Camden Hills State Park – Camden ME

Description

Newell Hamilton Foster “was the superintendent of Liberty Island, and in an unlikely connection, was also the superintendent of the Civilian Conservation Corps that built the Camden Hills State Park in the 1930s…

Newell Hamilton Foster, was the superintendant of the Civilian Conservation Corps’s Camden project from 1935 to 1947, when the camp was turned over to the State of Maine. The National Park Service (NPS) began working with the Maine Parks Commission in 1936 to develop a 1500-acre park (now 5,500 acres) in Camden…

Foster and his Civilian Conservation Corps crew cleared brush; leveled terrain; built roads, parking areas, hiking trails and rustic footbridges; and planted 7,000 native trees and shrubs. Utilizing local stone they built an entrance gate ensemble, toll house, picnic shelter, fireplaces with seats and tables, naturalistic steps along hillsides, and massive stone benches. Because improvements were intended to look natural, much of the designed landscape has been reclaimed by nature, although stone remnants exist today along hiking trails. Most intact is Heistad’s stone picnic shelter with its framed views of Penobscot Bay.”   (https://www.penbaypilot.com)

“The current Slope Trail on Mount Megunticook’s north side is the approximate location of an old hand-graded CCC ski trail that was rated intermediate to expert, back in the day. Skiers in the 1930s used virtually all trails in the park. And what they saw then still goes today: good quantities of snow with excellent terrain for skiing.”   (https://www.outdoors.org)