California is getting 3 new state parks—and they’re not where you’d think

California is on a park growing spree—the state’s biggest in decades. Travelers will soon be able to visit three new state parks in the underserved Central Valley: Yuba County’s Feather River Park in Olivehurst; San Joaquin River Parkway, which spans Fresno and Madera counties; and Kern County’s Dust Bowl Camp in Bakersfield.

Mendocino County’s Montgomery Woods State Natural Reserve, Nevada County’s South Yuba River State Park, and San Mateo County’s Pigeon Point Light Station State Historic Park will also receive significant land additions.

These efforts come from State Parks Forward, an initiative announced in April 2026 that aims to grow existing California parks by 30,000 acres by the end of the decade and expands on California’s 30x30 initiative, which promises to conserve 30 percent of the state’s lands and coastal waters by 2030.

Kari Kyler Daniska, chief executive officer of the San Joaquin River Conservancy, calls the expansion “an unprecedented investment in public access and open space in the Central Valley.”

California’s Central Valley, which stretches approximately 450 miles from roughly Bakersfield to Redding, has historically been a park-poor region. The majority of California’s 280 parks lie along the coastline or within the mountains, highlighting majestic redwoods, golden beaches, and snow-capped peaks.

Douglas W. Dodd, professor and chairperson of the history department at Cal State University, Bakersfield, and advocacy in the area has often focused on “more urgent matters of public health and environmental justice, like air pollution, pesticides, groundwater protection, and—in Bakersfield—trying to return flowing water to the Kern River.”

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But in the last couple of decades, environmental justice advocates have successfully argued that Central Valley residents, who have had to drive hours to the nearest state park, deserve the same equitable access to nature.

In 2024, Dos Rios, located west of Modesto, became the first new park in 10 years, and the first new state park in the Central Valley in over 20 years.

“Each of the three new planned parks provides something not currently offered at any of the 280 state parks,” says Marty Greenstein, the deputy director of communications and marketing at California State Parks, “whether it be access to two more rivers, San Joaquin and Feather rivers, or another piece of California history like the Dust Bowl.”

California’s newest state parks

Feather River Park—Olivehurst, Yuba County

Currently owned by Three Rivers Levee Improvement Authority of Yuba County, Feather River Park will become the first California state park in Yuba County. Spanning nearly 2,000 acres along the river, the new park will include a riverside beach, trails connecting parts of the riverfront that were previously difficult to access, and a public boat launch for kayaks, canoes, and motorized boats.

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Following the announcement, the Yuba County Board of Supervisors released a statement explaining that “Feather River Levee Setback area was always intended to serve as expanded floodway and vital ecological habitat—but over time, it faced challenges like illegal dumping, trespassing, encampments, and off-road vehicle use.”

After a 2024 limited-use ordinance, they saw improvement. “The public has had access to the area for a while, but we didn’t have the resources to bring it to its full potential,” Yuba County Supervisor Gary Bradford says.

Aaron Zettler-Mann is the executive director at South Yuba River Citizens League, which advocates for the protection and restoration of the Yuba River watershed, which feeds into the Feather River. He says he’s always heartened to see new parks along waterways because in the Central Valley the land adjacent to the rivers is often private.

“Funding can also ensure that water quality is monitored, so people know it’s safe,” he says. “Especially in places where there is income inequality, it’s important for people to have access to clean, fishable, drinkable, swimmable water.”

San Joaquin River Parkway—Fresno and Madera counties

The San Joaquin River Parkway consists of multiple parks and properties on both sides of the river, owned by the San Joaquin River Conservancy.

In the 1980s, the San Joaquin River Parkway & Conservation Trust was formed to protect the river from encroaching developments. The grassroots group wanted to establish a 22-mile continuous parkway of interconnected trails and parks between Friant Dam and Highway 99 that they called the “Ribbon of Green.”

By 2006, the San Joaquin River Restoration Settlement was signed to restore and maintain a 153-mile stretch of the river from the base of Friant Dam all the way to its confluence with the Merced River.

Combining all the properties into an 874-acre state park will create what San Joaquin River Conservancy’s Daniska hopes will be a "true central park for the Central Valley." A key feature of the park is the Lewis S. Eaton Trail, which was named after the founding president of the San Joaquin River Parkway and Conservation Trust.

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Dust Bowl Camp—Bakersfield, Kern County

Known for inspiring John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath the Dust Bowl Camp was one of the first camps established by the federal government during the Great Depression. It housed migrant farmworkers who fled the environmental collapse of the Dust Bowl. The camp was originally known as the Sunset Labor Camp and often referred to by its nickname, the Weedpatch Camp, due to its proximity to the Weedpatch community. The roughly two-acre area will make up the foundation of the new state park.

There have long been efforts by the Dust Bowl Historical Foundation, Kern County Housing Authority, and others to protect and preserve the remaining three historic buildings—The Community Hall, Post Office, and Library—built in the 1930s and ’40s and listed on the National Register of Historic Places in the 1990s.

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The camp is located on a property that continues its historic function as migrant farmworker housing, explains Dodd, though the houses “are much nicer and more modern than the original facility, which was basically just a campground.”

“Many historic buildings and places have been lost here in Kern County over the years, so it’s good to see that the hard work of the people protecting the Sunset Camp has paid off with a success like this,” says Dodd. “There has been a growing interest in preservation around here in recent years, and racking up wins like this one can help give the movement some momentum.”

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Expanding California state park sites

In addition to the three new state parks, the Peninsula Open Space Trust (POST) donated 133 acres of coastal bluff property surrounding the Pigeon Point Lighthouse, one of the tallest lighthouses on the West Coast at 115 feet, to the historic state park. This addition triples the size of the park and establishes a 1.5-mile extension of the California Coastal Trail, bridging a gap in the coastline path.

The Save the Redwoods League has donated Atkins Place, a second-growth forest with a mix of coast redwood and oak woodlands, to Montgomery Woods State Natural Reserve. This expansion includes 1.25 miles of streams and increases the reserve by 16 percent.

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And the Bear Yuba Land Trust has donated 218 acres of Rush Creek property to the South Yuba River State Park. This includes the historic 4.7-mile Independence Trail, the first wheelchair-accessible trail in the nation when it officially opened to the public in the early 1980s.

The 2.5-mile west trail is currently closed due to damage from the 2020 Jones Fire, but with the state park taking over the land, it’ll be easier to rebuild faster, says Erin Tarr, executive director of the Bear Yuba Land Trust.

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The recent state park announcements are a culmination of decades of hard work and advocacy. For example, the late pioneering conservationist John Olmsted and his Sequoya Challenge nonprofit began developing the Independence trail from abandoned Gold Rush-era water ditches in the 1960s.

It was always his goal for the trail to be part of the state parks system, says Tarr.