Qualla: William B. Umstead State Park

William B. Umstead State Park: Introduction

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit bobistraveling, CC BY 2.0. By 1934, the soil along Crabtree Creek was finished. Generations of single-crop farming had stripped the land — first the rich Piedmont topsoil, then the will of the farmers trying to grow cotton in dust. In the depths of the Depression, the federal Resettlement Administration came in and bought five thousand acres of land too tired to feed anyone, and the Civilian Conservation Corps came in behind them with axes and shovels to put a forest back. The park opened in 1937. Today William B. Umstead State Park covers 5,442 acres of recovered forest, hemmed in by Raleigh-Durham International Airport on the west, Interstate 40 on the south, US 70 on the north, and the western edge of Raleigh on the east — a green island in the densest growth corridor in North Carolina.

Image: bobistraveling | CC BY 2.0

William B. Umstead State Park: Before the Cotton

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Swagster900, CC BY-SA 4.0. Long before the first European settlers, American bison roamed forests of oak, hickory, and beech here, alongside elk, bobcats, and wolves. Native Americans developed trade routes through the area — the Occoneeche trail to the north, the Pee Dee trail to the south — connecting th...

Image: Swagster900 | CC BY-SA 4.0

William B. Umstead State Park: What the CCC Built

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Bjattari, Public domain. Between 1936 and 1947, Civilian Conservation Corps crews and Works Progress Administration workers rebuilt the land. They cleared overgrown fields, planted trees, dug picnic shelters out of native stone, and constructed four camps: Sycamore and Crabtree among them, each designed ...

Image: Bjattari | Public domain

William B. Umstead State Park: A Park Inside a City

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit bobistraveling, CC BY 2.0. Reedy Creek Road runs three and a half miles through the heart of Umstead, closed to all but ranger vehicles. On either end, it opens to traffic and becomes a connector — east to the North Carolina Museum of Art, south through Cary, west to Lake Crabtree County Park and the Black...

Image: bobistraveling | CC BY 2.0

William B. Umstead State Park: Piedmont Beech

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit bobistraveling, CC BY 2.0. Tucked inside the park, accessible only by special permit, sits the 61-acre Piedmont Beech Natural Area, designated a National Natural Landmark in 1974. It protects a mature mesophytic forest, the kind of mixed hardwood community that once stretched across much of the Piedmont be...

Image: bobistraveling | CC BY 2.0

William B. Umstead State Park: Bordered by Everything

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit bobistraveling, CC BY 2.0. What makes Umstead unusual is not its trees but its position. Raleigh-Durham International Airport runs its primary runway parallel to the park's western boundary, jets passing low overhead at all hours. Interstate 40 hums on the south. The western suburbs of Raleigh, growing eve...

Image: bobistraveling | CC BY 2.0