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A Days Sport at Blooming Grove Park, Junius Brutus Stearns, 1873.
Credit: Blooming Grove Park Association, Blooming Grove Hunting and Fishing Club
In the late 1800s, hunting and fishing became an increasingly popular gentleman's sport, and the forests and streams of northern Pennsylvania a popular destination for well-to-do outdoorsmen. In 1870, the Pennsylvania General Assembly granted a charter to the Blooming Grove Park Association for the establishment of a hunting and fishing club on 11,000 acres in Pike County. The charter gave the Association the power to make and enforce its own game laws to propagate fish and game.