By many reckonings Niagara Falls is the first state park in America, although quite a few people assume that it’s a National Park. The huge Adirondack State Park is protected, along with much of the Catskills, by our state constitution. And what would Manhattan be like without that vast and aptly-named Central Park, which is a city park?

Watkins Glen State Park is a money magnet for our region, bringing in visitors from around the world. (“I’ve been to Hawaii,” one lady told me on the trail one day. “I’ve been in their gorges, and they’re nothing like this.”) Bath and Hammondsport each have a Pulteney Park, and each one focuses and defines its community.

Parks are vital aspects of our lives. Watkins Glen State Park preserves the gorge. The state recently preserved the shorelines of Hemlock and Canadice Lakes, in the most significant park acquisition of almost a century.

Besides their preservation purpose, parks also serve recreational purposes – hunting, fishing, hiking, boating, birding, swimming, picknicking, just plain getting outdoors. In the 1920s many people still thought of cities as an aberration, and worried about the people who were forced to live there. Surely they needed life-giving infusions of countryside, lest they turn into Morlocks or something?

Such thinking in the 1920s helped drive creation of our modern state park system, ironically under the leadership of two quintessential city boys, Al Smith and Robert Moses.

It was Moses himself who selected the site for Stony Brook Park, and Governor Smith bought the original 250 acres for a dollar. One of the reasons for the selection was that it was, like Letchworth, an easy drive from Rochester. (Besides providing an outlet for city folks, the new system was also designed to stimulate better roads.) Another reason for selection, of course, was that marvelous gorge.

Situated about midway between Letchworth and Watkins Glen, Stony Brook often gets overlooked. It shouldn’t. It was a significant picnic and party destination at least as far back as the 1880s. Most people couldn’t swim back then, but as the 20th century advanced, Stony Brook swimming lessons… in COLD water… became a staple of life for many area kids.

Governor Franklin D. Roosevelt visited the park… still largely undeveloped… as part of celebrations for Clara Barton, who had founded the first American Red Cross chapter in the nearby Village of Dansville, in Livingston County. (The park itself is in the TOWN of Dansville in STEUBEN County.) F.D.R. and President Hoover spoke via telephone as part of the ceremony.

Much of the park, though, was still undeveloped once Roosevelt replaced Hoover in the White House. C.C.C. ( Civilian Conservation Corps) youngsters created much of the park infrastructure as New Deal work projects during the Great Depression. In those ugly years Steuben County also operated a transient camp in the park, providing temporary shelter for hundreds of homeless people.

Acquired in 1928, the park today has 577 acres, with facilities for camping, swimming, bowhunting, hiking, nature study, cross-country skiing, and more. On Friday, January 6 we’ll kick off our Steuben County Historical Society Winter Lecture Series with “Our Gem: Stony Brook Park,” an illustrated presentation by Jane Schryver and Paul Hoffman. The 4 PM event in Bath Fire Hall is free and open to the public – we hope we’ll see you there!