Wisconsin celebrates 125 years of state parks

Seventh grader Hattie VanLanduyt of Cross Plains says Wisconsin state parks have been an important part of her life for as long as she can remember.

From candlelight hikes at Gov. Nelson State Park on Halloween to bike rides on the Fourth of July at Point Beach State Forest, Hattie said, she likes to experience the changing seasons and meet new friends. She recalled a trip she took to Amnicon Falls State Park on a recent summer day with her family, taking in the mist from the waterfalls while standing on a covered bridge.

“There’s magic in these moments where you’re surrounded by nature, but also surrounded by family. The waterfalls were amazing, but what made the experience unforgettable was being together, enjoying nature and simply being in the moment,” Hattie said at a holiday tree lighting at the state Capitol on Dec. 5, describing all the ways she has enjoyed the parks and encouraging others to explore them, too.

“To me, state parks have a way of reminding us what really matters: the beauty around us, our connection to nature, and the joy of spending time with loved ones,” she said.

The tree lighting kicked off the holiday season in Wisconsin, as well as the state’s celebration of the Wisconsin State Park System, which turns 125 in 2025. To honor the parks, the theme for this year’s tree is “125 Years of Wisconsin’s State Parks.” Students from around the state sent handcrafted ornaments to decorate the holiday tree, which towers in the rotunda of the Capitol each year.

Hundreds of ornaments speckled the tree — a 30-foot balsam fir from Rhinelander — honoring the parks. Some of the ornaments incorporated natural elements such as pinecones and feathers into their design, while others honored a student’s favorite state park. Some were crafted to look like birds or trees or were decorated with handpainted flowers and sunsets. Others depicted activities you might do in the parks, like hiking or camping — all testaments to what the parks mean to young Wisconsinites.

“That is something that you see throughout history, is this connection to our state parks and the need for support in our physical health and our mental health and our social health, and what nature can do to support us as people,” said Melissa VanLanduyt, the recreation partnerships section chief at the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources and Hattie’s mom.

Wisconsin is among the first states to create a state park, which it did with the participation of famed landscape architect John Nolen, who developed the idea for a state park system in Wisconsin and helped design parks and cityscapes around the state.

Wisconsin now has a total of 50 state parks that stretch across more than 307,000 acres of land. VanLanduyt said the parks help showcase how diverse the state and its communities are, from the two Great Lakes to the Mississippi and Wisconsin rivers, and highlight the state’s various topographies, like the forests of the Northwoods, the marshlands of the Central Sands Plains, and the hills of the Driftless Area.

The parks are also a reflection of the ways in which policies and society have changed over the last 125 years, VanLanduyt said.

The park system was first created to preserve the state’s natural resources, largely Wisconsin’s forests, which were being decimated by the lumber industry. In 1878, the Wisconsin State Legislature approved the concept for the first state park, a 760 square mile area in northern Wisconsin that would have been known as “The State Park.” But the plan fell through because the powerful lumber industry prevented the state from purchasing more land.

Eventually the state found a new location and opened Interstate Park in 1900. The park, located along the St. Croix River in Polk County, was created to preserve the area from the threat of mining along the river, and it was named Interstate Park because it crosses the state line into Minnesota.

Other parks opened in the years to follow, such as Peninsula State Park in Door County in 1909 and Devil’s Lake State Park just south of Baraboo in 1911.

In the 1930s there was a boom of park development under the Civilian Conservation Corps, a federal public works program designed to create jobs and protect natural resources during the Great Depression. Progress on developing more parks slowed after World War II, but more people started to use them, VanLanduyt said, especially for camping, since it was a relatively cheap activity. In the midst of the environmental movement of the 1960s, the state made its biggest investment in the park system, establishing 13 new state parks and many new hiking trails. Development slowed again over the next few decades, but interest has grown again in recent years, especially with the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2021, at least 30% more people visited the park than before the pandemic as people craved safe, outdoor social options.

While state parks were first created as a way to protect Wisconsin’s many natural resources and landscapes, VanLanduyt said, there is now more public interest in outdoor recreation. She said she thinks there’s a good balance between environmental protection and recreation that helps people appreciate and engage with public lands.

But the investment in the parks hasn’t necessarily matched the engagement with them, VanLanduyt said. Wisconsin is one of the only states whose state park system is completely self-funded, meaning its revenue comes from admissions and trail pass sales, camping, and some concession sales. Capital projects, however, are state-funded, and the last meaningful investment in those projects was in the 1960s. There’s now more than $1 billion in backlogged projects, and the DNR has asked the state to fund that in the next budget.

“I hope that we’re continuing on this trend where our outdoor spaces, especially state parks, are really centric to where we live, work and play, and that people continue to have this investment in the protection of the natural resources, but also the engagement in the outdoors,” VanLanduyt said. She added that she hopes the parks become more sustainable and inclusive over the next 125 years.

In the meantime, the state plans to celebrate the parks. There are a slew of events planned over the course of 2025 to honor the Wisconsin State Park System’s quasquicentennial, including New Year’s Day hikes, the planting of 125 anniversary trees, mental health awareness events, new merchandise, and a celebration on Sep. 20 at Interstate Park to honor the day the land was purchased for the first state park.

The state is offering a new park pass that is good for 12 months from the time of purchase rather than for a calendar year.

More information on the anniversary celebrations will be available on the DNR website.