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Cunningham Falls State Park is a state park located near Thurmont, Maryland, USA, in the Catoctin Mountains. It features a man-made lake and its namesake waterfall, Cunningham Falls. Catoctin Mountain Park borders the state park. Common recreational activities include hiking, swimming, boating, fishing, and camping.
[edit] History
The area around Cunningham Falls is rich in local history. Before the arrival of Europeans many Native Americans farmed, hunted and fished the area. Around the 1800s, settlers began to cut down the forests around the area to power the Catoctin Iron Furnace. Too many years of clear cutting the forest led to the destruction of the land.
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 5000 acres transferred to Maryland as Cunningham Falls State Park.
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