Longdale Recreation Area
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Green Pastures Recreation Area, George Washington National Forest
1930s. Green Pasture Tr., 0.5 miles southwest of Longdale Furnace Rd.
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(Photograph by Mark Mones) -
(Photograph by Mark Mones)
Begun during the Great Depression by workers assigned to a local Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) camp, the recreation site features a rustic timber-framed picnic shelter of unhewn logs with a massive fireplace and chimney of coursed fieldstone. A dammed creek forms a small swimming pond, around which stone retaining walls define a crescent of beach. Two small restroom buildings and a large bathhouse of frame construction with split-cedar siding complete the collection of buildings. Developed during the era of racial segregation to serve the area's black residents, the park was intended to complement the facilities built for white families at nearby Douthat State Park.
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