Highland Lakes State Park is directly east of the suburbs of Scotchtown, between Scotchtown Collabar Road to the north and Route 211 to the south. The park consists of more than 3,100 acres of undeveloped woodlands, fields, ponds and streams. Highland Lakes shelters an abundance of wildlife including deer, foxes, birds, fish, rabbits, and even black bear. [1] The foundations of long abandoned buildings and the remnants of stonewalls that once marked the boundaries of farms can still be found even in the most overgrown areas of the park. [2] Highland Lakes State Park was created by the Palisades Interstate Park Commission through a series of acquisitions in the 1960s and 1970s. In 1964 the PIPC purchased more than 50 parcels of land totaling roughly 800 acres. [3] One of the parcels that was acquired was that of Bertha DeLaVigne, a former Ziegfeld Follies chorus girl who settled in the area about 1911. She lived in what she described as her “chateau” on 200 acres that was formerly the Harvey Roe sawmill property on Camp Orange Road. When she died the property was taken over by the Palisades Interstate Park Commission. [4] In the early 1970s some of the occupants of neighboring properties were “uprooted” when the state government seized their land to establish the park. [5] According to the PIPC, the first purchases took place in 1964 and the last was made in 1974. Some of the acquisitions were made by purchase, others through appropriation. In total more than $1.6 million was paid to acquire more than 125 parcels of land. [6]  

Besides the old farms and homesteads, the area that now forms the park was also once home to two camps: Camp Orange and Camp Inwood. Camp Orange was a YMCA camp located at the junction of Pufftown Road and Camp Orange Road. These roads, as seen here in a small section of a map from 1955, are now dead-ends that no longer connect because of the acquisition of parkland in that location. The road that is now called Indian Trail was formerly the northern end of Camp Orange Road. Most of the buildings associated with Camp Orange were sold and removed from the property when Highland Lakes State Park was formed. Many of these buildings would have been bunkhouses built for seasonal use. One of them went to the Smith Farm on Scotchtown Collabar Road at Tamms Road. The entrance to Camp Inwood was located where Inwood Road and Foster Road intersect. This camp seems to have ceased operation by the second World War. [7]