Bear Creek Lake State Park

Bear Creek Lake State Park occupies nearly 329 acres of upland forest in Cumberland County, Virginia, inside the 16,000-acre Cumberland State Forest. Its focus is a manmade lake with a beach, picnic areas, campgrounds, cabins, trails and a meeting facility. The park began in the Great Depression as one of four recreational development areas created by the Virginia Division of Forestry, with labor from the Civilian Conservation Corps and Works Progress Administration. Although it did not follow the strict design standards used in the National Park Service-designed state parks, it shows their influence in its long entry drive, central water feature and structures built of natural materials. Contributing resources include log picnic shelters, stone fireplace grills, well houses, a slate culvert, a drain tower, the road and trail system, and the 1938 dam and rubble-stone spillway. Later buildings, including the cabins and lodge built in 2007, are counted as noncontributing.