Repurposed Appalachia Series – Camp Blanton Gateway to Blanton Forest
Where the pavement narrows on Kentucky 840 and Watts Creek begins to climb toward Pine Mountain, a small lake and a cluster of cabins mark a place Harlan Countians simply call Camp Blanton. The setting looks quiet at first glance, but almost every feature in that hollow carries a story. The pond and dam trace back to a New Deal work camp. The cabins began as a Boy Scout project and a promise from a local family that this land would belong to young people. The trailhead at the edge of the parking lot points into Blanton Forest, the largest old growth forest in Kentucky and one of the largest in the eastern United States.
Today, weddings, family reunions, church retreats and Scout weekends unfold where Depression era crews once felled hemlocks and set stone. Behind those modern gatherings lies a century of Scouting, a half century of conservation work and the long arc of a Harlan County family that chose to leave their trees standing when almost everything around them was for sale.
Scouting comes to Harlan County
Camp Blanton did not appear in a vacuum. Scouting had already taken root in Harlan years before the camp opened. According to the Kentucky Historical Society, a Boy Scout troop organized by Will Ward Duffield was chartered by the national council on June 20, 1912, at First Presbyterian Church in Harlan. The troop’s first camping trip drew enough attention that it was featured in Boys’ Life, the movement’s national magazine. A century later, the county marked one hundred years of Scouting with a celebration at Camp Blanton in June 2012, tying the camp directly to that longer story of youth work in the coalfields.
By the time Grover and Oxie Blanton began thinking about setting aside land near the head of Watts Creek, Scouting in the county had become a durable institution. Local leaders understood how much it mattered to have a home base rather than asking boys to pitch their tents in different pastures and meadows every summer. The result was a decision that would shape both local recreation and conservation on Pine Mountain.
A gift of land on Watts Creek
The Blanton family had purchased timber land on the south face of Pine Mountain in the late 1920s. Unlike many owners in the period of aggressive logging, they decided not to send crews into the heart of their holdings. That restraint became the first quiet step toward what would later be recognized as one of the largest remaining tracts of old growth forest in the East.
Closer to the public road, at the head of Watts Creek, the Blantons envisioned something different. In August 1933 Grover, Oxie and other family members conveyed roughly thirteen acres to two trustees of the Harlan County Boy Scouts, Will Ward Duffield and O. M. Hoskins. The deed called for a Scout camp and a public playground for the people of Harlan County. That combination of purposes is important. From the beginning, the camp was not meant to be a closed enclave, but a place where Scouts, families and civic groups would share the same lake and the same grove of trees. Order of the Arrow histories for Kawida Lodge, which later served the region, recall that the property operated as a Scout camp from 1934 into the late 1980s under a succession of Upper Cumberland and Blue Grass council structures.
The deed and later council records now sit in the clerk’s office and in Scout archives, but their language still echoes in how local people talk about the place. When county tourism pages describe Camp Blanton as a historic former Scout camp that belongs to the community, they are repeating the intention that was written into the land transfer in 1933 and 1934.
CCC work and a New Deal camp
The timing of that gift collided in a fortunate way with federal New Deal programs. As Civilian Conservation Corps companies spread across Appalachia, Kentucky received both forest camps and smaller side projects. The Kentucky Wildlands National Heritage Area feasibility study and scouting histories note that Camp Blanton, along with nearby Camp Greenwood, was improved through CCC work in the mid 1930s.
At Blanton the most visible pieces of that work were the dam and pond at the center of the hollow and the first rustic structures that defined the camp’s look. Contemporary descriptions and later recollections describe peeled log walls, native stone foundations and chimneys, and hand worked joinery of the sort seen in parks and forests across the region where CCC carpenters left their mark. The camp’s own historical overview remembers this as the period when workers built the lake and the first cabins using that park rustic style, turning a steep mountain hollow into a place where boys could swim, paddle and learn outdoor skills.
Some of those New Deal era structures have been altered or rebuilt, but the layout they set in place still guides visitors. A lane curls past the mess hall toward the lake, cabins perch on the slope above, and a small bridge crosses the outlet where water spills from the pond. For people who grew up in Harlan, those features are not abstractions. They are the backdrop for first overnight camps, flag ceremonies at the dam and early morning swim checks in the chill mountain air.
A half century of Scouting and a county playground
From the 1930s into the 1980s Camp Blanton functioned as both a traditional Scout camp and a community park. Countywide camporees brought patrols from different troops together for competitions, merit badge work and religious services. The mess hall, which would later receive a commercial kitchen upgrade, fed generations of campers and also hosted awards banquets, civic dinners and off season gatherings.
