Sycamore Mess Hall Restoration
Friday, April 10th
9am – 11:30am
Lunch Celebration:
12pm – 1:30pm
By registering to volunteer, you indicate you have read and agree to this Umstead Coalition waiver.
Help us restore Sycamore Mess Hall so it can be open for public use for the first time in almost 40 years. Built by the Civilian Conservation Corp (CCC) and Works Progress Administration (WPA), The Sycamore Mess Hall first opened to the public in 1937. The Umstead Coalition saved the building from destruction and helped get it listed on the National Restoration of Historic Places. We are now restoring to provide a Day Use facility at Umstead State Park. The volunteer work for this service day will include sanding and polyurathaning historic mess hall tables and benches. If weather permits, sanding and polyurathaning benches overlooking Sycamore Lake will also occur.
More about the Sycamore Mess Hall: William B. Umstead State Park was established in 1934 by the National Park Service Park to provide jobs during the Great Depression to build a forested recreational park. As part of our beginnings, tens of thousands of trees were planted to restore eroded marginal farmland, Sycamore Lake was created and group camps were built. Sycamore Group camp was the first built. By 1990, the Sycamore Mess Hall was proposed to be destroyed due to lack of maintenance funds. Umstead Coalition fought to save the Sycamore mess hall and cabins. Today, all the Park’s forested landscape and its historic buildings are protected by their 1995 listing in the National Register of Historic Places (Register Reference Number is 95000783, https://catalog.archives.gov/id/47718645).
The Umstead Coalition is actively working to restore the Sycamore Mess hall; volunteers have already contributed several thousands of hours-truly a community effort!
8801 Glenwood Avenue, Raleigh, 27617
See below for driving instructions within the park.
Parking: Sycamore Multi-Use Trail Head parking lot.
Enter Park from US70/Glenwood Ave entrance. Drive past Visitor Center.
Take next LEFT to follow signs to the Sycamore Bike and Bridle Trail.
Take 1st RIGHT.
Take LEFT onto Sycamore Drive. Continue to Sycamore parking lot and park. Look for small temporary signs (to the right) directing you to the “Sycamore Mess Hall Volunteers.”
Face masks and water bottle
Gloves, potable water, tools
Address is Park entrance, work site is a 10 minute drive within the Park. The work site does not yet have full handicap accessibility, access is over uneven grass and gravel. We can make a few spots close to the building available to drive close, but still access is over uneven terrain.
Projects will continue in light rain. In case of heavy rain or unsafe weather, the rain date is Friday, May 1st, same times.
Contact your team representative for any questions leading up to the event.
For day-of questions, please contact Jean Spooner. Email: umsteadcoalition@gmail.com | Day-Of Phone: (919) 602-0049
Learn More About The Umstead Coalition
Our mission is to preserve the natural integrity of William B. Umstead State Park and the surrounding open space
The Umstead Coalition was founded in 1962 and is a volunteer-led, 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization comprised of individual members and 16 partner conservation organizations. The Umstead Coalition is active in service projects, Park land acquisition environmental education activities, trail maintenance, restoration of the 120 historic cabins and mess halls (with over 7,000 volunteer hours) and preserving the cultural history of the rural community that once lived in the lands that became William B. Umstead State Park.
Since 1962, the Umstead Coalition has repeatedly risen to protect William B. Umstead State Park from threats such as quarries, a proposal to sell the Park, a dry-dam flood control structure on Turkey Creek, RDU airport runways that would have taken Park lands and a plan to build a major highway through the Park and the Richland Creek Corridor.
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