National Park Service
The National Park Service is an agency of the United States federal government that manages all national parks, many national monuments, other conservation and historical properties with various title designations. It was created on August 25, 1916, by Congress through the National Park Service Organic Act and is an agency of the United States Department of the Interior; the NPS is charged with a dual role of preserving the ecological and historical integrity of the places entrusted to its management, while making them available and accessible for public use and enjoyment. As of 2018, the NPS employs 27,000 employees who oversee 419 units, of which 61 are designated national parks. National parks and national monuments in the United States were individually managed under the auspices of the Department of the Interior; the movement for an independent agency to oversee these federal lands was spearheaded by business magnate and conservationist Stephen Mather, as well as J. Horace McFarland. With the help of journalist Robert Sterling Yard, Mather ran a publicity campaign for the Department of the Interior.
They wrote numerous articles that praised the scenic and historic qualities of the parks and their possibilities for educational and recreational benefits. This campaign resulted in the creation of a National Park Service. On August 25, 1916, President Woodrow Wilson signed a bill that mandated the agency "to conserve the scenery and the natural and historic objects and wildlife therein, to provide for the enjoyment of the same in such manner and by such means as will leave them unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations." Mather became the first director of the newly formed NPS. On March 3, 1933, President Herbert Hoover signed the Reorganization Act of 1933; the act would allow the President to reorganize the executive branch of the United States government. It wasn't until that summer when the new President, Franklin D. Roosevelt, made use of this power. Deputy Director Horace M. Albright had suggested to President Roosevelt that the historic sites from the American Civil War should be managed by the National Park Service, rather than the War Department.
President Roosevelt issued two Executive orders to make it happen. These two executive orders not only transferred to the National Park Service all the War Department historic sites, but the national monuments managed by the Department of Agriculture and the parks in and around the capital, run by an independent office. In 1951, Conrad Wirth became director of the National Park Service and went to work on bringing park facilities up to the standards that the public expected; the demand for parks after the end of the World War II had left the parks overburdened with demands that could not be met. In 1952, with the support of President Dwight D. Eisenhower, he began Mission 66, a ten-year effort to upgrade and expand park facilities for the 50th anniversary of the Park Service. New parks were added to preserve unique resources and existing park facilities were upgraded and expanded. In 1966, as the Park Service turned 50 years old, emphasis began to turn from just saving great and wonderful scenery and unique natural features to making parks accessible to the public.
Director George Hartzog began the process with the creation of the National Lakeshores and National Recreation Areas. Since its inception in 1916, the National Park Service has managed each of the United States' national parks, which have grown in number over the years to 60. Yellowstone National Park was the first national park in the United States. In 1872, there was no state government to manage it, so the federal government assumed direct control. Yosemite National Park began as a state park. Yosemite was returned to federal ownership. At first, each national park was managed independently, with varying degrees of success. In Yellowstone, the civilian staff was replaced by the U. S. Army in 1886. Due to the irregularities in managing these national treasures, Stephen Mather petitioned the federal government to improve the situation. In response, Secretary of the Interior Franklin K. Lane challenged him to lobby for creating a new agency, the National Park Service, to manage all national parks and some national monuments.
Mather was successful with the ratification of the National Park Service Organic Act in 1916. The agency was given authority over other protected areas, many with varying designations as Congress created them; the National Park System includes. The title or designation of a unit need not include the term park; the System as a whole is considered to be a national treasure of the United States, some of the more famous national parks and monuments are sometimes referred to metaphorically as "crown jewels". The system encompasses 84.4 million acres, of which more than 4.3 million acres remain in private ownership. The largest unit is Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve, Alaska. At 13,200,000 acres, it is over 16 percent of the entire system; the smallest unit in the system is Thaddeus Kosciuszko National Memorial, Pennsylvania, at 0.02 acre. In addition to administering its units and other properties, the National Park Service provides technical and financial assistance to several "affiliated areas" authorized by Congress.
The largest affiliated area is New Jersey Pinelands National Reserve at 1,164,025 acres. The smallest is Benjamin Franklin National Memorial at less than 0.01 acres. Although all units of the Nat
Charleston, West Virginia
Charleston is the most populous city in, the capital of, the U. S. state of West Virginia. Located at the confluence of the Elk and Kanawha rivers, the population during the 2017 Census Estimate was 47,929; the Charleston metropolitan area as a whole had 214,406 residents. Charleston is the center of government and industry for Kanawha County, of which it is the county seat. Early industries important to Charleston included the first natural gas well. Coal became central to economic prosperity in the city and the surrounding area. Today, utilities, government and education play central roles in the city's economy; the first permanent settlement, Ft. Lee, was built in 1788. In 1791, Daniel Boone was a member of the Kanawha County Assembly. Charleston is the home of the West Virginia Power minor league baseball team, the West Virginia Wild minor league basketball team, the annual 15-mile Charleston Distance Run. Yeager Airport and the University of Charleston are in the city. West Virginia University, Marshall University, West Virginia State University have campuses in the area.
