The Park Company 1331 Built

In 1913, according to the state park service's history of Trough Creek State Park, a railroad there was incorporated as the Juniata and Southern Railroad and extended seven miles to reach the Broad Top Coal and Mineral Company's mine at Jacobs. In 1917 the mine closed and the timber was depleted, and the railroad was dismantled and scrapped. With metal needed for the First World War, the history says, the scrap sold for more than the line had cost to build. Stripped of its trees, the land was left prone to floods and forest fires.

A Bellefonte paper reported that on October 4, 1918, the State Forestry Commission authorized the purchase of the Paradise Furnace tract, 4,700 acres in Huntingdon County, as an addition to the state forest reserve. The National Register nomination for Paradise Furnace puts the state's acquisition of the old iron plantation lands at about 1915.

In June 1933 Company 1331 of the Civilian Conservation Corps arrived and lived in tents while it built Camp S-57, named Camp Paradise Furnace. The state's online CCC archive gives June 16, 1933, as the camp's opening date and lists Aitch as its nearest post office, with Marklesburg for telephone and express mail. One photograph in the archive, captioned June 7, 1935, shows the long, thin barracks of the camp.

The young men planted trees, built roads and trails, and created Trough Creek State Park, which opened in 1936. The Second World War ended the CCC, and Camp S-57 closed in 1941. According to the archive, the camp's remains are upstream from Pavilion One in the park.

Checked 2026-10-31 · County histories and primary sources, read in full

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