Crabtree Creek Recreational Demonstration Area

Crabtree Creek Recreational Demonstration Area is a roughly 4,900-acre park district in Raleigh, North Carolina, now known as William B. Umstead State Park. The Civilian Conservation Corps built it between 1936 and 1941 on worn-out farmland, following a 1940 master plan. It includes four group camps with ninety-two cabins and four lodges, two picnic areas with stone fountains and fireplaces, two stone-veneered bridges, more than thirty miles of trails, and two lakes created by damming Sycamore and Reedy creeks. Buildings follow the rustic style described in the National Park Service pattern book Park and Recreation Structures, with frame construction, stone chimneys and rough-sawn wood siding. Reforestation, check dams and firebreaks record the soil and forest reclamation work. The federal government sold the park to North Carolina in 1943. It is significant as an example of New Deal public works, rustic architecture, landscape design, recreation and conservation, and its camps still serve children's groups today.