Memories of those years survive most vividly in personal narratives and photographs. One important account comes from physicist and ecologist Albert Fritsch, who later helped document Blanton Forest. As a teenager in the 1940s, he hiked from Camp Blanton up the steep slopes toward Knobby Rock and the high ridgeline. He remembered the cabins, the camp culture and the startling moment when he and his friends realized that the forest above them contained trees unlike anything they had seen elsewhere in a heavily logged county. That youthful discovery would help set in motion a later scientific and conservation effort to secure the old growth.
Church groups and school organizations also made regular use of the camp. The original deed’s language about a public playground proved prophetic as families picnicked by the lake, youth groups held summer programs, and community events spilled out of the mess hall onto the parade field. Local oral history shared today on social media often revolves around those communal moments, from fishing at the lake to late night songs on cabin porches.
Roads, trails and the high country
Camp Blanton’s role in recreation extended beyond the camp boundary. In the mid twentieth century, as forester and conservationist William Hayes worked in Harlan County, Pine Mountain Settlement School records describe efforts to open and improve rough roads and trails across Pine Mountain. In those notes Hayes recalled the grading of a rugged route from U.S. 421 over the crest to Camp Blanton and on toward the Gross Knob fire tower. The route tied together state forest lands at Kentenia, the ridgetop lookout network and the camp on Watts Creek, creating an early version of the driving and hiking circuits that later visitors to the Little Shepherd Trail would recognize.
By the late twentieth century, the unpaved forest roads and truck trails that connected ranger stations, fire towers and camps had become part of an informal recreational network. Hikers used them as access points, hunters followed them during seasons, and residents of nearby communities came to know Camp Blanton as one stop in a larger ring of outdoor places around Pine Mountain.
From Scout camp to community trust
Like many rural Scout camps, Blanton faced headwinds by the 1970s and 1980s. Membership shifts, council consolidations and the rising cost of maintaining aging infrastructure made it difficult to keep offering full summer programs. Rather than see the property sold off or closed, a group of local volunteers and former Scouts organized to keep it in public use.
Order of the Arrow newsletters and the camp’s own history confirm that the Camp Blanton Trust formed in the mid 1980s. The trust assumed responsibility for maintaining and managing the thirteen acre camp, and council records note that the property was sold out of council ownership around 1988.
News coverage from 2023 shows that the trust still functions on the same basic principle. WYMT reported on fundraising drives that year, explaining that the volunteer board must cover tens of thousands of dollars annually for insurance, utilities and upkeep so that the camp can remain available for weddings, reunions, retreats and youth events.
The trust’s website today highlights that continuity. It describes the “beginnings” in 1933 and 1934 when Grover and Oxie Blanton donated the land as a Scout camp and a playground for Harlan Countians, recalls a mid century “golden age” when Scouting flourished, and marks 1988 as a “second act” when business and community leaders organized to preserve the camp for future generations.
The making of Blanton Forest State Nature Preserve
While the trust was forming, conservationists were working to protect the much larger forest that rose above the camp. The Kentucky Natural Lands Trust and the Office of Kentucky Nature Preserves point to a decisive moment in the 1990s when the Neal and Knuckles families and conservation partners began to assemble tracts that, together with the original Blanton holdings, could form a state nature preserve.
Naturally Kentucky, the state nature preserves newsletter, reported in 1995 that the first 1,075 acres of Blanton Forest State Nature Preserve had been dedicated. Staff emphasized that this was a globally significant remnant of mixed mesophytic forest and that additional acquisitions were already underway. Follow up issues in the early 2000s noted a 479 acre addition and celebrated Blanton’s status as Kentucky’s largest state nature preserve.
Today the preserve protects more than three thousand acres of old growth and surrounding second growth on the south face of Pine Mountain. Tourism materials and state publications describe a trail system of roughly four and a half miles that climbs from the Watts Creek side to landmarks like Knobby Rock, Sand Cave and the Maze.
Within that acreage, Land, Air & Water, the Energy and Environment Cabinet’s webzine, notes that more than 2,300 acres are considered true old growth, dominated by hemlock, beech and several species of oak. Some trees exceed forty inches in diameter at breast height, and core samples show that many are three hundred years old or more, with some oaks over four centuries old.
From the overlook at Knobby Rock, hikers can see the sweep of that forest along the ridgeline and into the neighboring watersheds. The view makes clear why researchers and land trusts struggled for decades to keep the tract intact. It also clarifies why the small developed footprint of Camp Blanton, tucked low on the slope, has become such an important access point rather than an intrusion.
Gateway to an old growth forest
County tourism pages today call Camp Blanton the gateway to Blanton Forest. Designated parking for the preserve sits in a lot adjacent to the camp, and a kiosk there directs visitors to the Watts Creek Trail and the loops that climb toward the ridgeline.
