Loleta Recreation Area - Elk County, Pennsylvania - Public Access Lands on Waymarking.com

Loleta Recreation Area - Elk County, Pennsylvania

FACILITIES
Campgrounds:
Loleta offers 38 campsites. Campsites in the upper loop are recommended for tents and small RV’s or trailers. The lower loop campsites have electric hookups and will accommodate tents, and RV’s or trailers up to 50'. Each campsite has a tent pad, picnic table, and fire ring. Many sites in the lower loop are close together and are suitable for multiple family use. Treated water and vault toilets are available in both camping loops. The bathhouse at the beach has flush toilets and hot showers. Reservations are available for selected sites. Two group camping areas are available for groups up to 50 people. Treated water, vault toilets, picnic tables and fire rings are available at both sites. Group sites must be reserved. The picnic area offers two picnic shelters, cooking grills, amphitheater, volleyball court, and swimming beaches. The bathhouse has changing rooms, flush toilets, and hot showers. Trout fishing is good in Millstone Creek. The picturesque Clarion River, about four miles south of the campground, offers excellent fishing and canoeing. A three-mile hiking trail, marked with gray diamonds, starts and ends at Loleta. The trail passes a scenic overlook of the Millstone valley. All facilities are accessible to persons with disabilities.

HISTORY
Loleta Recreation Area was built in the 1930s by the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) on the site where, just 20 years earlier, a bustling logging town of 600 inhabitants had stood. Established in 1889, Loleta was a typical example of the boomtowns associated with the age of exploitation, when the hills of Pennsylvania were stripped of trees. The town had a large sawmill, shingle mill, broom handle factory, and a rail connection for shipping its products to Sheffield, PA. Once the timber supply was exhausted in 1913, the mills shut down and the town was dismantled and deserted. The federal government purchased the site in 1926, adding it to the newly formed Allegheny National Forest. In the 1930s, the Forest Service reconstructed the old Loleta mill pond, using CCC labor, then added a bathhouse, swimming area, picnic shelters and landscaping. The distinctive quality of CCC workmanship is evident today in the dam stonework and the log construction of the old bathhouse. The camping loops were added in the 1960s.