William B. Umstead State Park preserves 5,442 acres of hilly Piedmont woodland between Raleigh, Cary, and Durham, protecting a landscape shaped by Native American travel, early farming, land exhaustion, and New Deal restoration. After submarginal farmland around Crabtree Creek was purchased in 1934, the Civilian Conservation Corps and Works Progress Administration built its early facilities, and it opened in 1937 as the Crabtree Creek Recreational Demonstration Area. Later divided by segregation into separate sections for whites and African-Americans, the park was unified in 1966. Today it remains a major natural refuge with trails, campgrounds, historic remnants, and protected natural areas in a rapidly urbanizing region.