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In 1969, James F. Hillman, president of the Harmon Creek Coal Corporation, donated 3,654 acres to the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania for outdoor recreation. From 1970 through 1977, the state spent $1.7 million on reclamation projects at Hillman State Park. Oil was discovered near the centre of the park in 1885, and the boomtown of Five Points was born. The South Penn Oil Company drilled more than 170 oil wells in the park, most of which are now abandoned. The DCNR adds that there are currently 28 active wells owned by the Cassidy Oil Company of Florence. The company considered reclamation an integral part of coal mining and began conservation practices in 1937, well before the practice became law. The first statute passed in Harrisburg requiring only partial restoration came in 1945. The company ran a nursery that provided 30,000 pine, oak, ash, larch, chestnut and multiflora rose seedlings each year, according to the DCNR.
The gift was reported at the time to be the largest single land donation for a state park in the country, valued at more than one million dollars, according to the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources (DCNR).
A significant portion of the Florence-Five Points Oil Field lies under the park and was once one of the most prolific oil fields in southwestern Pennsylvania, according to the DCNR. The land had been used for oil drilling and coal strip mining, and known abandoned mine drainage problems existed on the site. Abundant mineral resources were discovered during the 1880s, and many farmers gave up agriculture for what the page calls a more prosperous opportunity. The Citizens Fuel Company drilled the first gas wells in the area. The company’s conservation department pioneered the restoration of strip-mined land, and restoration plans were made two years before an area was mined. Those plans included reusing stockpiled topsoil, contouring the land, adding fertiliser and planting a cover crop. By the late 1960s, more than two million trees had been planted in the southern end of the park, and grasses, clover and vetch had been planted in the northern and western sections. The company’s wildlife programme included food plots of corn, sorghum and sunflowers, the stocking of pheasants for hunting, and the stocking of fish in the lakes and ponds.
All users must have an FCC license, maintain and display a current AMA membership, and preregister with Raccoon Creek State Park, which can be contacted at 724-899-2200. The park’s history page also records the Lyle Covered Bridge, built in 1887. It is a 38-foot queen post truss bridge on Kramer Road that crosses Brush Run at the eastern border of the park.
The airport is operated and maintained by the Greater Pittsburgh Aero Radio Control Society, a chartered club of the Academy of Model Aeronautics (AMA). It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, is owned by Washington County and is open to vehicles and pedestrians.