ROMULUS, N.Y. -- Like many wooded areas tucked away along Seneca Lake, the 2,000 acres of Sampson State Park is unsurprisingly serene.
Dolores Dinsmore is the director of one the park’s most precious gems: the Naval Museum. It represents just one of the lives of Sampson.
“There’s only two buildings, three in use right now, the old warehouses, that’s the park office, we have one building called the tractor barn for storage, and then our maintenance building. They’re all original buildings from WWII."
Inside tells the story of more than 411,000 sailors and 350,000 airmen who trained here from 1942 until 1956. The museum was started up by thousands of WWII Naval Veterans Organization members. They brought in real artifacts displaying how they ate, the sports they played, the guns they used, the uniforms they wore, and the places they slept.
There's also a spot where naval recruits who broke the rules were sent.
“You could be in fractured for fighting, stealing. You have to remember too that when they were drafting people, you weren’t getting the cream of the crop either. You were probably getting the hoodlums in the first place and they were continuing it on when they got here.”
Although much has changed in the landscape since it was made a state park in 1963, the feeling of history is very much alive, making it one of Central New York’s best places to visit indoors and out.
The other side of the museum, the Air Force portion, was created in 1997 by Sampson Air Force Veterans.
The park says it plans to erect historical markers along the trails this summer to show visitors what it looked like back when it was used as a station and base.