After the American Revolutionary War, pioneers began making their way out from the early settlements. Many migrated into the western part of Virginia. Capitalizing on its many resources made Charleston an important part of Virginia and West Virginia history. Today, Charleston is the largest city in the state capital. Charleston's history goes back to the 18th century. Thomas Bullitt was deeded 1,250 acres of land near the mouth of the Elk River in 1773, it was inherited by his brother, Cuthbert Bullitt, upon his death in 1778, sold to Col. George Clendenin in 1786; the first permanent settlement, Fort Lee, was built in 1787 by Col. Savannah Clendenin and his company of Virginia Rangers; this structure occupied the area, now the intersection of Brooks Street and Kanawha Boulevard. Historical conjecture indicates that Charleston is named after Charles. Charles Town was shortened to Charleston to avoid confusion with another Charles Town in eastern West Virginia, named after George Washington's brother Charles.
Six years the Virginia General Assembly established Charleston. On the 40 acres that made up the town in 1794, 35 people inhabited seven houses. Charleston is part of Kanawha County; the origin of the word Kanawha, "Kanawha", derives from the region's Iroquois dialects meaning "water way" or "Canoe Way" implying the metaphor, "transport way", in the local language. It is the name of the river that flows through Charleston; the grammar of the "hard H" sound soon dropped out as new arrivals of various European languages developed West Virginia. The phrase has been a matter of Register. In fact, a two-story jail was the first county structure built, with the first floor dug into the bank of the Kanawha River. Daniel Boone, commissioned a lieutenant colonel of the Kanawha County militia, was elected to serve in 1791 in the Virginia House of Delegates; as told in historical accounts, Boone walked all the way to Richmond. By the early 19th century, salt brines were discovered along the Kanawha River and the first salt well was drilled in 1806.
This created great economic growth for the area. By 1808, 1,250 pounds of salt were being produced a day. An area adjacent to Charleston, Kanawha Salines, now Malden, would become the top salt producer in the world. In 1818, Kanawha Salt Company, first trust in United States, went into operation. Captain James Wilson, while drilling for salt, struck the first natural gas well in 1815, it was drilled at the site, now the junction of Brooks Street and Kanawha Boulevard In 1817, coal was first discovered and became used as the fuel for the salt works. The Kanawha salt industry declined in importance after 1861, until the onset of World War I brought a demand for chemical products; the chemicals needed were sodium hydroxide, which could be made from salt brine. The town continued to grow until the Civil War began in 1861; the state of Virginia seceded from the Union, Charleston was divided between Union and Confederate loyalty. On September 13, 1862, the Union and Confederate Armies met in the Battle of Charleston.
Although the Confederate States Army was victorious, occupation of the city was short-lived. Union troops returned just six weeks and stayed through the end of the war; the Northern hold on Charleston and most of the western part of Virginia created an larger problem. Virginia had seceded from the Union, but the western part was under Union control; the issue of statehood was raised. So amid the tumultuous Civil War, West Virginia became a state through Presidential Proclamation. Abraham Lincoln declared the northwestern portion of Virginia to be returned to the Union, on June 20, 1863, West Virginia became the 35th state. In addition to the issue of slavery, West Virginia was driven to separate from Virginia for economic reasons; the heavy industries in the North the steel business of the upper Ohio River region, were dependent on the coal available from western Virginia mines. Federalized military units were dispatched from Ohio to western Virginia early in the war to secure access to the coal mines and transportation resources.
