1988 skateboards at pine grove park
Pine Grove Park was a South Mountain Railroad excursion park "in a grove of magnificent trees" established by Colonel Jackson C. Fuller c. 1881 east of the Pine Grove Iron Works (Fuller also owned a farm in the area.) The park had the "Fuller Cornet Band" for entertainment, and Fuller hosted the American Institute of Mine Engineers in 1881 and "J.C. Fuller’s Fifth Annual Reunion" in 1883. By July 1884 the park included a green field for baseball and other games "at the Park station", water fountains, lunch tables & seats, large dancing pavilion, long bowling alley, children's swings, a carousel (flying horses, etc.), and a nearby 200 yd (180 m) rifle range. A Baldwin steam car carried visitors between the park and the iron works, and the "first hard day's practice" of the 1903 Dickinson College football team was at the park. Both "Pine Grove Park" and "Pine Grove Furnace" were listed in 1904 as railway stations of the Hunter's Run and Slate Belt Railroad, but the park ended operations c. 1904 and was in "ruins" when the Reading Company laid new tracks in 1912. A January 1913 plan to restore the private park was superseded by the commonwealth's purchase of the surrounding area, which is now Pine Grove Furnace State Park.