History
The Waterloo area was first settled in the 1830s but the ground was poorly suited for farming and during the Great Depression large numbers of farms were abandoned or in financial trouble. The Federal Emergency Administration of Public Works studied the creation of a variety of kinds of parks in several states. The lands were transferred to the Resettlement Administration of the Department of Agriculture in 1935. In 1935-1936, 45 recreational demonstration projects were established including 12,000 acres (49 km2) at Waterloo. These areas were sited in marginal areas near large population centers to provide outdoor recreation actitivies and temporary employment. Most of the sites had CCC camps, Works Progress Administration workers and other "relief workers". Permanent organized family, industrial and youth camps, roads, trails, park facilities buildings and bathing facilities were constructed. Waterloo had three permanent camps: the Cedar Lake, Mill Lake and Cassidy Lake camps. Mill Lake served inner-city youth and Cassidy Lake was a year-round trade school before being converted to its current use as a prison in 1942. Camp Waterloo began as a CCC camp, then served to train military police and as a German POW camp during WWII. It later became a low security prison and is currently abandoned. Sylvan Pond was created when the WPA put in a dam and levees at Cassidy Lake raised its water level permanently. The clubhouse of former Sylvan Estates Country Club is the current park headquarters.
The recreational demonstration projects were transferred from the Resettlement Administration to the National Park Service in November, 1936. The Park Service ended hunting on all park lands it managed nationwide which created a local controversy in Waterloo. In 1943, the state of Michigan leased the park from the National Park Service under the conditions that it must remain a public park for recreational and conservation purposes. In particular, the lease for Waterloo Park requires marshes be maintained for the sandhill cranes and that Michigan must provide funds to run the Yankee Springs Recreation Area near Grand Rapids, the other recreational demonstration project in the state.
Read more about this topic: Waterloo State Recreation Area
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