Going underground: manager named for Pennsylvania’s newest state park
A Warren County native has been named manager of Fayette County’s Laurel Caverns State Park, Pennsylvania’s 125th and newest public park. Corie Eckman will oversee the 435-acre park, which is centered around the largest and deepest limestone cave in Pennsylvania. The caverns draw some 50,000 visitors annually and they’re open for seasonal tours through October….
A Warren County native has been named manager of Fayette County’s Laurel Caverns State Park, Pennsylvania’s 125th and newest public park.
Corie Eckman will oversee the 435-acre park, which is centered around the largest and deepest limestone cave in Pennsylvania. The caverns draw some 50,000 visitors annually and they’re open for seasonal tours through October.
“I am honored to have the opportunity to lead this new state park and to continue the great work of the Laurel Caverns Conservancy connecting the public to this amazing geological resource,” she said in a prepared statement. “I look forward to meeting new visitors at the park and spending more time in this beautiful region, full of forested areas and parks.”
Visitors to Laurel Caverns will begin to see upgrades to the park as staff is hired and collaboration begins with state partners at Forbes State Forest and the Pennsylvania Game Commission, she said. Expanded trails within the park are planned.
Eckman grew up spending free time hiking and kayaking in the Allegheny National Forest. She earned her bachelor’s degree in environmental biology from Clarion University before attending Slippery Rock University and earning dual master’s degrees in environmental education and park and resource management.
After a year working for a private forestry company and a three-month stint with the National Outdoor Leadership School in Lander, Wyoming, Eckman joined the state Department of Conservation and Natural Resources as a park manager trainee and worked at several state parks in the southwest part of the state.
Gov. Josh Shapiro officially opened Laurel Caverns as a state park in April. The park is located atop Chestnut Ridge in Farmington, with more than 4 miles of underground trails through unique geologic formations created naturally by limestone, water and other elements.
The site first opened for public tours in 1962.
Before becoming a public park, two generations of the Cale family owned the site with the goal of preserving the subterranean labyrinth for future generations, Uniontown resident David Cale told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette in April. The first owner of the cave was Richard Freeman in 1794, a year before Somerset County broke off from Bedford County.