A hidden gem
Carol Kinney of Hanover Township enjoys riding her horse, Ginger, along trails in Hillman State Park in this 2015 file photo.
Jack D’Atri, 72, of Aliquippa, displays his Yakolev Yak-52 model aircraft at Hillman State Park Model Airfield.
A sign at the entrance to Hillman State Park
The Hillman State Park Model Airfield sign at the entrance to the airfield where many hobbyists fly their model planes
A model aircraft rests in a field at Hillman State Park before Jack D’Atri takes it out for a flight in this 2015 file photo.
Don Rullo of Hanover Township takes his dog, Quinn, for a walk in Hillman State Park.
A recent, unscientific man-on-the-street survey asking Washington County residents about the closest state park basically yielded two answers: Raccoon Creek State Park in Beaver County or Ryerson Station State Park in Greene County.
Perhaps if the survey were conducted on Main Street, Burgettstown, instead of South Main Street, Washington, the results would have been different.
Because in northwestern Washington County, north of First Niagara Pavilion, off Routes 18 and 22, lies more than 3,500 acres of Hillman State Park, a reclaimed strip mine and the park that few Washington County residents seem to know about.
It’s not surprising. There are no signs from Routes 18 or 22 that point the way to this combination of field and forest. Someone is unlikely to just happen across it.
“It is largely undeveloped,” said Sarah Dippold, assistant park manager for the state Department of Conservation and Natural Resources Bureau of State Parks at Raccoon Creek State Park in Beaver County, where she is based and from which she oversees the vast expanse of Hillman.
“We don’t want people to have an unrealistic expectation.”
In other words, don’t look for a beachfront and lake.
A recent search for the park as a neophyte trying to see if it just might be possible to simply “happen upon it” proved to be a fruitless venture. Heading north along Route 18 and scanning road signs resulted in crossing the Beaver County line at Frankfort Springs, which means the driver has gone too far north. A consultation with a smartphone map showed a turn onto Miller Airport Road as one way to reach Hillman.
One of the few features of the park is an airport for radio remote-controlled model airplanes, and not knowing if there might be a connection between that and Miller Airport, it turned out to be a serendipitous choice.
The Miller Airport is now the Miller Business Park, but the road that bears the former airport’s name actually leads, after more than a mile, to the first Hillman State Park sign featuring “warm season grass seed production fields” to sustain game and create habitat next to a state Department of Environmental Protection air quality monitoring station.
Further down the road, songbirds trilled as Don Rullo walked his Alaskan malamute, Quinn, on a sunny, late spring morning beside a picturesque stream. Rullo and his wife moved from Monongahela eight years ago to their home across the road from the park.
“We wanted to be out in the country a little bit more,” he said in late May. “I just refer it as state game lands, although I guess it is Hillman State Park.” Their mailing address is Burgettstown, and Rullo described his neighborhood as Florence.
In a way. he’s correct about the park’s status. DCNR owns the Hillman State Park land but the Pennsylvania Game Commission has had a lease to manage it for public access and outdoor recreation since 1981.
Rullo is a hunter of both game and morel mushrooms, and he’s seen his share of turkeys from his front door. “They’re all over the place here,” Rullo said. “They eat my mushrooms up in the woods. There used to be tons of them. Now, if you find one or two mushrooms a year, you’re lucky.” But there may be more deer in Mononghela and many suburbs than in Hillman State Park, according to the man who lives a stone’s throw from one of the few park signs.
Passing in the vicinity of Rullo’s house were Carol Kinney, an equestrian, and her husband, Skip, who runs 4 1/2 miles every day regardless of the season. Carol Kinney said her horse, Ginger, who formerly raced at The Meadows, was eager to return home, so they didn’t linger along Miller Airport Road.
But Skip Kinney said they bought land for their Hanover Township home because of the access it provided to recreation in the park, plus its proximity to Pittsburgh International Airport and Route 22.
“I’m amazed at the number of bicyclists that come here, especially on weekends,” Skip Kinney said.
Both Kinney and Rullo gave directions to the singular feature of the park, the remote-controlled model airport, and a chainsaw-like buzz nearby confirmed something was up. The noise was from radio-controlled planes.
Thursdays are “beginners’ day” for model airplane pilots, but there are likely to be some seasoned veterans on hand, too. One of them is Jack D’Atri, 72, of Aliquippa, and his miniature long-haired Dachshund, Maggie, who follows him everywhere. D’Atri is a master of stunts, not from the cockpit, but from the ground, using his radio controls to maneuver his gasoline-powered aircraft into a series of barrel rolls, dives and loop-the-loops worthy of any flying circus. D’Atri has been flying model airplanes since 1969. “Some of the maneuvers we do would kill a pilot,” he said.
