Cameron County Land Access: Private Roads & State Forest

With roughly 70% of Cameron County in state forest, state game lands, or other public ownership and only seven municipalities total, a private parcel here is unusually likely to border -- or be reached only through -- public land. Two separate legal tools matter if access isn't already secured by deed: Pennsylvania's statutory Private Road Act, and DCNR's own right-of-way process for crossing state forest land.

This page covers what's specific to Cameron County. For the general explanation, see the national guide.

Why access questions come up more often here than elsewhere

Cameron County's land base is unusual even by rural-Pennsylvania standards. Pennsylvania Wilds, the regional public-lands and tourism partnership, describes the county as almost 70% public land -- dominated by Elk State Forest, the Cameron County reach of Susquehannock State Forest, and state game lands -- with just two boroughs (Emporium and Driftwood) and five townships (Shippen, Lumber, Grove, Portage, and Gibson) making up the entire county. State forests in Pennsylvania are also not solid blocks; DCNR's own materials describe them as interspersed with many small parcels of privately-owned land, which creates exactly the kind of land-management complication -- how does the private inholding actually get road access -- that comes up constantly in Cameron County and comparatively rarely in a county with a large, contiguous private land base. Before assuming a parcel that looks reachable on a map (because a road runs near or through it) actually has a legal right to use that road, treat access as its own, separate due-diligence question.

If the parcel crosses or depends on a DCNR forest road

If reaching a Cameron County parcel means using a road that runs across state forest land, that use isn't automatic just because the road is physically drivable. DCNR requires a Road Use Agreement for commercial use of Bureau of Forestry and Bureau of State Parks roads (timber hauling is the most common example), and separately maintains a formal rights-of-way application process for other access needs across state park and forest land, reviewed against the department's management objectives before being granted. Cameron County has a real practical advantage here that most counties bordering state forest don't: the Bureau of Forestry's own District 13 office, which administers Elk State Forest, is headquartered right in Emporium -- the county seat -- at 258 Sizerville Road (814-486-3353). That's a genuinely convenient, local point of contact to ask, before you buy, whether an existing access route to a specific parcel is already covered by a recorded right-of-way or road-use agreement, or whether one would need to be newly obtained.

If the parcel is genuinely landlocked: the Private Road Act

For a parcel with no legal access at all -- not just an inconvenient route, but no recorded easement or public road frontage reaching it -- Pennsylvania law gives a landlocked owner a specific statutory tool: the Private Road Act (originally the Act of June 13, 1836, P.L. 551, No. 169, codified at 36 P.S. § 2731 et seq.). An owner can petition the Court of Common Pleas -- in this case, Cameron County's own court -- for appointment of a Board of Viewers to examine the property and determine whether a private road is actually necessary to connect it to the nearest public road or an existing private way. If the viewers find the road necessary, the court can order it laid out along the route that causes the least damage to the neighboring land it crosses. The tradeoff: the petitioning landowner, not the neighbor, pays the damages the viewers assess for taking that access strip, calculated the same way compensation would be calculated if the land had been condemned for a public road. This is a real, usable legal process, but it requires a court petition and a formal viewers' proceeding, not a simple request -- budget for legal costs and delay if a specific parcel you're considering has no other way to secure access.

What to verify before buying, specifically

Before closing on any Cameron County parcel that isn't directly on a maintained public road, confirm three things separately: first, whether the deed itself already contains a recorded access easement (check at the Recorder of Deeds, in the Cameron County Courthouse at 20 East Fifth Street, Emporium); second, if the practical access route crosses state forest land, whether that use is already covered by an existing DCNR road-use agreement or right-of-way, confirmed directly with the District 13 office; and third, if the parcel borders state game lands rather than state forest, whether any access question instead needs to go through the Pennsylvania Game Commission's regional office rather than DCNR. None of these should be assumed from a map or an aerial-imagery view alone -- physical proximity to a road is not the same as a legal right to use it, and that gap matters more in a county this heavily surrounded by public land than almost anywhere else in Pennsylvania.

Landlocked Property and Access in Cameron County

Why access questions come up more often here than elsewhere

If the parcel crosses or depends on a DCNR forest road

If the parcel is genuinely landlocked: the Private Road Act

What to verify before buying, specifically

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