Little Ocmulgee State Park

I spent the past weekend at Little Ocmulgee State Park in McRae, Georgia for a church family retreat. I’m embarrassed to say that I was too busy setting up PA equipment and musical instruments to take any photos of the snow, which for a few brief hours made the park quite beautiful before quickly melting. But in the few hours I had of down-time, long after the snow was gone, I discovered some interesting facts about the middle Georgia park that struck a chord with me.

Little Ocmulgee is one of Georgia’s state owned parks, one of eight with lodging and seven with a golf course. It’s definitely not luxurious. And compared to others in Georgia, it’s not even that picturesque. But for some strange reason, I keep finding myself back at this site. From lazy afternoons here from high school long ago to community planning retreats and Leadership Georgia, this park holds many memories.

The land for Little Ocmulgee State Park was donated by businessmen from nearby McRae. In 1937, the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), built the first structure in the park and dammed the Little Ocmulgee River to create the lake. Shingles for the visitor’s center, which is still in use, were cut by hand from the cypress trees removed by the CCC workers to create the lake. The CCC, which employed over 80,000 workers throughout Georgia, built lakes, ponds, and lodges, and planted millions of trees throughout the state. Many of the structures built during the great depression are still standing today and still serve the citizens and visitors of Georgia.

In contrast, today is the one year anniversary of the passage of President Obama’s American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. President Obama claims the unprecedented expenditure of $787 billion has “saved or created” two million jobs. Strangely, these jobs have been calculated by the Office of Management and Budget. The Department of Labor, which tracks all other labor statistics, has no means of estimating or tracking “saved” jobs. Are they a fabrication? Who knows. I don’t know a single person who’s job was either created or saved by stimulus funds. And I know of not a single project that has been funded by the ARRA. Instead, these funds created massive debt while being used to shore up collapsing state governments.

J.W. Fanning, a pioneer of leadership and community service in Georgia, once said, “The greatest use of life is to invest in something that will outlast it.” Georgia’s facilities created by the CCC, including Little Ocmulgee State Parks, certainly meet that test.