Also at the airfield that day was Dave Himel of Lawrence, who has traveled with his wife as far as Maine to model airplane exhibitions. Like any recreational pursuit, the costs vary. A novice can invest in a small trainer plane for $100. For those who want the most technologically advanced planes, there are models that run on actual jet fuel, and their engines alone can run from $1,000 to $3,000. The aircraft can cost between $8,000 to $12,000 and up, Himel said.
He has flown his scale-model planes in Florida, where grass fields are common.
The two asphalt-paved runways at Hillman State Park are “the best field I’ve ever flown,” Himel said. “It’s top of the shelf right here.”
The hilltop airfield and environs, free of wires from utility poles, has both east-west and north-south runways that enable an enthusiast to control a plane in wind coming from any direction. “The guy who put it in knew what he was doing,” D’Atri said.
The men said visitors are welcome, but a sign warns that pilots must have current Academy of Model Aeronautics liability insurance, a state requirement.
If Hillman State Park has made the headlines since it became a state park in 1969, it was likely because of the field the remote-control aviators were enjoying on a fine day in late May.
The airport, in the early 1970s, was a thorn in the side of local residents who wanted a ballfield to be built in the park after new roads eliminated two of them. Funds for the model air park came from royalties from gas and oil extracted from state land. The ball players were told there wasn’t enough flat land for a diamond and outfield.
A search of news archives about the park turned up background information on the 20-acre K. Leroy Irvis Radio-Controlled Model Airport, which dates back to 1977.
Irvis, the first black man to serve as speaker of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives, was a member of the Greater Pittsburgh Aero Radio Control Society. As a powerful legislator, Irvis exercised control over the state’s purse strings and was able to have a $200,000 line item added to a supplemental appropriation bill for the airstrip on the last day of the legislative session, over the objections of other state officials.
Irvis, who represented parts of Pittsburgh in the Legislature for 30 years, died in 2006.
Dippold said of the Greater Pittsburgh Aero Radio Control Society, “It’s their field. We own the land, they operate the field. Looking at it, you’d think it was a real airport,” Members of the club recall seeing an actual Piper Cub – not a model – occasionally landing on the runway.
Raccoon Creek State Park is eight miles north. “We’re technically a complex with Hillman,” Dippold said.
The park is named for James F. Hillman, who, in 1969 when he donated the 3,654 acres to the state for the park, was an 80-year-old industrialist and president of Harmon Creek Coal Co., which purchased the land in pieces in 1932.
A front-page story in the Observer-Reporter in 1969 placed a value on the land at more than $1 million and called it “the largest single land gift for state park purposes in the United States, according to state officials.”
Then-Gov. Raymond P. Shafer recommended that the site be called Hillman State Park and declared the park immediately open to snowmobilers, horseback riders, skiers and hikers.
“It’s a good example of how to do strip mine reclamation,” Dippold said. “They finished strip-mining there in 1968, but began conservation practices in 1937, long before it was the law. They reused stockpiled topsoil and replaced it when they were done. They contoured the land, they added fertilizer and they planted a cover crop.
Over 2 million trees – pine, oak, ash, larch and chestnut – were planted in the park before the state owned the land. “Coal companies didn’t have to do even partial restoration until 1945, and it seems like they did a pretty good job,” Dippold said. “They were done in 1968 and donated it in 1969.”
Hanover Township roads and two creeks – Raccoon and Brush Run – meander through the park.
“Because it’s part of the Raccoon Creek Valley, it’s an important bird area,” Dippold said. Houses for bluebirds and boxes for wood ducks dot the park.
Dippold described the park’s trail system as a work in progress with volunteers from Pittsburgh Trails Advocacy Group.
“We have worked with PTAG this spring blazing and maintaining trails,” Dippold said. Trails with a yellow blaze are narrow, to be used for biking and hiking while a red blaze denotes a wider trail for horseback riding, biking and hiking. The names that they’ve chosen are Short, Sweet and Meadow. The locals have their own names for some trails, such as Ridge, Pine Tree and Detour.
A map, available on paper at Raccoon Creek State Park, eight miles to the north, and online at www.dcnr.state.pa.us/stateparks/findapark/hillman/index.htm should be available later this year.
“The blazing is not all complete, but it’s starting,” Dippold said.