The first national park in the United States, Yellowstone, was created by an act of Congress in 1872. America’s first state park, Niagara Falls, was created by the New York State Legislature in 1885. Oregon’s first state park, a donation of land by Sara Helmick now known as the Sarah Helmick State Recreation Site, was the five-acre beginning, under the Oregon State Highway Commission, of what became under the Department of Transportation and later the state’s Department of Parks and Recreation 254 state parks totaling 123,000 acres – 50,000 hectares, or 192 square miles.
1922 was a busy year for the creation of state parks. In 1921, when the National Park Service hosted the first National Conference of State Parks, only 19 states were able to send representatives – the other states didn’t have any parks. The Oregon Legislature got right to work, and so did the other 29 Legislatures.
By the 1925 Conference, all 48 states either had state parks or had commissions planning to create some. The Great Depression halted most of those plans, but the New Deal’s Civilian Conservation Corps – created to provide jobs for the large number of unemployed people – enabled states, including Oregon, to build trails and cabins and many other amenities in state parks at a greatly reduced cost. Much of what the CCC built in Oregon’s state and national parks still stands today.
Oregon is now doing its best to observe a year-long series of special events to mark the centennial of our state parks.
By John M. Burt
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