Millersylvania State Park History

Hugging the shore of 17-foot-deep Deep Lake, Millersylvania State Park is notable for its many well-preserved park structures built by the Civilian Conservation Corps in the Great Depression of the 1930s.

Indigenous Lands

The park lies within the traditional territories of Coast Salish Indigenous people whose present-day descendants include members of the Confederated Tribes of the Chehalis Reservation, Nisqually Indian Tribe, and Squaxin Island Tribe. For thousands of years this area has provided habitat for a diverse community of life that forms the basis of their cultures.

Some local tribes ceded ownership of the area to the US federal government under duress in the Treaty of Medicine Creek in 1854, keeping rights to harvest natural resources in their usual and accustomed places, including the lake, forests and wetlands of today’s Millersylvania State Park.

Other local tribes refused to accept the conditions proposed by Washington Territorial Governor Isaac Stevens at the Chehalis River Treaty Council in February 1855. Subsequently, title to the land was relinquished to the US federal government and the Chehalis Indian Reservation was established by executive order of Secretary of the Interior J. P. Usher on July 8, 1864. The Cowlitz Indian Tribe received federal recognition in 2000.

After government surveys were completed in 1854, land in today’s park passed into private ownership with Homestead Entry Patents in 1875 to Squire B. Sandreth and Isaac Sayles. Interestingly, 160 acres in the north part of today’s park were granted to Andrew Jackson Burr in 1865, as an heir to a Military Warrant awarded to Territorial Governor Isaac Stevens, who had been killed in action at the Civil War Battle of Chantilly on September 1, 1862. Burr had moved to Olympia from California in 1858 and established a jewelry and cigar store across the alley from the first territorial legislature.

The Mysterious Millers

In 1881, John Leonard Miller moved his family to what later became Thurston County. By 1882, Miller had purchased the Sandreth homestead from its second owner, Frank Glidden. Miller also purchased surrounding lands, including the land inherited by Andrew Burr. An orchard was established with 179 pear, apple, and plum trees, and timber was selectively cut for sale to local sawmills.

Many unsubstantiated legends exist about the Miller family. John Leonard Miller was rumored to have been a member of the personal bodyguard of Austrian Emperor Francis Joseph I who fled Austria for political reasons. His wife AnnaBarbara was purportedly an Austrian princess. According to a newspaper article written in the 1930s by John McClelland of the National Park Service, a mail carrier for the Miller family reported refusal of mail by John Miller postmarked from Austria. When asked why he did not accept the mail Miller purportedly responded, “If I lift that mail, the senders would know where I am. This I do not want.”

Other stories speculated that Miller had been a General in the Austrian Cavalry who surrendered to save the lives of his soldiers and was forced into exile in the United States or that he was a bodyguard for the King and Queen of Prussia and went into exile with them after the king lost a major battle.

Whatever the reality of their background, the Millers seem to have largely kept to themselves after settling by the shores of Deep Lake in Thurston County. None of the three children ever married.

The Millers did invite their neighbors to camp by the lake for 4th of July celebrations and during salmon runs. John and AnnaBarbara’s son Frederick attended Stanford University and returned to teach at a schoolhouse a mile from the family homestead. In 1921, he established a will in which he deeded the family estate to the State of Washington upon the death of the last Miller child. The will explicitly states the land will be for use as a state park so that everyone could continue to enjoy “Miller’s Glade.” On February 13, 1924, Frederick’s sister Christina Miller, the sole surviving member of the family by that time, “executed a quitclaim deed to the State of Washington covering all her interest in the premises … subject however, to certain reservations as to the use of the house, outbuildings, and grounds surrounding same and sufficient … to pasture and raise sufficient food for the maintenance of two cows… during the remainder of her natural life.”

On April 7, 1924, the State Parks Committee accepted the quitclaim deed from Christina Miller and directed the Superintendent to “make proper arrangement for taking care of the property in this park.”

Christina passed away on October 10, 1926, completing the transfer to the state. Local newspaper publisher George Blankenship told the story of the Miller family and their generosity at the park dedication on August 10, 1928.

On March 19, 1931, Governor Roland Hartley approved Senate Bill 84, providing for the acceptance of the gift of Millersylvania State Park from the Miller family and the establishment of the Millersylvania Park trust fund with $4,600 of government bonds bequeathed by the family for the “improvement, maintenance and upkeep” of the park.

The Civilian Conservation Corps

In the 1930s as the Great Depression deepened, people throughout Washington and across the US struggled with poverty as job losses and business closures erased their economic security. Newly elected President Franklin D. Roosevelt moved fast to provide material relief for suffering families, and one of the earliest hallmark programs of the administration was the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC). Intended to provide useful employment and training for single men aged 18 to 25, the CCC ultimately provided jobs for more than 2 million enrollees who performed work in national and state parks and forests at more than 500 camps.

In October 1933, CCC Company 1232 arrived at Millersylvania State Park with 200 young men from New York and New Jersey. They were housed in four bunkhouses built near the original Miller house and orchard. Based on reports of the period, including a camp newspaper, the Millersylvania Grapevine, published by enrollees in the camp journalism class, camp life was very good. Educational opportunities were provided for each camp member to complete at least an eighth-grade education, and high school credit was also available. When not at work or in classes, there were organized basketball and baseball teams that competed with local teams. Social activities included dances, religious services, and other events in nearby communities. Enrollees were paid $30 per month, with $25 of their pay being sent to their families if they were receiving public assistance.

By December 1933, the CCC men were felling snags in the forest, cleaning up and removing debris, building trails and fire roads, and building split-rail fencing. In 1934, crews hewed downed and dead timber and chiseled locally quarried stone to provide materials for the structures to be built.

Racism in the CCC

Racism toward African American enrollees in the CCC marred camp life. Oscar DePriest, a Republican representative from Illinois and the only Black representative in Congress at the time managed to add language to the law authorizing the CCC stipulating that the program be implemented without discrimination “on account of race, color, or creed.” It was enforced unevenly.

On May 31, 1934, Washington State Parks Superintendent William G. Weigle made a visit to Millersylvania State Park. Upon arriving, Weigle saw dozens of young Black men working at the park. “Although they appear to be above average in intelligence,” he wrote in a memo afterwards, “it is unfortunate that we must have them at any park.” Later that morning, the State Parks Committee met to formulate a plan to address the “negro situation,” as they called it. They wrote a letter to Martin Smith, Representative from Washington’s 3rd Congressional District, “asking him that they be placed where they would not come in contact with people visiting the parks.” The camp superintendent was instructed to develop a separate bathing beach for the Black enrollees and “segregate them as much as possible.” The 51 Black enrollees stayed for six months before being sent back to the east coast.

Seventeen Buildings

By 1939, two other CCC companies had spent time at Millersylvania. In 1936, Company 2935-V was made up of ex-servicemen. Company 938 arrived at the end of 1937, with many enrollees from Tacoma. Altogether the CCC had constructed seventeen large buildings: a caretaker’s house, manager’s office, two comfort stations, four kitchens, two bathhouses, a pump house, a ranger’s residence, and several others. Even while construction was still underway, the park quickly became popular. Superintendent Weigle visited in July 1938 and found all parking lots full and almost 200 little boys and girls in the wading area. “I could not help but think,” he wrote in a letter “that the State Parks Committee had performed a splendid service in establishing this means of recreation.”