Brown County State Park’ s Abe Martin Lodge and Aquatic Center. photos by Cindy Steele
The year 2016 marks parallel Centennial celebrations of the National Park Service and the Indiana State Park System. The Antiquities Act was signed by President Theodore Roosevelt on June 8, 1906. It gave authorization to the President“ to declare by public proclamation historic landmarks, historic and prehistoric structures, and other objects of historic or scientific interest” that existed on public lands in the United States. Sites were declared to be National Monuments and were administered by the Departments of Interior, Agriculture, and War. President Woodrow Wilson created the National Park Service on August 25, 1916, with twenty-seven natural areas and nine historical areas.
1916 marked the Centennial Celebration of Indiana, and also the establishment of the State Park System at the recommendation of Colonel Richard Lieber, an
INDIANA STATE PARKS 100 Years of Making Memories
~ by Julia Pearson
Indianapolis businessman and German immigrant. McCormick’ s Creek in Owen County was dedicated as the first state park at a July 4 th picnic. The second park established was Turkey Run, and both were presented as a Centennial gift to all Hoosiers on December 16, 1916. The state park system now has 32 properties with visitors numbering 16 million each year, with user fees covering approximately 70 % of daily operational costs.
In 1915, Mr. Enos Mills, National Parks spokesman credited with initiating the movement to create Rocky Mountain National Park, stopped in Indianapolis and was interviewed by the Indianapolis News. He was quoted on November 17:“ The state of Indiana should buy as much of Brown County as possible. It should acquire at least 1,000 acres in the wildest part of the county. The heart of Brown County is purely wild …. From the scenic standpoint, Brown County is one of the best spots that ever existed in the great stretch between the Appalachians and the Rocky Mountains.” The largest and most visited Indiana State Park, Brown County State Park opened in 1929.
But it was Lieber himself who envisioned a cabin community to honor Frank McKinney“ Kin” Hubbard, the creator of the Abe
16 Our Brown County July / August 2016
Postcard from the 1940s courtesy Noel Brown.