Staunton River State Park near Scottsburg stands at the meeting of the Staunton and Dan rivers and opened in 1936 as one of Virginia’s first six state parks. Created through New Deal-era land assembly and Civilian Conservation Corps construction from 1933 to 1935, it preserves the character of a classic CCC-built park. The site had a longer history shaped by plantations, river transport, and an unsuccessful Christian social colony founded in 1899. Its setting changed when Kerr Dam created Buggs Island Lake in 1952 and flooded part of the park, but much of the historic landscape endured and gained National Register recognition in 2007.