Coordinates: 39°38′04″N 77°27′00″W / 39.63444°N 77.45000°W / 39.63444; -77.45000

Catoctin Mountain Park

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to navigation Jump to search

Catoctin Mountain Park
Lua error in Module:Location_map at line 411: Malformed coordinates value.
LocationFrederick County, Maryland, USA
Nearest cityThurmont, Maryland
CoordinatesLua error in Module:Coordinates at line 489: attempt to index field 'wikibase' (a nil value).
Area6,154 acres (24.90 km2)[1]
EstablishedJuly 12, 1954
Visitors264,460 (in 2011)[2]
Governing bodyNational Park Service
WebsiteCatoctin Mountain Park

Catoctin Mountain Park is a park located in part of the Monocacy Valley and Catoctin Mountain ridge−range that forms the northeastern rampart of the Blue Ridge Mountains, in the Appalachian Mountains System. The park is approximately 5120 acres or 8 square miles (21 km2) in area.

Catoctin Mountain Park is managed by the National Park Service, and lies north of and directly adjacent to the similarly sized Cunningham Falls State Park.

History

[edit | edit source]

In the 1930s, after years of making charcoal to fuel nearby iron furnaces, mountain farming, and harvesting of trees for timber, land was purchased to be transformed into a productive recreation area, helping to put people back to work during the Great Depression. Beginning in 1935, the Catoctin Recreational Demonstration Area was under construction by both the Works Progress Administration and the Civilian Conservation Corps. The northern portion of the park was transferred to the National Park Service on November 14, 1936, and renamed and reorganized on July 12, 1954, with the southern 5,000 acres (20 km2) transferred to Maryland as Cunningham Falls State Park.

File:Chimney rock catoctin.JPG
Catoctin Mountain vista
File:Catoctin - Cunningham Falls.jpg
Cunningham Falls at Catoctin Mountain Park

Bills were introduced in the United States Senate in 2003 and 2005 to re-designate the park as Catoctin Mountain National Recreation Area. The bills passed the Senate, but were not taken up by the House, and therefore did not become law. The park was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2014.

Originally planned to provide recreational camps for federal employees, one of the camps eventually became the home of the Presidential retreat, Camp David. The Presidential retreat is not open or accessible to the public; however, the eastern hardwood forest of Catoctin Mountain Park does have many other attractions for visitors, some of which include camping, picnicking, fishing, 25 miles (40 km) of hiking trails, and scenic mountain vistas.

See also

[edit | edit source]

Lua error in mw.title.lua at line 392: bad argument #2 to 'title.new' (unrecognized namespace name 'Portal').

References

[edit | edit source]
  1. ^ Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value). (National Park Service Acreage Reports)
  2. ^ Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
[edit | edit source]

Lua error in Module:Authority_control at line 153: attempt to index field 'wikibase' (a nil value).