokee Chief Karuga. Although in her home land she was known as Issaqueena, she was given the Cherokee name Cateechee and lived as Karuga’s daughter.

A Desperate Midnight Ride

At some point, Issaqueena learned of a plan by her adopted father to attack the settlers at Cambridge. She stole a horse and rode the ninety-six miles from Keowee in order to warn Allen and the other settlers of the impending attack. As she rode, she named the creeks she crossed along the way by how far along the journey they where. Six Mile Creek, Twelve Mile Creek and others that are still known by these names today as well as the town of Ninety-Six.

Thanks to her warning, the settlers where able to repel the attack, and afterwards she and Allen Francis where married. They settled down in Ninety-Six and began to plan their lives together, but their story wasn’t over yet. After some time, Issaqueena’s adopted father, Karuga sent braves south to capture the pair and return them to Keowee. For the next 2 and a half years, she and Allen lived among the Cherokee, but longed to be free.

Issaqueena’s Daring Escape

One fateful night they put their escape plan into motion. They intended to set out from the foot of what’s now known as Issaqueena Falls and steal off to safety. But as Allen hid at the base of the falls, Issaqueena was spotted by pursuing braves. In a hail of arrows, she jumped from the top of the falls, but miraculously didn’t plunge to her death. Instead, she landed on a ledge and hid behind the curtain of water until her pursuers left believing she had died.

She and Allen then made their way to safety in a canoe he had hidden at the base of the falls. In this version of the story, they lived happily ever after in either Ninety-Six or fled beyond Karuga’s grip to Alabama, the home of the Choctaw people.

Other versions of the legend have Issaqueena leaping off the waterfall on her way to warn the settlers in Ninety-Six. Still others tell a much darker tail with Issaqueena falling in love, not with a white trader, but an Oconee Brave. Fleeing Cherokee warriors, they chose to leap from the falls to their deaths instead of dying at the hands of they’re pursuers.

Final Thoughts about Issaqueena Falls

Did the events of the legend actually take place? Who knows, but even if none of it is true Issaqueena Falls remains a stunning site in Oconee County.

It’s an easy walk to the platform where you can view the waterfall and thanks to it being in the same park as Stumphouse Tunnel, there are plenty of picnic tables, hiking trails, and other facilities. Most people come for the Tunnel and see Issaqueena Falls as a bonus, and that’s OK – it is called Stumphouse Tunnel Park.

Previously there was an unofficial trail located on the right hand side of the observation deck leading down to the creek at the base of the falls. The trail was steep and depending on the weather was very slippery (don’t ask how I know). It was really just an embankment worn down by visitors over the years and was never maintained by the city of Walhalla. In fact the parks department advises visitors not to take this path, and from what I’ve hear they have completely closed the path, so if you visit, you’ll no longer be able to reach the base of the falls.