Swallow Falls State Park - Oakland MD

City:: Oakland, MD
Site Type:: Parks and Recreation, Lodges, Ranger Stations and Visitor Centers, Shelters
New Deal Agencies:: Work Relief Programs, Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC)
Started:: 1933
Completed:: 1940

Description

The CCC built an administrative building, a pavilion, and a restroom at Swallow Falls State Park. All are still in use. The CCC boys also planted trees, performed fire suppression work, and engaged in other projects throughout the area.

Visitors to Swallow Falls State Park can camp, hike, picnic, and swim; but extreme caution should be used when swimming due to wet rocks, several waterfalls, and strong currents. There are, however, calm areas to swim, for example, the usually-gentle and more sandy Tolliver Falls area.

Swallow Falls is one of the most beautiful parks in the country, and a living testament to the great work of the CCC and the lasting value of government investment in the common good. It is also a testament to the value of private sector philanthropy, as Swallow Falls State Park was part of a larger gift of land—to the citizens of Maryland—from the brothers Robert and John Work Garrett, in 1906.

Today, there is a Maryland Conservation Corps (created in the spirit of the CCC) which helps maintain the park.

Source notes

(1) Maryland Department of Natural Resources, at https://www.dnr.state.md.us/publiclands/western/swallowfalls.asp and https://www.dnr.state.md.us/centennial/CCC_History_Part_II.asp, accessed November 3, 2013. (2) Information sign at park. (3) Maryland’s Forests and Parks: A Century of Progress, by Robert F. Bailey III, on behalf of the Maryland Department of Natural Resources, Charleston, SC: Arcadia Publishing, 2006.

Site originally submitted by Brent McKee - wpatoday.org on November 3, 2013.