Catoctin Mountain Park: Cultural Landscape Inventory, Catoctin Mountain Park, National Park Service

Earley, Judith; Stafford, Barbara

Catoctin Mountain Park is a 5,770-acre park in the NW corner of Frederick County, MD managed by the NPS for public recreation and nature conservation. A single public-access road called Park Central Road winds through the lower portion of the park, along which the two cabin camps, Camp Misty Mount and Camp Greentop, are situated. Other facilities within the park include an educational and resource management area, called Camp Round Meadow, a visitors center, a park administrative building, vehicular and tent camp sites, picnic areas, park maintenance facilities, a network of hiking trails, and interpretive sites. The park also contains Camp David, the retreat of the U.S. President. The mountainous terrain is rocky and forested, bisected by creeks and their tributaries and threaded with hiking trails. Federal ownership of this land originated with two laws in 1933, the Emergency Conservation Work Act and the National Industrial Recovery Act, which ushered in the recovery programs known as the “New Deal.” Funds authorized under these acts were used to create Catoctin Recreational Demonstration Area, which initially comprised approximately 10,000 acres. In 1954 the State of Maryland was given the southern half of the area, now Cunningham Falls State Park. The northern section, which contains the majority of the facilities developed during the New Deal years, was retained as a unit of the NPS and renamed Catoctin Mountain Park. The Catoctin Mountain Park landscape bears the imprint of two historic periods. The first (1770-1903) is the span of years during which the landscape was utilized by the nearby iron furnace, an example of the nation’s early iron industry. In the second period of significance (1934-1942), a portion of the mountain landscape was recast for recreation and conservation when the federal government developed it as a recreational demonstration area (RDA), one of about 40 nationwide. Three camps, a headquarters area and visitors contact area were built and designed in a rustic style specifically generated by 1930s NPS architects. The camps were opened for several summers prior to WWII. In 1941 the third camp was renovated as a retreat for President Franklin D. Roosevelt and the entire RDA was closed for the duration of the war. Catoctin RDA reopened in the 1940s and Camp Misty Mount and Camp Greentop have been in operation ever since. The camps are utilized by organized groups, as was originally intentioned. One of the camps has served the same organization for children with disabilities since it first opened. The third camp, which became the presidential retreat, was renamed Camp David by President Dwight Eisenhower. National Register recognition for Catoctin Mountain Park includes historic district listings for each of the two camps (Misty Mount and Greentop) and a multiple property listing for the Emergency Conservation Work (ECW) architecture. In addition to significance for the New Deal programs and park architecture, this CLI identifies the earlier period of rural industry and settlement as significant and proposes a boundary that includes the entire park. Camp David, though considered a part of the park and counted within its acreage, is a separate entity and has not been studied for this inventory. For the first period of significance, the park does not possess a high degree of integrity in its buildings and structures. However, it does have integrity in other landscape features that leave a fine imprint of the former time. Integrity for the second period is generally high. Nearly all the facilities within the two cabin camps remain intact. The park road and trails are similarly intact, though shifted in some locations. The natural landscape features of the mountain that drew human use of the area through successive periods are little changed.

Catoctin Mountain Park: Cultural Landscape Inventory, Catoctin Mountain Park, National Park Service

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