Daily Local News (West Chester, PA)
Celebrating history
Marking its 75th birthday this weekend, French Creek State Park is among the oldest parks in Pennsylvania
French Creek State Park in Union Township is celebrating its 75th birthday this weekend. It’s among the 40 oldest parks in Pennsylvania’s 121-park system, having been conveyed to the state following the end of World War II.
French Creek became a state park in 1946 when the federal government gave about 3,300 acres of land and buildings from the Depression-era Civilian Conservation Corps Recreation Demonstration Areas mostly in Union
Township to the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Another 848 acres of the historic Hopewell Furnace were retained by the National Park Service for what has become a nearby national park.
During the Great Depression in the 1930s, the federal government purchased much of the land used for charcoal production as part of a national project to reclaim marginal lands by making them recreation demonstration areas. The area were located “in close proximity to the larger industrial centers for use by people of the lower income group and underprivileged children, for family camps, childrengroup camps and organization camps.”
The National Park Service built five Recreation Demonstration Areas in the state through CCC and local labor (through the Works Progress Administration). The recreation demonstration areas were located near cities to offer low-cost vacations of outdoor life for urban and rural residents, according to NPS. In Pennsylvania, the areas were Blue Knob, Hickory Run, French Creek, Laurel Hill and Raccoon Creek.
Two CCC camps were built at French Creek and operated until the early 1940s. The camps built two dams, two group camps, several tent camping areas, beaches, roads, picnic areas and started the restoration process for the historic core of Hopewell Furnace.
Since the 1950s, French Creek has attracted about 600,000 visitors annually for day use and camping opportunities, said park manager James Wassell. Last year during the pandemic it hit a record 800,000 visitors.
The park has more than doubled in size over the years through acquisitions of land. Wassell said it encompasses about 7,500 acres in Union and Robeson townships. It is the heart of the Hopewell Big Woods, 110 square miles of the last large, unbroken forest left in southeastern Pennsylvania and an important natural area in the region.
Through the years, amenities were added to the park, including Scott’s Run Lake in the 1950s and the swimming pool and concessions in 1980s. In the 1990s, Wassell said, cabins, yurts and cottages were added. Recently, there’s been a renewed emphasis on maintaining the historic Civilian Conservation Corps structures and look and feel in new facilities.
The park also took steps in the 1990s to protect the environmentally sensitive Pine Swamp, 90 acres of acidic broadleaf swamp containing rare plant species. It is known for its characteristics such as vegetated sphagnum hummocks and mucky, water-filled channels, according to the state Department of Conservation and Natural Resources.
In the early 2000s, the park built its popular amphitheater, Wassell said. In the last six years, the state has acquired land to connect to nearby trail networks such as the Schuylkill River Trail and Horse-shoe Trail.
Early history
French Creek’s history is tied to nearby Hopewell Furnace National Historical site. The original forest of predominately American chestnut was cleared and eventually mixed oak forests developed after the furnace closed in 1883, according to DCNR.
“It is hard to imagine that the thickly wooded hillsides enjoyed by today’s visitors were once barren and treeless,” DCNR says on its website. “The forest of French Creek State Park played a vital role in America’s industrial infancy.”
The forest covering the park has changed since Hopewell Furnace began operation, producing iron for a young America from 1771 to 1883. The furnace required tremendous amounts of charcoal to fuel the large blast furnace. Woodcutters chopped wood from the forest and colliers burned it in “hearths” throughout the wooded hills surrounding the furnace to produce charcoal. To sustain the furnace operations, the entire area now contained in French Creek State Park was timbered repeatedly to make charcoal.