The Butler River derives its name from the family of Major Pierce Butler, who in the 1790s established an extensive rice and cotton plantation on adjacent Butler Island. The river and its associated tidal marshes were integral to the plantation’s engineered system of dikes and canals, which enabled large-scale rice cultivation. A steam-powered mill was constructed to process the rice harvest, a system made possible by the coerced labor of hundreds of enslaved people. The river and the old rice canals are popular with sportsmen and naturalists today.