Raccoon Creek State Park – Hookstown PA

Description

“In the 1930s, the National Park Service created the Raccoon Creek National Recreation Demonstration Area. Men from the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) and the Works Progress Administration (WPA) built the recreation facilities of the park and did conservation work on park lands.”

“The National Park Service built five Recreation Demonstration Areas through CCC and WPA labor. Near big cities to provide open-air recreation for urban dwellers, the areas were Blue Knob, Hickory Run, French Creek, Laurel Hill and Raccoon Creek. In 1945, these parks were given to the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and became state parks.”

The CCC Camp itself is now listed in the National Register of Historic Places:

“CCC Camp SP-16 began the development of Raccoon Creek State Park as a Recreation Deomonstration Area in 1935. The camp remained active until the end of September 1937. In October 1939 CCC Camp SP-6 began work in the park. This camp remained active until the end of March 1941…

All of the buildings in the camp display a unique combination of log and wane-edge siding that is not found in any other Pennsylvania state park, and may not exist anywhere else in the United States…”