For hikers, the camp is the last pocket of human infrastructure before the forest closes in. A visitor might rent a cabin or the mess hall for a weekend event, then walk across the lane to step onto a trail where some of the trees are older than the Commonwealth itself. That juxtaposition appears over and over in modern feature writing. Writers for Appalachian Voices, Blue Ridge Country and the Kentucky Energy and Environment Cabinet describe the experience of starting at a quiet camp on a lake and ending at sandstone outcrops where the view stretches toward Cumberland Gap.
The camp’s present day functions also mirror its Depression era purpose. Kawida Lodge’s hiking guide lists Camp Blanton as a destination where Scouts can practice low impact camping, paddle on the lake and take advantage of primitive sites and cabins. County tourism promotions and the camp’s own reservation pages market it as an affordable venue for community events that still keeps youth and outdoor education at the center.
Why Camp Blanton matters
On paper, Camp Blanton covers only about thirteen acres. Its influence reaches much farther. The original 1933 gift provided a stable home for Harlan County’s Scouts at a time when outdoor programs helped a generation of young people navigate economic hardship and war. New Deal labor turned that gift into a physical camp that still carries the marks of CCC craftsmanship. Conservationists and foresters who came of age in those years used the camp as a base from which to discover and eventually protect the old growth above Watts Creek.
By the late twentieth century, the formation of the Camp Blanton Trust showed that community members were willing to carry the cost of keeping the site open when formal Scout structures could not. That same civic impulse helped build the partnerships that created Blanton Forest State Nature Preserve and made Harlan County a destination for people who want to see what an intact Appalachian canopy looks like.
As a result, a visitor standing at the edge of the little lake below Pine Mountain can see several layers of Appalachian history at once. The dam and cabins tell a New Deal story. The flags and fire rings hint at decades of Scouting and youth work. The trailhead points into one of the oldest living forests in the Commonwealth. Holding all of those threads together is the simple idea written into the 1933 deed: that this hollow would be a playground for the people of Harlan County and a place where the next generation could learn what it means to belong to a mountain.
Sources & Further Reading
U.S. Scouting Service Project. “Camp Blanton—More Information.” U.S. Scouting Service Project Camp Database, n.d. https://www.usscouts.org/scoutcamp/database/cgi-win/ocd.cgi?action=moreinfo&camp_id=1188 usscouts.org
Kawida Lodge #480. “Camp Blanton.” Where to Go Scouting Guide, n.d. https://kawida.org/wtgs/locations/camp-blanton/ kawida.org
International Scouting Collectors Association. “OA Trends: Bits & Pieces.” ISCA Journal 23, no. 4 (December 2023). PDF includes Camp Blanton historical note. https://scouttrader.org/members_only/journal/dec_23.pdf ScoutTrader
Kentucky Historical Society. “Scouting in Harlan County.” Kentucky Historical Marker Database, marker 2413, Harlan County. https://secure.kentucky.gov/kyhs/hmdb/MarkerSearch.aspx?county=48&mode=County Kentucky.gov
“Scouting in Harlan County.” The Historical Marker Database (HMdb), marker 181326, posted 2021. https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=181326 HMDB
Camp Blanton Trust. “Camp Blanton.” CampBlanton.org, main site describing the camp and trust. https://www.campblanton.org/ Camp Blanton
Camp Blanton Trust. “Prices & Reservations.” CampBlanton.org, facility descriptions and rental information. https://www.campblanton.org/prices Camp Blanton
Camp Blanton. “Camp Blanton | Wallins Creek KY.” Official Facebook page with photographs, events, and historical notes. https://www.facebook.com/officialcampblanton/ Facebook
Kentucky Natural Lands Trust. “Blanton Forest State Nature Preserve.” Overview of conservation history, old-growth status, and KNLT’s role. https://knlt.org/blanton/
Evans, Marc, and Tom Dupree. “The Flying Snakes of Knobby Rock.” Kentucky Natural Lands Trust Blog, October 2015. Field narrative from early documentation of Blanton Forest accessed from Camp Blanton. https://knlt.org/flyingsnakes/ KNLT
Kentucky State Nature Preserves Commission. Blanton Forest State Nature Preserve brochure. Frankfort: Office of Kentucky Nature Preserves, ca. 2015. PDF with trail map, access, and preserve rules. https://eec.ky.gov/Nature-Preserves/Brochures/BlantonForestbrochure_color.pdf Kentucky Energy and Environment Cabinet
Bowman, Brad. “Blanton State Nature Preserve: A Perfect Day Trip into Kentucky’s Largest Old-Growth Forest.” Land, Air & Water (Kentucky Energy and Environment Cabinet), August 16, 2022. https://landairwater.me/2022/08/16/blanton-state-nature-preserve-a-perfect-day-trip-into-kentuckys-largest-old-growth-forest/ Land, Air & Water
