Crawford State Park in southeastern Kansas, about nine miles north of Girard, is a five hundred-acre park centered on a one hundred fifty-acre lake along the edge of the Ozarks. Its setting, including stands of redbud trees, gives it a character unlike much of Kansas. The park took shape in the nineteen thirties when the Civilian Conservation Corps built the lake, and its conservation history is closely tied to the nearby Farlington Fish Hatchery, connected by an interpretive trail. Two archaeological sites within the park, including remnants of a nineteenth-century U.S. military outpost, add evidence of an older frontier past to a place now known for fishing, boating, and scuba diving.