For the past few days, I have been reading through my Big Creek Journals and deleting dates, changing times from 24-hour to 12-hour or deleting them altogether, and writing a little history paragraph about Big Creek. Patricia Ross had said that an essay has observations and then reflections on those observations.  I realized that I do have some reflection and perhaps just need to expand on that. I am a bit encouraged.

There was once a logging operation and town, called Crestmont, in the Big Creek watershed when the park commission began acquiring property for the park in the 1920s. I found some old photos in the ranger station and photographed them. The only remnants left of the logging operation and the town are some pieces of metal, bricks, and strange cement structures in the woods.

I have tried and failed to match these photos to today’s reality. I can’t even find Big Creek.