Hard Labor Creek State Park

Built in 1934 (National Park Service rustic). Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2013.

From the record

“Hard Labor Creek State Park is a 5,804 acre (23.49 km2) Georgia state park located between Bostwick and Rutledge. The park is named after Hard Labor Creek, a small stream that cuts through the park.”
Wikipedia article Hard Labor Creek State Park, CC BY-SA 4.0.

One of 15 National Register listings published here for Morgan County · listed in 2013 · category: District · built in 1934, National Park Service rustic.

Sources: the Wikipedia article · the National Register database, National Park Service

The listing

Address. Fairplay & Knox Chapel Rds., Rutledge, 30663
When was it listed? March 2013
Category. district
Census division. Rutledge
When was it built? 1934
Architectural style. National Park Service rustic
National Register reference number. 13000107 - assigned by the National Park Service when the property was listed.

Fires near this property

103 since 1992

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 103 fires within 5 miles of Hard Labor Creek State Park between 1992 and 2020, burning about 399 acres in total. 15 started naturally. 4 were recorded as arson. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a fire counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Reported cause	Fires
Debris and open burning	51
Natural	15
Equipment and vehicle use	11
Missing data/not specified/undetermined	7
Misuse of fire by a minor	6
Smoking	5
Arson/incendiarism	4
Recreation and ceremony	3
Railroad operations and maintenance	1

The most recent of them, most recent first, with the day each was reported and the service that recorded it.

Date	Cause	Size	Reported by	Name on the report
18 September 1992	Natural	under an acre	Georgia Forestry Commission	not named
15 September 2016	Debris and open burning	1.0 acres	Georgia Forestry Commission	FY2017-MORGAN-004
13 September 1993	Debris and open burning	under an acre	Georgia Forestry Commission	not named
12 September 1993	Arson/incendiarism	3.7 acres	Georgia Forestry Commission	not named
11 September 1993	Debris and open burning	under an acre	Georgia Forestry Commission	not named
1 September 1998	Natural	2.1 acres	Georgia Forestry Commission	not named
4 August 2002	Natural	1.8 acres	Georgia Forestry Commission	FY2003-MORGAN-002
26 August 2000	Natural	19 acres	Georgia Forestry Commission	FY2001-MORGAN-006

Every fire recorded in Morgan County

Mines and quarries near this property

2 within 5 miles

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 2 workings within 5 miles of Hard Labor Creek State Park: 2 past producers. None of them still produces. What was taken out: Gold. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Where	Site	Commodity	Status	Recorded
	Conner Placer	Gold	Past Producer	Stream Placer
	Parker Prospect	Gold	Past Producer	Vein

Every working recorded in Morgan County

Storms near this property

18 since 2002

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Rutledge, the town this property stands in, in 18 storm reports between 2002 and 2024: 11 thunderstorm wind, 3 flash flood, 3 hail, 1 flood. The reports record 1 injury. Each account below is quoted exactly as the forecast office filed it, from the NOAA Storm Events Database, and each date opens the federal record of that event.

