Cunningham Falls State Park: Maryland's Tallest Waterfall and an Old Iron Furnace

A guest article by Jeff Holland, shared by the National Park Service's Chesapeake Bay office; the writer's account is paraphrased here.

Cunningham Falls State Park, near Thurmont, Maryland, has two distinct areas:

• The William Houck Area, three miles west of Thurmont on Route 77, with the lake, the falls and campgrounds; campsites and camper cabins are open from April to October.
• The Manor Area, off Route 15 three miles south of Thurmont, with the Scales and Tales Aviary, camping, and the historic Catoctin Iron Furnace.

The Catoctin Iron Furnace

The ironworks ran from 1776 to 1903. Interpretive panels tell how immigrants from Germany and Ireland worked beside free and enslaved Africans, many of whom lie in unmarked graves on the site. The workers mined iron ore, cut thousands of acres of trees for charcoal, and smelted iron in tall stone stacks; the remains of one of the three stacks still stand.

The site's markers claim that Catoctin iron made cannonballs George Washington's army fired at Cornwallis at Yorktown, and that the furnace supplied iron plates for the USS Monitor and other Civil War ironclads — but at least one prominent historian doubts both. Either way, the ruins are impressive and worth a side trip.

The falls

The highlight is Cunningham Falls, where Hunting Creek cascades 78 feet down bare rock, catching on several ledges before gathering in a shallow pool. It is Maryland's tallest waterfall and probably its most visited, perhaps because it is so easy to reach.

• Accessible route: a wheelchair-accessible boardwalk leads from an accessible-only parking lot off Foxville Road to an overlook above the falls.
• Lower Trail: most visitors take this half-mile trail from a parking lot near the lake.
• Cliff Trail: for experienced hikers, a steeper route past dramatic rock formations, dropping about 400 feet in less than half a mile to a wooden platform at the foot of the falls.

On summer days people often climb all over the rock face, despite signs warning how dangerous it is. Swimming is not allowed, to protect the creek's delicate ecosystem.

Trails and camping

Other trails vary in length and difficulty. The longest, the Catoctin Trail, runs 27 miles from Gambrill State Park in Frederick through Cunningham Falls State Park into Catoctin Mountain Park; nine miles of it are in Cunningham Falls. Camping is allowed only in designated campgrounds, and the park asks to be told in advance about any vehicle left overnight. Campsites and cabins can be booked at parkreservations.maryland.gov.

Sources

• "Exploring Cunningham Falls State Park", an abridged article by Jeff Holland, shared by the National Park Service's Chesapeake Bay office. https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/exploring-cunningham-falls-state-park.htm
• The source's photograph, credited to the writer, is not reproduced.
• Words on this page from people and organisations outside the federal government are paraphrased; rewritten in hubnx's own words.