New Virtual Museum Exhibit Launched

Joan Bacharach
National Park Service Digest
Thu, 08 Oct 2009 00:00 UTC

© Natural Museum

Office of Strategic Services (OSS) officers training in Prince William Forest Park during WWII.

A new online exhibit showcases the compelling stories of Prince William Forest Park, a 15,000-acre 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.

Click on the link to visit this new exhibit.