A group of a few more than 50 area residents gathered in Marion’s Opera House recently to hear from the state’s underwater archeologist, Chris Amer, diver Bob Butler and historian Ted Gragg.

Today at 6:30 p.m. in the Marion Opera House, Christopher Amer, the state’s underwater archeologist with the University of South Carolina and the state’s Institute of Archeology and Anthropology, will give a talk about recent findings at a Marion County Civil War Navy Yard.

As part of their field studies program, ECU students made presentations to the public about their findings during their underwater research in the Great Pee Dee near the Mars Bluff Navy Yard in Marion County.

The Horry County Museum has a display of artifacts recovered from the sunken CSS Pee Dee. The CSS Pee Dee was a 150-foot Macon class gunboat that was outfitted with two Brookes rifled cannon and a Union Dahlgren cannon and launched in January 1865.