CUMBERLAND — Maryland hopes to roughly double in size a state park that’s never had public access.
The Maryland Department of Natural Resources asked Allegany County to approve the state’s acquisition of 675 acres known as the Mt. Savage Refractories Parcel 1 property, which is adjacent to Wills Mountain State Park.
Under Maryland code, DNR acquisitions of more than 100 acres in Allegany County require approval from local leaders. County commissioners Thursday signed off on the plan.
“It’s along Mount Savage railroad in Corriganville,” Allegany County Administrator Jason Bennett said. “DNR is asking to acquire that so it can be part of their Wills Mountain State Park, which they continue to build.”
A price for the proposed addition hasn’t been disclosed.
If DNR gains ownership of the new ground, the Maryland Park Service will manage the property as part of Wills Mountain State Park, according to a county staff report.
The additional land would provide access to areas that can be developed for mountain biking, hiking, rock climbing and environmental education.
The property is mostly forested, contains roughly 8,480 linear feet of streams and portions of it lie within the Wills Mountain Outcrop and the Wills Creek North Ecologically Significant Areas.
Acquisition would protect a large section of Wills Mountain, prevent additional forest fragmentation, provide a dispersal corridor for wildlife and protect habitat for forest interior birds and rare forest bats.
“It would also protect water quality for aquatic species in Wills Creek and downstream in the Potomac River,” the report stated.
For nearly three decades, Wills Mountain State Park was surrounded by private land and an almost vertical hillside that overlooks Cumberland.
“It has never formally been open as there is no legal access to the property via the single access road,” DNR Media Relations Manager Gregg Bortz said in 2024.
In 2017, DNR bought five acres the park bordered on three sides for $37,800 from Bacas Sisters LLC.
That year, the Board of Public Works approved DNR to buy eight acres bordered on two sides by the park from Ronald Brian Wildman for $60,000.
Program Open Space funds paid for the land.
DNR later bought the former Artmor Plastics plant property that covered nearly 50 acres adjacent to the park for $250,000.
The manufacturing facility had been vacant for several years, vandalized and set on fire in 2015.
Last year, the Maryland Board of Public Works cleared DNR to buy from Navarre Minerals Co. a roughly 104-acre unimproved and mostly forested tract adjacent to Wills Mountain State Park for $205,000.
At that time, DNR said the property would support habitat for state threatened and endangered species and protect the Wills Creek subbasin of the Upper Potomac River watershed, a popular put-and-take trout fishing area with a diverse range of native cool water fish.
The Navarre addition brought the park size to more than 600 acres and aimed to expand recreational opportunities including mountain biking, hiking, birding and hunting in the scenic area.
“This was a big score for us,” Paul Peditto, assistant secretary for DNR’s land resources, said at that time of moving forward to buy the property that the department had wanted to secure for several years. “We’re still looking to … build this out.”