Stub Stewart State Park to Open June 2007
June 2007 has been confirmed as the opening timeframe for the Stub Stewart State Park, the first full-service Oregon state park to be developed in over 30 years. Campers, hikers, horseback riders and cyclist will find the area a great new adventure area this summer. The park is located on the east side of Oregon 47, four miles north of the U.S. 26-Hwy. 47 intersection. The park is 31 miles west of Portland in Washington County.
Construction has been ongoing since as far back as 2003 in the 1,654 acre area to clear trails and build cabins for campers throughout Oregon and Washington. The land features rolling hills, forest and deep canyons typical of the northern Willamette Valley.
Historic and geographic features at Stub Stewart have been used to name the park’s facilities, ensuring the preservation of the land’s history.
Campgrounds and the main day-use area are named after natural features. The main campgrounds are Dairy Creek Camp West and Dairy Creek Camp East. Other names include Brooke Creek Hike-in Camp and the Hilltop Day-use Area.
Hares Canyon Horse Camp is named for a former area lumberman as is the canyon just east of the camp. The nearby Clayhill Staging Area, an equestrian day-use area, combines a person’s name with a reference to the clay-based hills in the park. Mountain Dale, the cabin village’s name, is the name of a historic road just east of the park.
The visitor center, which includes the camping registration windows, park office and interpretive room, will be known as the Stub Stewart Welcome Center.
The park will also feature The Mountain Dale Cabin Village. Arranged on the hillside above the Dairy Creek East and Dairy Creek West campground loops, the cabins are at the 1,150-foot elevation, 400 feet above the park’s entrance. Visitors to three of the one-room cabins will have clear views of the Coast Range.
The village also includes an ADA-compliant restroom-shower building. Crews from parks throughout the state have built 15 cabins from pre-fabricated kits manufactured through OPRD’s Parks and Prisons program.
The land for the Stub Steward State Park was acquired through land exchanges involving the Oregon Parks and Recreation Dept., Oregon Department of Forestry, Washington County and Longview Fibre Company. The park was named after Loran L. “Stub” Stewart who served nearly 40 years on the State Parks and Recreation Advisory Committee and the Oregon Parks and Recreation Commission. Stewart passed away in January 2005.
