Many of the engaging images in this photographic history of Harriman State Park depict some of the million or so annual campers who stayed somewhere on its 50,000 acres eighty to a hundred years ago, engaged in swimming, diving, hiking, rowing, singing, scouting, and other activities. Prospective campers in 1919 were advised to bring extra stockings, a nightshirt, hankerchiefs, floating soap, a tin cup, shoestrings, and a fountain pen. An early chapter covers the changes that occurred once the land donation became a park in 1910: families were removed from their ancestral homes, low-lying farms were flooded to create the park’s lakes, “woods roads” became hiking trails, homes were converted into mess halls or dormitories for campers. Paragraph-length captions provide more details and historical information.
Harriman State Park, by Ronnie Clark Coffey,
$21.99, Arcadia Publishing.
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