00:03 - [music]

00:11 - Camp Craig had started once she got to the door or she just came off

00:14 - and you didn't put your shoes back on until the end of the summer.

00:17 - [music]

00:25 - This was the historic home of the Craighead family.

00:28 - They would summer here, lived in Washington DC.

00:33 - The famous children are certainly the boys were written up at a very

00:37 - young age in National Geographic due to their work with falcons.

00:43 - So they would go climb trees and capture birds specifically

00:47 - hawks in the summer and then they would train them to be falcons.

00:53 - And so they were known far and wide including people in India

00:57 - actually wrote to them about their experience in falconry.

01:07 - We have history on how they did it where they actually would

01:09 - put a camera in the tree and take pictures and verify how many

01:12 - birds were there and then verify the parents were gone and then

01:15 - would climb the tree and get the birds and bring them down.

01:21 - You can imagine the menagerie of animals at this house,

01:23 - Jean Craighead, who many local people will know because

01:25 - she's written over a hundred children's books, most

01:28 - famously myself of the mountain or summer of the falcon.

01:30 - So it's not unusual, you'll find children right here on the porch reading

01:34 - about their time at Craighead because a lot of the book is set right here.

01:38 - [music]

01:49 - Those are completely covered now with graffiti of the time from the

01:52 - different family members all the way up to the 1980s, which is really

01:55 - a ton of fun because you can see some of the historical things that

01:57 - were going on as well as you can see the artistry of the families.

02:14 - It started as a joke, they were replacing the pot-bellied stove and so it was a giant

02:16 - hole in the

02:16 - wall where the flume would go and so overnight he decided to draw rats running down

02:18 - the pipe stove

02:18 - and the kids thought it was a hilarious and meant that they needed to be cats chasing

02:20 - the rats and

02:20 - that started a tradition that when you came to Craighead that you would draw or paint

02:22 - on the walls.

02:22 - [music]

02:32 - So the house was pretty much falling down condition when a

02:34 - group of really dedicated volunteers who knew the history of the

02:37 - Craighead family decided to get together and literally buy the

02:39 - mortgage and we're paying it out of their own pockets for a while.

02:46 - There's now a foundation, the house has been completely restored,

02:49 - we do a lot of events both inside and out, which is wonderful

02:51 - that we have the ability to offer that to the community

02:53 - because we want to carry the legacy of the Craighead family on.

03:03 - Formal boards sits in place, that's on that board, along with other

03:06 - volunteers. Agency, I think the Craigheads would be really happy about

03:09 - the Appalachian Trail Conservancy, rents and space, so they are our

03:11 - tinted upstairs and then we do our programming downstairs and outside.

03:15 - Their mission is obviously to preserve a very important

03:17 - part of Pennsylvania heritage to allow other people to

03:19 - come and enjoy so they not only maintain the trails that

03:21 - help mark and help with the volunteering of the day.

03:23 - The volunteering of the different stations that are around make sure

03:27 - that other generations can come and enjoy the Appalachian Trail.

03:30 - I think Craighead is really special.

03:32 - I mean, I think that house, obviously, a Victorian house, is stunningly beautiful.

03:42 - We had slowly but surely converted almost in the entire

03:44 - property to mostly natives and some of the historical

03:46 - plants that were here on the property of the family because

03:49 - given us maps and plants that were historically here.

03:54 - So we've left some of those for prosperity but our goal really is to harbor plants

03:58 - that will invite birds and bees, butterflies

04:00 - and caterpillars into the garden.

04:02 - And that gives us an opportunity to share that the beauty and

04:06 - the importance of native plants here in Central Pennsylvania.

04:12 - So we do lots of opportunities for children and families and the goals to get them

04:16 - outside and experiencing nature as much as possible. We're full of life right now.

04:20 - I think it's one of the best kept secrets in Central Pennsylvania.

04:41 - [Music]