State Park Camping

Number 2: McCormick’s Creek

I rated this park #2 because of nice Inn and banquet facilities along with good camping facilities and great hiking trails. They have paved trails that begin from the campground and travel along the rim of a canyon. The park can be found South West of Indianapolis in Spencer, Indiana along the White river on Hwy 46, 14 miles North West of Bloomington. IN.

ACTIVITIES AND FACILITIES:

Camping:

Campground is equipped with flush toilets, hot water and showers. Sites will accommodate most RV’s and trailers. There are both electric and primitive sites available.

Family Cabins:

Each cabin can accommodate 6 people and has a living area, bedroom, bathroom, screened porch and kitchen. Cabins are closed for winter seasons.

Hiking:

There are 10.7 miles of easy to rugged hiking trails. Wear good supportive shoes, you will be climbing up and around rough terrain on the rugged trails.

Inn:

Open year round and all rooms have private bath, telephone, TV, air conditioning. Dining room is open to the public serving a complete daily menu for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Nature Center:

Open year round and designed on a “Please Touch – Gently” theme. It includes natural history exhibits, nature games and quizzes and a full range of naturalist-led activities that are free of charge to park visitors. A self-guiding nature trail lies just behind the center.

Picnic Areas:

Tables, grills, toilet facilities, playground equipment and playfields.

Recreation Center:

Offers a unique outlet of leisure activity within the park. Complete facilities include racquetball, handball, basketball, volleyball and shuffleboard courts, table tennis and a game room located across from the Inn.

Saddle Barn:

Offers trail rides and hayrides.

Swimming:

Park pool opens the Saturday before Memorial and closed no later than Labor Day.

Park History

Long before pioneers entered the area now known a McCormick’s Creek, the Miami Indians roamed the land. The Indians had camps along the banks of the White River to the North and South, but what is now state park land was far too rugged, filled with canyons and ravines, to invite settlement. Instead, it became a hunting ground, offering deer, squirrel, grouse, and fish from its deep woods and clear streams. It wasn’t until 1816 that the first settler laid claim to the area, when John McCormick homesteaded nearly one hundred acres along the canyon by the waterfalls. In those days it was common practice to name physical landmarks after the people who owned them and thus McCormick’s Creek received it’s name.

Early residents in the area cut timber, grazed their livestock on the steep slopes and farmed small patches of flat upland ground. They also tried building sawmills on the creek, although the water level and force was never great enough to make the ventures profitable. Other enterprising businessmen opened limestone quarries near the mouth of the creek, but soon ran into problems trying to get the cut rock across the river to the railroad line on the other side.

The turning point in the McCormick’s Creek history came in 1888, when part of the area was purchased by Frederick Denkewalter, a physician who was interested in the senic and restful qualities of the site. Dr. Denkewalter felt the tranquil peace of the canyon and its surrounding cliffs would be the perfect location to build a sanitarium, a place for the wealthy and the weary to “get a way from it all” and recuperate. The original sanitarium, built on the present-day Canyon Inn site, was a white-sided structure with long porches on every side. It offered guests plenty of access to the loveliness of the will landscaped grounds where Denkewalter delighted in planting a variety of trees and shrubs. Meanwhile, local residents continued to picnic and hike along the canyon, making the spot a favorite of everyone for rest and relaxation.

With the death of Dr. Denekewalter in 1914, his estate went up for sale at a land auction. Both Owen County and the State of Indiana were interested in maintaining McCormick’s Creek in its park-like-setting and so the land was purchased. McCormick’s Creek State Park was dedicated as Indiana’s first state park on July 4, 1916, as part of the state’s centennial celebration.

Canyon Inn opened its doors in the old sanitarium in 1916 and a few years later in the early 1920’s the building was remodeled and new brick siding was added. Over the years, changes have been made to the Inn by adding wings, a banquet room, swimming pool and recreation center, but the inn today still rests on the original foundations of the Denkewalter sanitarium.

Originally a little over 350 acres in size, McCormick’s Creek State Park has grown to its present size through acquisition of surrounding farms and homesteads as they came up for sale. Much of the park’s building improvements came in the 1930’s when the Civil Conservation Corps was in the park. The CCC men constructed most of the shelter houses, the old stone bridge and the firetower. Another surge of development came in the early 1970’s, when the present campgrounds, nature center and swimming pool were added.