Kentucky Energy and Environment Cabinet, Office of Kentucky Nature Preserves. “Blanton Forest State Nature Preserve.” Official preserve page with acreage, designation history, and trail information. https://eec.ky.gov/Nature-Preserves/Locations/Pages/Blanton-Forest.aspx Kentucky Energy and Environment Cabinet
Kentucky Natural Lands Trust. “Exploring Old Growth Forest in Historic Harlan County.” Appalachian Voices, guest feature, October 2019. Describes hiking into Blanton Forest from Camp Blanton. https://appvoices.org/2019/10/16/exploring-old-growth-forest-in-historic-harlan-county/
Leonard, Leonard Adkins. “A Challenging 4.5 Miles: Walking Amid Kentucky Old Growth.” Blue Ridge Country, January–February 2021. https://blueridgecountry.com/departments/hikes/blanton-forest-state-nature-preserve/ Blue Ridge Country
Kentucky Native Plant Society. “Blanton Forest Field Trip.” Native Plant News (KNPS newsletter), early 2000s. Archived hike description and directions via KY 840 and the Camp Blanton sign. https://www.knps.org/newsletter-archive/
Pine Mountain Settlement School. “William Hayes Student Staff Board (Part 2).” Transcribed board minutes referencing grading a rough trail from US 421 to Camp Blanton and Gross Knob Lookout Tower. https://pinemountainsettlement.net/?page_id=36563 Kentucky Energy and Environment Cabinet
Demmler, Jack. “Camp Blanton Trust Seeking Community Support.” WYMT Mountain News, August 20, 2023. https://www.wymt.com/2023/08/20/camp-blanton-trust-seeking-community-support/ https://www.wymt.com
Asher, Joe. “Camp Blanton, a Harlan County Destination Gem.” Harlan Enterprise, January 20, 2023. https://harlanenterprise.net/2023/01/20/camp-blanton-a-harlan-county-destination-gem/ Harlan Enterprise
Asher, Joe. “Camp Blanton Requests Assistance.” Harlan Enterprise, October 25, 2023. https://harlanenterprise.net/2023/10/25/camp-blanton-requests-assistance/ Harlan Enterprise
Harlan County Tourism. “Blanton Forest.” HarlanCountyTrails.com, attraction page describing trail system and access via Camp Blanton. https://www.harlancountytrails.com/blanton-forest/
Harlan County Tourism. “Kentucky’s Largest Old Growth Forest.” HarlanCountyTrails.com Blog, May 5, 2023. https://www.harlancountytrails.com/blog/kentuckys-largest-old-growth-forest/ Harlan County
Harlan County Tourism. “Putney.” HarlanCountyTrails.com, unincorporated communities listing including Camp Blanton as a historic site and trailhead. https://www.harlancountytrails.com/communities/putney/
Explore Kentucky Wildlands. “Blanton Forest State Nature Preserve.” The Kentucky Wildlands, regional tourism overview including Camp Blanton as gateway. https://www.explorekywildlands.com/places-to-go/blanton-forest-state-nature-preserve/
National Park Service. The Kentucky Wildlands National Heritage Area Feasibility Study. Washington, D.C.: NPS, 2023. PDF notes CCC-built Camp Blanton and Camp Greenwood. https://npshistory.com/publications/nha/kentucky-wildlands-nha-fs-2023.pdf NPS History
National Archives and Records Administration. “Records of the Civilian Conservation Corps [CCC].” Guide to Federal Records, Record Group 35, 1933–53. https://www.archives.gov/research/guide-fed-records/groups/035.html National Archives
United States National Archives and Records Service. Preliminary Inventory of the Records of the Civilian Conservation Corps: Record Group 35. National Archives Preliminary Inventories, no. 11. Washington, D.C.: National Archives & Records Service, 1980. https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/009508531 HathiTrust
“The Civilian Conservation Corps in Kentucky and the Nation.” Record Group 35 – Records of the Civilian Conservation Corps, Record Group Explorer. U.S. National Archives. https://www.archives.gov/findingaid/stat/discovery/35 National Archives
Crafty Crow Show. “A Complete Tour of Camp Blanton, Harlan County’s Boy Scout Camp.” YouTube video, c. 2021. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XXXXXXXXXXX Pine Mountain Collections
Harlan County Tourism and Kentucky Natural Lands Trust. “Camp Blanton a Harlan County Treasure.” Public Facebook group “Camp Blanton in Harlan County Kentucky,” community photos and reminiscences. https://www.facebook.com/groups/789010344491250/ Facebook
Wanderlog. “Camp Blanton, Smith, KY – Reviews, Ratings, Tips and Why You Should Visit.” User-generated overview and recent reviews. https://wanderlog.com/place/details/719258/camp-blanton wanderlog.com
Author Note: As a historian rooted in Harlan County, I am drawn to places where youth work, community life, and conservation intersect. I hope this piece helps you see Camp Blanton as both a gathering ground for neighbors and a gateway into one of Kentucky’s rarest forests.