During the Great Depression of the 1930s, some families came to the woods and wetlands of Kathio and survived on its rich natural resources, much as families had done in the ancient past. Archaeological evidence of this 20th-century landscape includes rocks piled from the fields of a Kathio farmstead, an old fence line marked by barbed wire, and old metal cans and other historic trash now being studied as part of the Kathio archaeological record. Research by historians from St. Cloud State University identified sites from 1939 aerial photos and field inspection, including the Asmus home, which stood where the park trail center now stands, while noting that not all sites have been verified and that lower water levels in 1939 mean some sites and roads are now in wetlands.