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Just 12 miles from Washington D.C., this wooded park offers urban dwellers an escape to the outdoors.
Greenbelt Park is a retreat from the pressures of city life and a refuge for native plants and animals.
Greenbelt Park has a 174-site campground open year-round.
Long before Colonial settlers arrived, trees and flowers covered these rolling hills and wildlife roamed the woodlands. Algonquin Native Americans hunted this land in competition with other smaller tribes. A balance existed between the land and its plants, animals, and native people. Then the colonists arrived.
Trees fell and forests gave way to farmland. Wildlife retreated to the frontier. For the next 150 years, people cleared the land, plowed the fields and planted tobacco, corn and other crops. The rich fertile soil returned high yields. The people did not give back to the land as much as they took. The land wore out, producing less each season and farming ceased. The land was left bare and defenseless.
Erosion caused many scars before nature could slow the process with new growth. Since the early 1900s, the land has been recovering. Today the mixed pine and decidious forest testifies to the land's ability to recover.
The land of Greenbelt Park was acquired by the National Park Service in 1950.
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