Greenwood Furnace State Park Campground - Huntingdon PA Camping

Preview: Greenwood Furnace State Park is a great place to camp, especially if you are interested in peace and quiet, mountain vistas, and some of the state’s rural culture and history. It is located on the western edge of the rugged Seven Mountains region in central Pennsylvania and is surrounded by the Rothrock State Forest, an area that offers wonderful opportunities for hiking, biking, and picnicking. The park has a six-acre swimming and fishing lake, plenty of hiking trails, and an aesthetically pleasing campground. The park itself was developed on the site of one of the nineteenth century’s most productive iron-producing communities. The geology of the area around Belleville just south of the park is characterized by limestone that is rich in iron ore deposits. And the heavily forested country just to the north provided convenient access to charcoal that would fuel the furnace. Each day this furnace produced around four to five tons of iron ingots, which were then hauled to the nearby town of Burnham where they were turned into wrought iron. The visitor center has an interesting video about the history of the town site, complete with colorful stories about the area’s colliers, or coal makers, who never bathed for an entire season. Their dirt proved their status as a collier, and come the end of the season they burned the huts they lived in to the ground, “bugs, clothes, bedding, and all,” explains the video.
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Duration: 51 sites
Best Time to Go: Second Friday in April-mid- December
This travel guide comes from:
The Best in Tent Camping: Pennsylvania Guide Book