Laurel Hill State Park

By Jody Arneson for MidAtlantic Day Trips

Like its sister park, Linn Run State Park, one county to the west, Laurel Hill State Park area was a desolate mess a hundred years ago. The lumber boom that swept through the hills and forests of Pennsylvania missed Laurel Hill Valley until 1886. But the lumber industry came for the old-growth forests of hemlock and white pine, which fed the growth of the United States: lumber to build the growing cities and towns; smaller logs to reinforce the mine shafts of the many coal mines throughout southwestern Pennsylvania and West Virginia; and hemlock tree bark as a source of tannin for the region's tanneries. 

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