Hard Labor Creek State Park is a 5,804 acre (23.49 km²)
Georgia state park
State parks are parks or other protected areas managed at the sub-national level within those nations which use "state" as a political subdivision. State parks are typically established by a state to preserve a location on account of its natural ...
located between
Bostwick and
Rutledge. The park is named after
Hard Labor Creek, a small stream that cuts through the park. The creek's name comes either from
enslaved people who once tilled the summer fields, or from
Native Americans who found the area around the stream difficult to
ford. The park plays host to an 18-hole public
golf course, which offers a
pro shop,
driving range, rental cars, and
senior citizen discounts. Rocky Creek provides many of the water hazards on the course including the 14th hole with its signature water wheel.
General information
Hard Labor Creek State Park is a 24-hour passable by way of paved local surface roads non-gated state park. It is the home of two group camps, Camp Rutledge and Camp Daniel Morgan, both centered on the Lake Rutledge. A second lake, Lake Brantley, occupies the northwestern area of the park. This lake was named for a Brantley family killed by
Native Americans in 1813. Both the camps and the lakes were built by the
Civilian Conservation Corps in the 1930s.
Camp Daniel Morgan was the filming location of five movies,
Summer of My German Soldier
''Summer of My German Soldier'' is a 1973 book by Bette Greene.
The story is told in first person narrative by a twelve-year-old Jewish girl named Patty Bergen living in Jenkinsville, Arkansas during World War II. The story focuses on the friend ...
(1978), ''
Little Darlings'' (1980), ''
Poison Ivy'' (1985), ''
Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives'' (1986), and ''
Fear Street Part 2: 1978'' (2021).
Kristy McNichol
Christina Ann McNichol (born September 11, 1962) is an American former actress. She is known for such film roles as Angel in ''Little Darlings'', Polly in '' Only When I Laugh'', and Barbara Weston in the TV sitcom ''Empty Nest''. She won two Emmy ...
starred in the first two.
Cynthia Nixon of ''
Sex and the City'' fame, who played "Sunshine" in ''Little Darlings'' returned to the nearby town of
Rutledge, Georgia in 2005 to film a part in the
Emmy
The Emmy Awards, or Emmys, are an extensive range of awards for artistic and technical merit for the American and international television industry. A number of annual Emmy Award ceremonies are held throughout the calendar year, each with the ...
winning movie ''
Warm Springs''; a part in which she too was nominated for an Emmy award.
Camp Rutledge is also the location of the long-running summer camp for the youth of
Peachtree Presbyterian Church
Peachtree Presbyterian Church is a megachurch located in Atlanta, Georgia. Peachtree averages about 3200 in weekly worship at two venues on both sides of Roswell Road in the Buckhead region of Atlanta, and is one of the largest Presbyterian cong ...
of
Atlanta, Georgia, the largest
Presbyterian Church (USA)
The Presbyterian Church (USA), abbreviated PC(USA), is a mainline Protestant denomination in the United States. It is the largest Presbyterian denomination in the US, and known for its liberal stance on doctrine and its ordaining of women and ...
in the United States. Camp Rutledge is also used by the youth of Roswell Presbyterian Church.
Hard Labor Creek State Park is the location of
Hard Labor Creek Observatory
Hard Labor Creek Observatory is an astronomical observatory owned and operated by Georgia State University in the United States. It is located within Hard Labor Creek State Park, 50 miles east of the Atlanta, Georgia campus.
Visiting the O ...
; a facility of
Georgia State University, Atlanta Georgia.
Camp Rutledge was leased for many years by the Atlanta
Jewish Community Center during the 1950s up through 1962 as a site for its summer camp program serving Jewish youth from the Atlanta area as well as the southern United States. Its use by the AJCC was ended with the acquisition and development of Camp Barney Medintz near
Cleveland, Georgia.
The Camp Rutledge facilities were featured on season 8 the show ''
Ghost Hunters'' which aired in 2012, and in the 2022 film ''
They/Them''.
The park was temporarily utilized as an isolation and monitoring site for patients diagnosed with
COVID-19 with no place to self-quarantine. Only two patients stayed at the site, before a new site was opened at the Georgia Public Safety Training Center outside of
Forsyth on March 24.
The park was the special event site of the Parks on the Air, W4H "Wicked 4 Halloween," activation on October 31, 2021 by the Athens Radio Club.
Parks on the Air
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See also
*Hard Labor Creek Regional Reservoir
Hard Labor Creek Regional Reservoir is a artificial reservoir in a region on the south-east side of unincorporated Walton County, Georgia, United States, near both Social Circle
In the social sciences, a social group can be defined as two ...
References
External links
*
Camp Blood: The Home of Jason Voorhees Pt. 6 On Location
{{Coord, 33.6640, -83.6064, type:landmark_globe:earth_region:US-GA, display=title
State parks of Georgia (U.S. state)
Civilian Conservation Corps in Georgia (U.S. state)
Protected areas of Morgan County, Georgia
National Park Service Rustic architecture