Cunningham Falls State Park

Cunningham Falls State Park
Maryland State Park
Country United States
State Maryland
County Frederick
Elevation 1,247 ft (380 m) [1]
Coordinates 39°37′53″N 77°28′17″W / 39.63139°N 77.47139°W / 39.63139; -77.47139Coordinates: 39°37′53″N 77°28′17″W / 39.63139°N 77.47139°W / 39.63139; -77.47139 [1]
Area 6,033 acres (2,441 ha) [2]
 - Wildlands 4,397 acres (1,779 ha) [2]
Established 1954 [3]
Management Maryland Department of Natural Resources
IUCN category V - Protected Landscape/Seascape
Location in Maryland
Website: Cunningham Falls State Park

Cunningham Falls State Park is a publicly owned recreation area located on Catoctin Mountain to the west of Thurmont, Maryland, United States. The state park is the home of 78-foot (24 m) Cunningham Falls, the largest cascading waterfall in Maryland. Other park features include a 43-acre (17 ha) man-made lake and the remains of the historic Catoctin Iron Furnace.[4] The park is bordered on the north by the National Park Service's Catoctin Mountain Park.

History

View from the top of Cunningham Falls

The Catoctin Mountain area around Cunningham Falls is rich in local history. Before the arrival of Europeans, Native Americans hunted and fished the area. The area was also quarried by Native Americans for rhyolite to make projectile points.[5] During the 19th century, settlers began to cut down the forests around the area to make charcoal to power the Catoctin iron furnace. The charcoal flats can still be seen in the park. The "charcoal flats" are approximately 25 by 25 feet (7.6 by 7.6 m) square areas cut flat into the hillsides and linked by mule trails. They were used to build charcoal kilns. Over, two hundred years of clearcutting and abuse of the forest led to the destruction of the land.[6]

In the 1930s, after years of making charcoal, to fuel nearby iron furnaces, mountain farming, and harvesting of trees for timber, land was purchased by the Federal government, 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.[7]

Known locally, as McAfee Falls, after a family of early settlers,[8] Cunningham Falls was apparently, named after a photographer, from Pen Mar Park, who frequently, photographed the falls.[6]

An old homestead can be seen above the falls. There is an abandoned iron, copper, or gold mine, located in the park. The ruins of the third Catoctin iron furnace, owned and constructed by Jacob Kinkel, in the 1850s-1860s, can also, be seen, within Cunningham Falls State Park.

West of the falls, on Big Hunting Creek, lies "Dunkards Trough," a natural rock formation, within the stream, that forms a deep trough, used by an early, German religious group, the Dunkards, for baptisms.

Activities and amenities

Common recreational activities include hiking, hunting, swimming, boating, fishing, and camping. Big Hunting Creek, one of Maryland's premier trout streams, flows through the park.[9]

Further reading

References

  1. 1 2 "Cunningham Falls". Geographic Names Information System. United States Geological Survey.
  2. 1 2 "Fiscal Year 2014 DNR Owned Lands Acreage" (PDF). Maryland Department of Natural Resources. August 18, 2015. Retrieved January 31, 2016.
  3. ↑ "Source Water Assessment for Cunningham Falls State Park" (PDF). Maryland Department of the Environment. April 22, 2003. Retrieved January 8, 2014.
  4. ↑ "Cunningham Falls State Park". Maryland Department of Natural Resources. Retrieved January 8, 2014.
  5. ↑ Wehrle, Edmund F. (March 2000). "Settling the Catoctins". Catoctin Mountain Park Historic Resource Study. National Park Service. Retrieved July 15, 2015.
  6. 1 2 Miller, Jennifer (2011). "The Demonstration Succeeds" (PDF). The Mountaineer: Catoctin Mountain Park News: Special 75th-Anniversary Edition. National Park Service. p. 4. Retrieved January 8, 2014.
  7. ↑ Strain, Paula M. (1993). The Blue Hills of Maryland. Potomac Appalachian Trail Club. pp. 257–260. ISBN 978-0915746453.
  8. ↑ "Cunningham Falls". The Historical Marker Database. Retrieved January 8, 2014.
  9. ↑ "Big Hunting Creek". Maryland Department of Natural Resources. Retrieved July 15, 2015.

External links

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