The jumping-off place of Hilton Head as a resort started in 1956 with Charles Fraser developing Sea Pines Resort, with the center piece being Harbour Town. Fraser was a committed environmentalist who changed the whole configuration of the marina at Harbour Town to save an ancient live oak. It came to be notorious as the Liberty Oak, notorious to generations of children who watched singer and ballad writer Gregg Russell perform under the tree for over 25 years. Fraser was buried consequent to the tree when he died in 2002.
Also in 1969, the Hilton Head Island Community Association successfully fought off the adding to of a BASF chemical confused on the shores of Victoria Bluff (now Colleton Course Plantation). Soon after, the Association and other concerned citizens "south of the Broad" fought the advancing Hilton Head of off-shore oil platforms by Brown & Root (a apportionment of Halliburton) and ten-story elevated liquefied natural gas shipping spheres by Chicago Bridge & Iron.