Although the state now existed, settling on a state capital location proved to be difficult. For several years, the capital of West Virginia intermittently traveled between Wheeling and Charleston. In 1877, state citizens voted on the final location of their capital. Charleston received 41,243 votes, Clarksburg received 29,44
Chesapeake and Ohio Canal National Historical Park
The Chesapeake and Ohio Canal National Historical Park is located in the District of Columbia and the states of Maryland and West Virginia. The park was established in 1961 as a National Monument by President Dwight D. Eisenhower to preserve the neglected remains of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal and many of its original structures; the canal and towpath trail extends along the Potomac River from Georgetown, Washington, D. C. to Cumberland, Maryland, a distance of 184.5 miles. In 2013, the path was designated as the first section of U. S. Bicycle Route 50. Construction on the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal began in 1828 and ended in 1850 when the canal reached Cumberland, far short of its intended destination of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. There was talk of extending the 184.5-mile canal: for example, an 1874 proposal to dig an 8.4-mile tunnel through the Allegheny Mountains, there was a tunnel built to connect with the Pennsylvania canal. Though the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad beat the canal to Cumberland by eight years, the canal was not obsolete.
Only in the mid-1870s did larger locomotives and the adoption of air brakes allow the railroad to set rates lower than the canal, sealing its fate. The C&O Canal operated from 1831 to 1924 and served to transport coal from the Allegheny Mountains to Washington D. C; the canal was closed in 1924, in part due to several severe floods that devastated the canal's financial condition. In 1938, the abandoned canal was obtained from the B&O Railroad by the United States in exchange for a loan from the federal Reconstruction Finance Corporation; the government planned to restore it as a recreation area. Additionally, it was viewed as a project for employment for the jobless during the Great Depression. By 1940, the first 22 miles of the canal were repaired and rewatered, from Georgetown to Violettes lock and returned to operating condition by African-American enrollees with the Civilian Conservation Corps; the first Canal Clipper boat, giving mule driven rides, began in 1941. It was replaced by the John Quincy Adams in the 1960s.
The project was halted when the United States entered World War II and resources were needed elsewhere. In 1941, Harry Athey suggested to President Franklin Roosevelt that the canal could be converted into an underground highway or a bomb shelter with its roof for landing airplanes; the whole idea was deemed impractical due to the river's periodic flooding. In 1942, freshets destroyed the rewatered sections of the canal. National Park Service official Arthur E. Demaray pressed that the canal from Dam #1 be restored, to supply water to the Dalecarlia Reservoir in case sabotage or bombing destroyed the normal conduits of water. Since this transformed the canal into a concern of national security, in 1942, the War Production Board approved the work. By 1943, Congress had funded the work, repairs were done, the Park Service resumed boat trips in October 1943; the Congress expressed interest in developing the towpath as a parkway. Because of the flooding from the 1920s to the 1940s, the Army Corps of Engineers proposed building 14 dams, that would have permanently inundated 74 miles of towpath, as well as the Monocacy and Antietam aqueducts.
Around 1945, the Corps wanted to remove Dam #8, which would destroy any hope of rewatering the canal above Dam #5, as well as put a levee around in the Cumberland area. Much of this was done, with the NPS cooperating with the Corps, since maintaining an operating canal all the way to Cumberland was too expensive, as well as wanting to preserve the western parts of the canal; the idea of turning the canal over to automobiles was opposed by some, including United States Supreme Court Associate Justice William O. Douglas. In March 1954, Douglas led an eight-day hike of the towpath from Cumberland to D. C. Although 58 people participated in one part of the hike or another, only nine men, including Douglas, hiked the full 184.5 miles. Following this hike, Justice Douglas formed a committee to be known as the C&O Canal Association in 1957, which would draft plans to preserve and protect the Canal. Serving as the chairman of this group, his commitment to the park proved successful. In 1958, a bicycle trail was built on the 12 miles of the towpath, from Georgetown's Mule Bridge at 34th Street in Washington, DC to Widewater, MD.
The trail was built by laying crushed blue stone over the muddy towpath. It opened on November 22, 1958. In 1961, President Dwight Eisenhower made the canal a National Monument under the Antiquities Act, but that hardened the opposition to making the canal a national park. There was some support for making the Potomac River a national river instead. Within ten years, the political climate had changed, realizing that the national river plan was unsupportable, the idea of turning the canal into a historic park had little opposition; the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal National Historical Park Act established the canal as a National Historical Park and President Richard Nixon signed it into law on January 8, 1971. The winter and summer of 1996 saw two separate floods. Following a blizzard in January, heavy rains washed away the snow and caused extreme flooding and run-off; this major winter flood swept across 80 to 90 percent of the canal and towpath, causing high waters, along with the adjacent Potomac River.
