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State Parks Seeing
Busiest Year Yet
The first week of July was the busiest in the 32-year history ol Virginia’s state parks, and 1968 is turning out to be a banner year The state’s Division of Parks counted more than 174,500 visits during the week through Sunday July 7. Independence Day brought the highest one-day attendance in park history, with 41.000 people crowding the parks for camping, swimming, and Fourth of July outings. Already this year, almost a million visits have been counted in the 10 state parks, three recreational areas, and foui historical attractions operated by the Virginia Division of Parks Attendance is running about 79< ahead of 1967, according to Ber H. Bolen commissioner of parks It would have been more, Boler said, if rainy weather over severa weekends in the spring and early summer had not hamperec visitation.
Through July 7, the parks unil of the state’s Department ol Conservation and Economic Development had tallied 997,00C visitor days, a total of the numbei of people visiting the parks every day.
“We still have our busiest twc months ahead of us,” Boler added, “and we expect this to be our best year ever.”
Five state parks counted more than 20,000 visits each during the holiday week. Claytor Lake Pari in Pulaski County drew the highest attendance of 24,62-5 followed closely by Hungry Mother Park near Marion, with 24,555. Other parks in the 20.000 group were Douthat neai Clifton Forge, Fairy Stone nea: Bassett, and Seashore at Virginii Beach.
In spite of three rainy days or the coast as July began, Seashore State Park drew 10,200 campers and over 650 were turned away for lack of camping space. Five other parks had to wave by more tjian 800 people because thei campgrouncis were full. Seashore Park has the highest tota attendance for the year so far with more than 231,350 visito days.
Virginia’s parks are also ver popular with out-of-staters, l count made by park personnel ii June revealed that almost 30% o the visitors were from othe states. The survey results for nin of the state parks, wher attendance was counted fc sixjrhtOiir periods on two Sunda aftSHioons, showed a total c 8,500 non-Virginians amon 28,900 people entering the gate!
At Westmoreland State Pari out-of-state visitors both week outnumbered Virginia resident by more than two to one. Th main factor, Bolen explained wawas the Potomac River park’ closeness to Maryland and th District of Columbia. Severs northern states were large! represented, indicating th Northern Neck’s attraction to lor distance tourists.
89.2%