States Post Office to change the name to "Cherryville", for a nearby group of Black Cherry trees. However, since there was already a Cherryville, Pennsylvania, post office in Lehigh Township in Northampton County, the name "Cherry Spring" was chosen as a compromise. In time an "s" was added, hence the name "Cherry Springs". There are also at least two springs in the park. In 1874 a new, larger hotel was built on the other side of the road from the original tavern. It provided accommodations for wealthy summer visitors from Coudersport. This part of Potter County became known for an abundance of game and fish, and attracted hunters and anglers who also stayed at the Cherry Springs Hotel. This era as a "sportsmen's paradise" was not to last, as the more profitable lumber industry came to West Branch and surrounding townships, which were home to "some of the tallest, straightest timber left standing" along the East Coast of the United States. When lumbermen reached the Cherry Springs area in the late 1880s, eastern white pine and eastern hemlock covered the surrounding mountains. Lumberjacks harvested the trees and sent them down the creeks to the West Branch Susquehanna River to the Susquehanna Boom and sawmills at Williamsport. Clearcutting allowed silt to choke the streams, and nothing was left except the dried-out tree tops, which became a fire hazard. As a result, large swaths of land burned and were left barren, and much of the central part of the state became known as the "Pennsylvania Desert". The Cherry Springs Hotel itself burned in 1897 and the property was abandoned. Civilian Conservation Corps As the timber was exhausted and the land burned, many companies simply abandoned their holdings. In 1897 the Pennsylvania General Assembly passed legislation which authorized the purchase of "unseated lands for forest reservations" and the first Pennsylvania state forest lands were acquired the following year. The first land for the Susquehannock State Forest was acquired in 1901; the cost for the major acquisitions was an average of $2.50 per acre ($6.18 per ha). This is roughly equivalent to $ per acre ($ per ha) in terms. As of 2003, the Susquehannock State Forest, which almost entirely surrounds the park, covered , chiefly in Potter County with small tracts in Clinton and McKean counties. The park traces its existence back to 1922, when the Pennsylvania Department of Forestry established three scenic