Erosion due to the floods lead to heavy damages to the towpath and much of the infrastructure of the canal and park. Following the winter flood, there was an overwhelming need for volunteers in response to the damages caused. In September, Hurricane Fran caused more damage to the canal in multiple parts, requiring workers and volunteers to restore and reconstruct the towpath and re-water the canal, sever
Union Army
During the American Civil War, the Union Army referred to the United States Army, the land force that fought to preserve the Union of the collective states. Known as the Federal Army, it proved essential to the preservation of the United States of America as a working, viable republic; the Union Army was made up of the permanent regular army of the United States, but further fortified and strengthened by the many temporary units of dedicated volunteers as well as including those who were drafted in to service as conscripts. To this end, the Union Army fought and triumphed over the efforts of the Confederate States Army in the American Civil War. Over the course of the war, 2,128,948 men enlisted in the Union Army, including 178,895 colored troops. Of these soldiers, 596,670 were wounded or went missing; the initial call-up was for just three months, after which many of these men chose to reenlist for an additional three years. When the American Civil War began in April 1861, there were only 16,367 men in the U.
S. Army, including 1,108 commissioned officers. 20% of these officers, most of them Southerners, choosing to tie their lives and fortunes to the Army of the Confederacy. In addition 200 West Point graduates who had left the Army, including Ulysses S. Grant, William Tecumseh Sherman, Braxton Bragg, would return to service at the outbreak of the war; this group's loyalties were far more divided, with 92 donning Confederate gray and 102 putting on the blue of the Union Army. The U. S. Army consisted of ten regiments of infantry, four of artillery, two of cavalry, two of dragoons, three of mounted infantry; the regiments were scattered widely. Of the 197 companies in the army, 179 occupied 79 isolated posts in the West, the remaining 18 manned garrisons east of the Mississippi River along the Canada–United States border and on the Atlantic coast. With the Southern slave states declaring secession from the Union, with this drastic shortage of men in the army, President Abraham Lincoln called on the states to raise a force of 75,000 men for three months to put down this subversive insurrection.
Lincoln's call forced the border states to choose sides, four seceded, making the Confederacy eleven states strong. It turned out that the war itself proved to be much longer and far more extensive in scope and scale than anyone on either side, Union North or Confederate South, expected or imagined at the outset on the date of July 22, 1861; that was the day that Congress approved and authorized subsidy to allow and support a volunteer army of up to 500,000 men to the cause. The call for volunteers was met by patriotic Northerners and immigrants who enlisted for a steady income and meals. Over 10,000 Germans in New York and Pennsylvania responded to Lincoln's call, the French were quick to volunteer; as more men were needed, the number of volunteers fell and both money bounties and forced conscription had to be turned to. Between April 1861 and April 1865, at least 2,128,948 men served in the Union Army, of whom the majority were volunteers, it is a misconception that the South held an advantage because of the large percentage of professional officers who resigned to join the Confederate army.
At the start of the war, there were 824 graduates of the U. S. Military Academy on the active list. Of the 900 West Point graduates who were civilians, 400 returned to the Union Army and 99 to the Confederate. Therefore, the ratio of Union to Confederate professional officers was 642 to 283; the South did have the advantage of other military colleges, such as The Citadel and Virginia Military Institute, but they produced fewer officers. Though officers were able to resign, enlisted soldiers did not have this right. While the total number of those is unknown, only 26 enlisted men and non-commissioned officers of the regular army are known to have left the army to join the Confederate army when the war began; the Union Army was composed of numerous organizations, which were organized geographically. Military division A collection of Departments reporting to one commander. Military Divisions were similar to the more modern term Theater. Department An organization that covered a defined region, including responsibilities for the Federal installations therein and for the field armies within their borders.
Those named for states referred to Southern states, occupied. It was more common to name departments for regions. District A subdivision of a Department
American Civil War
The American Civil War was a war fought in the United States from 1861 to 1865, between the North and the South. The Civil War is the most studied and written about episode in U. S. history. As a result of the long-standing controversy over the enslavement of black people, war broke out in April 1861 when secessionist forces attacked Fort Sumter in South Carolina shortly after Abraham Lincoln had been inaugurated as the President of the United States; the loyalists of the Union in the North proclaimed support for the Constitution. They faced secessionists of the Confederate States in the South, who advocated for states' rights to uphold slavery. Among the 34 U. S. states in February 1861, secessionist partisans in seven Southern slave states declared state secessions from the country and unveiled their defiant formation of a Confederate States of America in rebellion against the U. S. Constitutional government; the Confederacy grew to control over half the territory in eleven states, it claimed the additional states of Kentucky and Missouri by assertions from exiled native secessionists without territory or population.
