When the main park road between Perry and Castile reopens next spring, visitors to Letchworth State Park will see a new look at the Tea Table, Wolf Creek and Eddy’s picnic areas. The project funded by Friends of Letchworth State Park (Friends) to restore the iconic stone tables in those areas is complete. The tables, built almost 90 years ago by the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), have served generations of picnickers since then. However, damage from time, the elements and inconsiderate humans were taking their toll. The Friends decided that historic restoration to return the tables to their original beauty and utility was the perfect next step in our efforts to preserve the CCC Legacy in Letchworth.
Working with Crawford and Stearns, restoration architects from Syracuse, New York, not only have the tables been returned to how they looked in the mid-1030’s but at Tea Table replica benches have been added. These were designed by Crawford and Stearns based on the research of Tom Cook, and were manufactured by Allegany Hardwoods of Fillmore, New York, from white pine logs. The actual restoration work was done by two contractors: Cornerstone Construction from Yonkers, NY, was responsible for the work at Wolf Creek and R.E. Kelly of Bowmansville did the work at Tea Table and Eddy’s picnic areas.
The Friends received partial funding for this undertaking from two major grants. The first for $50,000.00 from the Ralph C. Wilson, Jr Legacy Funds administered by the Community Foundation for Greater Buffalo helped fund work at Tea Table and Wolf Creek. The Ralph C. Wilson, Jr. Legacy Funds were established at the Community Foundation to provide support to four areas that were important to Mr. Wilson: caregivers, community assets, design and access and youth sports. Endowment funds, like these created to honor Mr. Wilson, are designed to grow over time and provide funding for charitable causes according to a client’s wishes. In the amount of $50,700.00 the restoration of the CCC-Built Stone Tables at Wolf Creek and Eddy’s project was supported with funding from the NYS Park and Trail Partnership Grants and New York’s Environmental Protection Fund. Park and Trail Partnership Grants are administered by Parks & Trails New York, in partnership with the NYS Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation.
As many readers may know, the Friends with the support of hundreds of generous donors and grants from NYS and private foundations have been restoring and preserving various CCC relics over the last seven years. These include a lean to on the gorge rim near the Hogsback Overlook, stone chimneys at Big Bend and Gibsonville, as well as ten stone tables on the hillside behind the Parade Grounds shelter on the eastside of the river. After the work at Tea Table, Wolf Creek and Eddy’s our next project will be restoration of stone tables at the Upper Falls. All these projects are part of the CCC-Legacy Pathway project which was dedicated at CCC-Legacy Day last August.