The Great Falls of the Catawba River mark the point at which the river encounters a series of rapids while coursing across the Piedmont Plateau on the border of Lancaster County, South Carolina, and Chester County, South Carolina, near the town of Great Falls. Prior to the creation of the Fishing Creek Reservoir and other artificial lakes by Duke Power, the falls were a major landmark on the river. The rapids could be heard from long distances away, while a major pre-Columbian trading path ran near the left bank. Historically the Great Falls of the Catawba were approximately 4 miles long, with a total elevation drop of 121 feet. (The word "falls" was an 18th-century appellation, when any river rapids and vertical waterfalls alike were both referred to as falls.) The creation of the dams at