Prince William Forest Park, National Park Service

Prince William Forest Park, located in Prince William County, Virginia, is a 15,000 acres woodland where nature and history unite. Over the centuries, people worked and lived off this forested landscape and called it home.

From the 1880s, for 40 years, men and young children toiled in Cabin Branch Pyrite Mine and worked their small farms for sustenance. In 1936, with the Great Depression and the mine closure, the Roosevelt Administration established the Chopawamsic Recreational Demonstration Area. Over 2,000 Civilian Conservation Corps enrollees constructed roads, dams, and cabins. These housed generations of happy American children escaping from the harsh realities of a city-bound childhood. In the 1940s, the camps were used to train spies of the Office of Strategic Services, later the Central Intelligence Agency, who were sent behind enemy lines during World War II. Chopawamsic Recreation Area was renamed Prince William Forest Park in 1948.

Prince William Forest Park Virtual Museum Exhibit