One of Lake Murray's most important uses is for recreation, and this can be seen when people flood to this South Carolina lake and area year after year. With more than 48,000 acres of water and 650 miles of shoreline, there is plenty of room for everyone to enjoy what this well-loved body of water has to offer. Lake Murray was created in the late 1920s with the aim of providing hydroelectric power to the state. The lake is fed by the Saluda River, which was dammed to create what is the lake today. The dam is an attraction in itself, built using the native red clay soil and bedrock when it was completed it was the largest earthen dam in the world.