These were given full representation in the Confederate Congress throughout the Civil War. The two remaining slave holding states of Delaware and Maryland were invited to join the Confederacy, but nothing substantial developed; the Confederate States was never diplomatically recognized by the government of the United States or by that of any foreign country. The states that remained loyal to the U. S. were known as the Union. The Union and the Confederacy raised volunteer and conscription armies that fought in the South over the course of four years. Intense combat left 620,000 to 750,000 people dead, more than the number of U. S. military deaths in all other wars combined. The war ended when General Robert E. Lee surrendered to General Ulysses S. Grant at the Battle of Appomattox Court House. Confederate generals throughout the southern states followed suit. Much of the South's infrastructure was destroyed the transportation systems; the Confederacy collapsed, slavery was abolished, four million black slaves were freed.
During the Reconstruction Era that followed the war, national unity was restored, the national government expanded its power, civil rights were granted to freed black slaves through amendments to the Constitution and federal legislation. In the 1860 presidential election, led by Abraham Lincoln, supported banning slavery in all the U. S. territories. The Southern states viewed this as a violation of their constitutional rights and as the first step in a grander Republican plan to abolish slavery; the three pro-Union candidates together received an overwhelming 82% majority of the votes cast nationally: Republican Lincoln's votes centered in the north, Democrat Stephen A. Douglas' votes were distributed nationally and Constitutional Unionist John Bell's votes centered in Tennessee and Virginia; the Republican Party, dominant in the North, secured a plurality of the popular votes and a majority of the electoral votes nationally. He was the first Republican Party candidate to win the presidency.
However, before his inauguration, seven slave states with cotton-based economies declared secession and formed the Confederacy. The first six to declare secession had the highest proportions of slaves in their populations, with an average of 49 percent. Of those states whose legislatures resolved for secession, the first seven voted with split majorities for unionist candidates Douglas and Bell, or with sizable minorities for those unionists. Of these, only Texas held a referendum on secession. Eight remaining slave states continued to reject calls for secession. Outgoing Democratic President James Buchanan and the incoming Republicans rejected secession as illegal. Lincoln's March 4, 1861, inaugural address declared that his administration would not initiate a civil war. Speaking directly to the "Southern States", he attempted to calm their fears of any threats to slavery, reaffirming, "I have no purpose, directly or indirectly to interfere with the institution of slavery in the United States where it exists.
I believe I have no lawful right to do so, I have no inclination to do so." After Confederate forces seized numerous federal forts within territory claimed by the Confederacy, efforts at compromise failed and both sides prepared for war. The Confederates assumed that European countries were so dependent on "King Cotton" that they would intervene, but none did, none recognized the new Confederate States of America. Hostilities began on April 1861, when Confederate forces fired upon Fort Sumter. While in the Western Theater the Union made significant permanent gains, in the Eastern Theater, the battle was inconclusive during 1861–1862. In September 1862, Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, which made ending slavery a war goal. To the west, by summer 1862 the Union destroyed the Confederate river navy much of its western armies, seized New Orleans; the successful 1863 Union siege of Vicksburg split the Confederacy in two at the Mississippi River. In 1863, Robert E. Lee's Confederate incursion north ended at the Battle of Gettysburg.
Western successes led to Ulysses S. Grant's command of all Union armies in 1864. Inflicting an ever-tightening naval blockade of Confederate ports, the Union marshaled the resources and manpower to attack the Confederacy from all directions, leading to the fall of Atlanta to William T. Sherman and his march to th
Appalachian Trail
The Appalachian National Scenic Trail known as the Appalachian Trail or the A. T. is a marked hiking trail in the Eastern United States extending between Springer Mountain in Georgia and Mount Katahdin in Maine. The trail is about 2,200 miles long, though the exact length changes over time as parts are modified or rerouted; the Appalachian Trail Conservancy describes the Appalachian Trail as the longest hiking-only trail in the world. More than 2 million people are said to take a hike on part of the trail at least once each year; the idea of the Appalachian Trail came about in 1921. The trail itself was completed in 1937 after more than a decade of work, although improvements and changes continue, it is maintained by 31 trail clubs and multiple partnerships, managed by the National Park Service, United States Forest Service, the nonprofit Appalachian Trail Conservancy. Most of the trail is in forest or wild lands, although some portions traverse towns and farms, it passes through 14 states: Georgia, North Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Maine.
