Loleta Recreation Area
The numbers that decide it
Recreation.gov publishes no site-level detail for this campground, so we cannot say what length of rig it takes. Call the managing office before committing to it in a large vehicle.
Site-level detail from Recreation.gov, checked 2026-08-05. Where a field says “not published”, the agency has not published it — it does not mean zero.
Loleta Recreation Area
This area has been recently nominated and accepted onto the National Register of Historic Places. The area was once a bustling logging town, established in 1889, with over 600 inhabitants. The town had a large sawmill, shingle mill, broom handle factory and a rail connection for shipping products to Sheffield, PA. Once the timber supply was exhausted in 1913, the mills shut down and the town was deserted. The Federal Government purchased the site in 1925, adding it to the newly formed Allegheny National Forest. In the 1930s, the Forest Service (using CCC labor) reconstructed the mill pond, added a bathhouse, swimming area, picnic shelters, and landscaping. The distinctive quality of CCC workmanship is evident today in the dam stonework and the log construction of the old bathhouse. The camping loops were added in the 1960s. Trout fishing is good in Millstone Creek. The picturesque Clarion River, about four miles south of the campground, offers excellent fishing and canoeing. A three-mile long hiking trail, marked with off-white diamonds, starts and ends at Loleta, from the parking lot near the group camping site through the woods around the upper camping loop and comes back in between the upper loop and the group site. Buzzard Swamp offers 10 miles of trail, 5 miles North of Loleta Recreation Area. View/Print Site Brochure - pdf
Before you go
Season
4/01 – 10/10
Reservations
Reservations accepted
Fees
Daily camping fee - $15.00 to $25.00/site • Daily group site camping fee - $80.00 • Daily swimming fee - $5.00/vehicle and $1.00/per person
Hours
Quiet hours 10:00 pm to 6:00 am
Restrictions
As a visitor to the National Forest, you are asked to follow certain rules designed to protect the Forest, natural resources and to provide for public safety of visitors. These rules are available to you on-line or at any office of the Allegheny National Forest. Please take time to read and understand them. General Topic orders apply across the Forest. Applicable Orders for this Site: • Loleta Recreation Area
Scenic drives that pass close
Make it a night on a better road
Byway plans the drive in — real stops, real weather, nothing invented.