Gifford Pinchot State Park is named in honor of Governor Gifford Pinchot. He was born in 1865 to a wealthy family. He graduated from Yale University & went to France where he trained in forestry - the first American to do so. Pinchot, a friend of President Theodore Roosevelt, was named Chief Forester of the U. S. Forestry Division and served from 1898 to 1910. The policies he created are still help guide the national and state forests today.
Gifford Pinchot was elected Governor of Pennsylvania in 1922 & elected to a second term in 1930. He set up work camps in the state during the Great Depression that would become models for President Franklin Roosevelt's Civilian Conservation Corps. He campaigned for political reform and was progressive in his thinking. He was the first governor to have 2 women in his cabinet.
During World War II he developed a water gathering device and fishing kits for navy life rafts.
Gifford Pinchot died in 1946 of leukemia. Gifford Pinchot State Park was dedicated in 1961.
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