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Parker Dam State Park

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1930–1933, Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC). Mud Run Rd. off PA 153, 5.5 miles north of I-80

By the turn of the nineteenth century, most of northern Pennsylvania's land had been stripped of tree cover, prompting flooding and erosion. The state stepped in and began to reclaim and replant tax-delinquent former logging lands. The growing popularity of automobile tourism called for the building of cabins and campsites in the forested areas as recreational use expanded. In 1930, the State of Pennsylvania bought this land from the Central Pennsylvania Lumber Company for $3 an acre. Three years later, the CCC set up Camp S-73 at the intersection of Tyler and Mud Run roads. They cleared brush and built roads, the dam, sixteen cabins, and hiking trails. An unusual octagonal log classroom building once housed the officer's headquarters. Little has changed architecturally since that time. The log buildings with stone foundations and piers and wood truss gabled roofs remain, but nature continues to change around them as a tornado in 1985 uprooted many second-growth trees. Four miles south on PA 153 is the S. B. Elliott State Park on Kennedy Road, which has two of its original eight CCC log cabins.

Writing Credits

Author: 
Lu Donnelly et al.
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Data

Citation

Lu Donnelly et al., "Parker Dam State Park", [Penfield, Pennsylvania], SAH Archipedia, eds. Gabrielle Esperdy and Karen Kingsley, Charlottesville: UVaP, 2012—, http://sah-archipedia.org/buildings/PA-01-CF6.

Print Source

Cover: Buildings of PA vol 1

Buildings of Pennsylvania: Pittsburgh and Western Pennsylvania, Lu Donnelly, H. David Brumble IV, and Franklin Toker. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2010, 475-475.

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