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For decades they often served as one of Pennsylvania’s best kept secrets, underutilized jewels of nature preserved in pockets throughout Penn’s woods, a testimony to the foresight applied with superb timing at moment of massive state deforestation.

We wax poetic about the age of the Iron Horse and how steam locomotives transformed the region and the nation, allowing exploitation of natural resources to feed a ravenous boon in the industrial age. Majestic, intricate engines hauling goods and people both to where they were needed and where they wanted to be.

But the truth is, as the state Department of Conservation and Natural Resources points out in an opening passage explaining the birth of the state park system, railroad expansion after the American Civil War devoured forest much like a whale’s maw engulfs krill: By the millions. Expanding railroads nationwide used 80 million wooden cross ties per year.

And for a spell, Pennsylvania was an epicenter of that growth, both in the wood we could provide and in being home to huge reserves of anthracite coal as well as birthplace of the nation’s first oil boom.

“People,” DCNR notes with no exaggeration, “thought that natural resources were limitless.” Yet initially, the state park system began not to preserve nature, but to preserve history. The first state public park was at Valley Forge, salvaging the area where George Washington and his troops encamped during the American Revolution.

For decades after that, access and use of state forest and land as parks (or something resembling parks) proved patchwork at best, until Gifford Pinchot left his leading role in the U.S. Forest Service to return to Pennsylvania to become the state forester. Pinchot, who went on to become Governor, was avid about the state acquiring forestry lands, and is widely credited as the father of the state park system.

Still the system of state parks remained relatively small, with 44 of them in 1955 when Maurice Goddard landed the job of Department of Parks and Forests director. He proposed building a park within 25 miles of every state resident. By the time he retired in 1979, Goddard had almost doubled the number of state parks, adding 45.

But the state never really stopped looking to add more parks, which is the reason that first effort at Valley Forge has expanded to make the Keystone state’s park system one of the larges in the country (ranking number 8).

And while some parks always had a high level of popularity, many survived with mostly local notice for decades. The COVID-19 pandemic seemed to change that, as people trapped indoors looked for places to breath mask free without big crowds. Ironically, some parks that had been little used became magnets for big crowds, forcing rangers to restrict access.

You can find state parks with old growth trees, glacier formations, night skies unpolluted by man-made lights, vital historical significance, spectacular water falls, calm lakes and much more. We are well served by the determination of forestry leaders past and present in setting aside so much land for respite and recreation.

And to this bounty Gov. Tom Wolf added the latest gems, three new state parks made official this week, including the first in Wyoming County, Vosburg Neck State park. And while we believe there are many reasons to celebrate this local addition, we agree with North Branch Land Trust Executive Director Ellie Ferretti as she helped mark the addition at a ceremony Thursday.

“Let’s just take a moment. Quiet, seriously,” Ferretti said as the wind rustled through leaves under an early Fall sky. “This is remarkable.”

Yes it is, it all is, from the first park in 1893 to Thursday, and every park in between.

— Times Leader