Thru-hikers attempt to hike the trail in its entirety in a single season. The number of thru-hikes per year has increased with 715 northbound and 133 southbound thru-hikes reported for 2017. Many books, documentaries and fan organizations are dedicated to the pursuit; some hike from one end to the other turn around and thru-hike the trail the other way, known as a "yo-yo". An extension known as the International Appalachian Trail continues northeast, crossing Maine and cutting through Canada to Newfoundland, with sections continuing in Greenland, through Europe, into Morocco. Other separate extensions continue the southern end of the Appalachian range in Alabama and continue south into Florida, creating what is known as the Eastern Continental Trail; the Appalachian Trail, the Continental Divide Trail, the Pacific Crest Trail form what is known as the Triple Crown of Hiking in the United States. The trail was conceived by Benton MacKaye, a forester who wrote his original plan—called "An Appalachian Trail, A Project in Regional Planning"—shortly after the death of his wife in 1921.
MacKaye's idea detailed a grand trail that would connect a series of farms and wilderness work/study camps for city-dwellers. In 1922, at the suggestion of Major William A. Welch, director of the Palisades Interstate Park Commission, his idea was publicized by Raymond H. Torrey with a story in the New York Evening Post under a full-page banner headline reading "A Great Trail from Maine to Georgia!" The idea was adopted by the new Palisades Interstate Park Trail Conference as their main project. On October 7, 1923, the first section of the trail, from Bear Mountain west through Harriman State Park to Arden, New York, was opened. MacKaye called for a two-day Appalachian Trail conference to be held in March 1925 in Washington, D. C; this meeting inspired the formation of the Appalachian Trail Conference. A retired judge named Arthur Perkins and his younger associate Myron Avery took up the cause. In 1929, a member of the Connecticut Forest and Park Association and its Blue Blazed Trails committee, found Ned Anderson, a farmer in Sherman, who took on the task of mapping and blazing the Connecticut leg of the trail.
It ran from Dog Tail Corners in Webatuck, New York, which borders Kent, Connecticut, at Ashley Falls, 50 miles through the northwest corner of the state, up to Bear Mountain at the Massachusetts border. Anderson's efforts helped spark renewed interest in the trail, Avery was able to bring other states on board. Upon taking over the ATC, Avery adopted the more practical goal of building a simple hiking trail, he and MacKaye clashed over the ATC's response to a major commercial development along the trail's path. Avery reigned as Chairman of the ATC from 1932 to 1952. Avery became the first to walk the trail end-to-end, though not as a thru-hike, in 1936. In August 1937, the trail was completed to Sugarloaf Mountain in Maine, the ATC shifted its focus toward protecting the trail lands and mapping the trail for hikers. Many of the trail's present highlights were not part of the trail in 1937: Roan Mountain, North Carolina and Tennessee. Except for places where the Civilian Conservation Corps was brought in, the original trail climbed straight up and down mountains, creating rough hiking conditions and a treadway prone to severe erosion.
The ATC's trail crews and volunteer trail-maintaining clubs have relocated or rehabilitated miles of trail since that time. In 1936, a 121-day Maine to Georgia veteran's group funded and supported thru-hike was reported to have been completed, with all but three miles of the new trail cleared and blazed, by six Boy Scouts from New York City and their guides; the completed thru-hike was much recorded and accepted by the Appalachian Long Distance Hikers Association. In 1938, the trail sustained major damage from a hurricane; this happened right before the start of World War II
Watoga State Park
Watoga State Park is the largest of West Virginia's state parks, covering over 10,100 acres. It is located near Seebert in West Virginia; the land that forms the nucleus of Watoga was acquired in January 1925, when the park was planned to be a state forest. In May 1934, a decision was made to instead develop the site as a state park. Much of the development on the site was done by the Civilian Conservation Corps and the park was first opened on July 1, 1937; the New Deal Resources in Watoga State Park Historic District is a national historic district encompassing 59 contributing buildings, 35 contributing structures, 2 contributing sites, 11 contributing objects. They include water fountains; the park is the site of the Fred E. Brooks Memorial Arboretum, a 400-acre arboretum that encompasses the drainage of Two Mile Run. Named in honor of Fred E. Brooks, a noted West Virginia naturalist who died in 1933, the Arboretum's construction began about 1935 and a dedication was held in 1938, it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2010.
34 cabins 2 campgrounds with 88 total campsites Swimming pool 11-acre fishing lake Hiking trails Brooks Memorial Arboretum Ann Bailey Lookout Tower Greenbrier River Trail List of West Virginia state parks State park Official website West Virginia CCC information