When	Event	Place named	Harm	What the report says
June 2014	Thunderstorm Wind	Rutledge	1 hurt, $40,000	The Morgan County Emergency Manager and 911 Center reported that a chicken house collapsed on Fairplay Road. Four trees were blown down in the Rutledge area, and another fell across Monticello Highway near Little Indian Creek. A motorist drove into the tree and was injured.
April 2011	Thunderstorm Wind	Rutledge	$250,000	The Morgan County Emergency Management Director reported that thunderstorm winds had caused extensive damage throughout the county. A storm spotter reported that anywhere from 60 to 80 trees were down across the county. At least five homes in the Madison area were damaged as a result of downed trees. A family was trapped in one of these damaged homes, but was removed safely and without injury. In addition, the roof was blown off a home in Buckhead.
September 2009	Flash Flood	Rutledge	$250,000	The Morgan County Emergency Management Director reported flash flooding along Little Sandy Creek at Georgia Highway 83 and U.S. Highway 441, north of Madison. The Georgia Highway 83 bridge was washed out. U.S. Highway 441 was not damaged, but the road was closed for several hours as water was flowing over the road at the bridge. Flash flooding was also reported along Hunnicut Creek in southern Morgan county as well.
March 2008	Hail	Rutledge	$100,000	The public observed golf ball-sized hail about two miles south of Rutledge. However, a large swath of half-dollar-sized hail was observed by the public across the central part of Morgan county from Rutledge in the west to Buckhead in the east. Half-dollar-sized hail also fell in the Lake Oconee area in the southern part of the county.
September 2010	Thunderstorm Wind	Rutledge	$50,000	The Morgan County Emergency Management Director reported that up to 15 trees were down across the county. Trees were down in Rutledge, Madison, High Shoals, and Buckhead. The Buckhead community suffered the most damage where one tree was down on a home and another was down on a vehicle.
June 2015	Thunderstorm Wind	Rutledge	$20,000	The Morgan County 911 Center reported trees and power lines blown down along Atlanta Highway, Beaver Dam Road, Briar Creek Road and Greensboro Highway.
May 2011	Thunderstorm Wind	Rutledge	$20,000	The Morgan County Emergency Management Director reported that a number of trees and power lines were down across the county, especially the northern part. In addition, a tin roof was blown off a porch near Madison.
June 2015	Thunderstorm Wind	Rutledge	$12,000	The Morgan County 911 Center reported trees blown down across the county. The most concentrated area of damage was in the Rutledge area.
July 2003	Flash Flood	Rutledge	$10,000	A storm spotter reported extensive flooding of roads in the Rutledge area. Water, six inches or greater in depth, was flowing across roads in the area as well as across the yards of several homes. In Bostwick, a number of roads were flooded and impassable with water flowing across the roads.
September 2009	Flood	Rutledge	$5,000	The Morgan County Emergency Management Director reported that considerable flooding continued across the county much of the night following earlier flash flooding. Several roads, especially in the southern part of the county, remained under water and closed, particularly U.S. Highway 441 and Georgia Highway 83. Several creeks and streams in the central and southern part of the county were out of their banks. Minor additional road damage was observed during this period.
August 2003	Flash Flood	Rutledge	$5,000	The Morgan county 911 center reported that several businesses were flooded. Several roads in the area were also flooded. High water on Interstate-20 near Centennial may have caused an accident involving a car which hydroplaned and flipped over.
November 2002	Thunderstorm Wind	Rutledge	$5,000	The Morgan county 911 center reported that numerous trees were down across the south part of the county between Rutledge, Pennington, and Godfrey. At least 20 trees were reported to have been blown down in the Rutledge vicinity alone.
August 2024	Thunderstorm Wind	Rutledge	$3,000	Several trees and powerlines down around city of rutledge per ema. approximately 1600 without power per walton emc and ga power.
July 2017	Thunderstorm Wind	Rutledge	$2,000	The Morgan County 911 center reported a tree down along Lake Rutledge Road, just north of Rutledge.
June 2011	Thunderstorm Wind	Rutledge	$1,000	The Morgan County 911 Center reported that a few trees were down throughout the county. Power outages were noted in four different parts of the county.
August 2003	Thunderstorm Wind	Rutledge	$500	The Morgan county 911 center reported that a few trees were blown down near the Golden Pantry. Pea-sized hail was also reported.
September 2010	Hail	Rutledge	-	The public observed penny-sized hail near Rutledge.
April 2009	Hail	Rutledge	-	The public observed penny-sized hail. Radar data suggests that this occurred in the northwest part of the county near Rutledge, not near Madison, where little to no radar returns were indicated.

Every storm recorded in Morgan County

Map coverage status

No historic map-sheet match is published for this property yet. That does not mean no map exists. This record needs a coordinate-quality review before it can be joined to a sheet boundary. Browse the county's mapped places while that work is pending.

Listed places nearby

6 within 8 miles

Other National Register properties close enough to walk or drive between, ordered by distance from this one. Both positions come from the same geocoding pass that matched these properties to their map sheets.

Property	Distance	Listed
Rutledge Historic District	2.4 miles	2003
Cedar Lane Farm	4.6 miles	1971
James A. Nolan House	6.6 miles	2019
Bostwick Historic District	7.2 miles	2002
Susie Agnes Hotel	7.3 miles	1994
Nathan Bennett House	7.8 miles	1974

Sources for this property

National Archives record	The nomination case file for reference 13000107 in Record Group 79.
Wikipedia article	Community-written account of this property, licensed CC BY-SA.
Morgan County	All 15 listed properties in this county.

Provenance

Listing record. National Park Service National Register of Historic Places, listed-properties dataset, current to 2026-05-22.
Map join. Address geocoded through the United States Census geocoder, then tested against the published boundary of every sheet in the USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection.
How this page is made. Listing fields come from federal records; map-sheet coverage is a labelled coordinate-to-boundary calculation, not a source-field claim.
Wildfire. Short, Karen C. 2022. Spatial wildfire occurrence data for the United States, 1992-2020 [FPA_FOD_20221014]. 6th Edition. Fort Collins, CO: Forest Service Research Data Archive. https://doi.org/10.2737/RDS-2013-0009.6 Collected with United States Government funding and usable without additional permissions or fees.
Mines and quarries. USGS Mineral Resources Data System (MRDS) https://mrdata.usgs.gov/mrds/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105.
Storms. NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Storm Events Database https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/stormevents/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105. Narratives are quoted verbatim from the National Weather Service report and are not edited or summarised.