Reeds Gap State Park
1405 New Lancaster Valley Road
Milroy, PA 17063-9735
717-667-3622

Reeds Gap State Park is 220 acres of wilderness in the New Lancaster Valley of Mifflin County. Large Hemlocks and white pines cast cool shadows over Honey Creek, which flows through the park.

Directions
Reeds Gap is reached from US 322 from Milroy by following park signs for seven miles.

Recreational Opportunities

Fishing: 
Native and stocked trout are found in Honey Creek and smaller mountain streams like Reeds Gap Run. Hiking trails offer access to Honey Creek. The spring months offer the best angling. Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission laws apply.

Swimming: 
Two, free, guarded swimming pools offer about 4,000 square feet of water for swimming. The small children’s pool is shallow. The larger pool is shallow at both ends and five feet deep in the middle. No diving is permitted. All children ten years of age or younger must be accompanied by a person at least 14 years of age. The pools are open 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. daily from Memorial Day weekend through Labor Day, unless posted otherwise. The pools are normally closed weekdays until mid-June. A modern bathhouse with flush toilets and hot showers is beside the pool. A snack bar is open in the summer season. The pool has an ADA lift.

Camping: tents only
The campground is open from the second Friday in April to the third Sunday in October.

A walk on the 1.8-mile, red-blazed Honey Creek Trail Loop often reveals wildlife signs or sightings.

The 1.3-mile, blue-blazed Blue Jay Trail Loop goes along Honey Creek through the main activity areas of the park. It offers a variety of scenery.

The 0.5-mile, yellow-blazed Flicker Path leaves the Blue Jay Trail by the swimming pool and rejoins it by Reeds Gap Run.

The Self-guiding Interpretive Trail is a 1.1-mile trail following the scenic banks of Honey Creek. Interpretive waysides focus on the various ecological communities. This green-blazed trail starts at the kiosk beside the snack bar and follows parts of Blue Jay and Honey Creek trails between the swimming pool complex and Picnic Pavilion #3.

Reeds Gap Spur Trail starts at the park office and climbs through Reeds Gap along scenic Reeds Gap Run to Knob Ridge Road and continues to Poe Valley State Park—a distance of 18 miles. This very beautiful and rugged trail has interesting large rocks along the upper section. Once many logs were brought down the trail to a sawmill that stood by the park office.

Picnicking:
Four mostly wooded picnic areas are available year-round. There is ample parking, tables and one small, non-reservable shelter. Modern flush toilets and running water are available during the warmer months. Three picnic pavilions may be reserved up to 11 months in advance for a fee. Unreserved picnic pavilions are free on a first-come, first-served basis. Picnic Pavilion Two has electric hook-ups.

Reeds Gap is a natural water gap in Hightop, also called Thick Mountain. American Indians from the village of Ohesson, today’s Lewistown, used this valley as hunting grounds. When European settlers arrived, they homesteaded and named the area the New Lancaster Valley.

During the late 1700s, Reeds Gap became a bush meeting ground. The settlers packed lunches and traveled in their horse-drawn wagons to hear a circuit preacher and enjoy neighborhood fellowship. These bush meetings, also known as homecomings, were held through the 1920s.

In the mid-1800s, the park’s namesakes, Edward and Nancy Reed, set up a water-powered sawmill along Honey Creek just inside of the western boundary of the present park. Part of the historic water-storage dam is still visible along the red-blazed Honey Creek Trail Loop downstream from the swimming pools. Edward Reed’s son, George Wilbur Reed, was a sawyer at the mill. Another son, John, later moved the watermill to Virginia by horses.

Around 1900, a steam-powered sawmill was by the park’s maintenance building. After decades of logging, the forests were gone. On January 15, 1905, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania purchased this depleted land from the William Witmer and Sons Lumber Company. Eventually parts of this land became Reeds Gap and Poe Valley state parks.

Around 1930, people sold five-cent bottles of soda pop cooled in Reeds Gap Run to attract picnickers and to improve the local economy.

The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) was a national work program established in 1933 during the Great Depression. A residential camp for over 200 young men was built five miles east of Reeds Gap in the upper end of New Lancaster Valley. Camp S-113 was run by the U. S. Army and the former Pennsylvania Department of Forests and Waters. One of their projects was to change the “jungle” around Reeds Gap to an attractive recreation facility. By the late 1930s, the park offered stone fireplaces, tables, picnic pavilions, play equipment, pit toilets and running water. Local bands entertained on summer Sunday afternoons from a bandstand and swimmers enjoyed a small lake formed by a CCC-built dam in Honey Creek. Reeds Gap State Park officially opened in 1938.

The CCC program ended early in World War II. Most of the wooden CCC structures were removed as they deteriorated, but part of the old CCC camp is now a state forestry field office. Electrical power came to the valley in mid-1940s.

In 1965, a major developmental phase started when the swimming pools replaced the old dam. Shortly thereafter, a new water system, flush toilets, a modern bathhouse, snack bar, maintenance building and parking lots were constructed. Voter approved Project 500 monies were used to further improve the park.

The dominant habitat in and around the park is of towering white pines, hemlocks and oaks. Maple, ash, tulip poplar, gum, hickory, and dogwood trees, and mountain laurel and rhododendron add to the year-round scenic beauty.