Moran State Park: General Development - Olga WA

City:: Olga, WA
Site Type:: Parks and Recreation, Campgrounds and Cabins, Lakes and Ponds, Shelters, Picnic and Other Facilities, Viewpoints and Overlooks, Lodges, Ranger Stations and Visitor Centers
New Deal Agencies:: Work Relief Programs, Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC)
Quality of Information:: Moderate
Marked:: Unknown
Site Survival:: Extant

Description

Moran State Park was created in 1921 when Robert Moran, shipbuilder and former mayor of Seattle, donated more than 2,700-acres to the state for a park. Like many state parks at the time, it was not well developed for public recreation until the coming of the New Deal.

Most of the trails, roads, bridges, and buildings in the park were built by the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) during the 1930s. The CCC typically used native materials on site to construct the many stone and wooden shelters and buildings.

The Moran State Park website offers a few more details on its History page:

“In the 1920s Moran State Park was still largely wilderness. This changed dramatically in the 1930s when the Civilian Conservation Corps constructed a road up to the summit of Mount Constitution. They also built several stone bridges, most of the picnic shelters, and log buildings, and the iconic stone observation tower that still sits on the summit, providing tourists with views of San Juan County for over eighty years.”

We would appreciate more information on other buildings, such as the Camp Moran lodge, and about which campgrounds, trails, shelters and so on are the work of the CCC, and which years they were active in the park.