So much of the preserved natural beauty of the U.S. can be traced back to the FDR Depression-era Civilian Conservation Corps, and this remote jewel of state park is another example. The Greenbrier State Forest is over 5,000 acres in southeastern West Virginia.
Straddling lands to either side of Kate’s Mountain (so named for a woman who survived an American Indian raid by hiding in a hollow log with her child), the once ancient forest of oak, pine, chestnut, and yellow poplar was repeatedly burned by white settlers for farming, and later suffered fire damage from trains spewing hot cinders.
Finally in 1938 the state bought the land from the White Sulphur Springs Park Association and brought in men working for the CCC to tend the area. These men had just finished working on West Virginia’s Seneca State Park and got to work. The forest today still has some mature trees, often scarred from burning. But most of the forest is replanted from the first half of the 20th century.
Sources: @ West Virginia State Forestry, web.archive.org
