FARRAGUT STATE PARK — A battalion of volunteers Saturday morning converged on this former U.S. Naval training station to beautify and make improvements in a four-hour whirlwind of activity.

About 850 members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, from the Coeur d’Alene and Hayden Lake stakes, were organized into work parties to complete much-needed projects at the park.

“I want to say the word lifesaver,” said Ranger Randall Butt, the park’s manager.

“They’ve done things we’ve dreamt about,” said Ranger Dennis Woolford.

“Everyone works hard, and they’re happy while they do it,” said Rhonda Paulson, spokeswoman for the Coeur d’Alene stake.

Butt said the volunteers’ contributions help to keep the park open and functional. The park budget has been trimmed, and Butt said he has been operating with a skeleton crew.

“I feel like I owe it to the community,” said volunteer Larry Barnes of Coeur d’Alene. “We use this park a lot. We’re out here to help and keep some of the costs down for the park and help everybody to enjoy it.”

Barnes was out with his four daughters, three grandkids, a nephew and a son-in-law, he said.

Some of the projects, all major undertakings, included repainting the Museum at the Brig, a historic building which was once used to confine unruly Navy recruits.

From 1942 to 1946, Farragut was Idaho’s largest city, with a population reaching nearly 60,000, Butt said.

The volunteers installed pavers to the entrance of the Brig, trimmed bushes and trees in front, and lined the front yard area with boulders.

Nearby, they disassembled a large wood shelter, informally called the Waldron Shelter, so it can be rebuilt at another spot in the park.

“It’s just been out here decaying for a number of years,” said Butt. It’s been out of use since the 1970s.

At its new location on the north side of the park it will be used regularly during mountain biking and equestrian events, he said.

Volunteers cleared and chipped brush and trees along Range Road.

Butt said the fuel-reduction work on Range Road will help firefighters battle any wild blazes in that part of the park, in part by improving vehicle access there.

Volunteer Billy Baures said, “After you do it, it definitely makes you feel good.”

Baures, 13, of Spirit Lake, helped with the fuel reduction along Range Road. He was there with brothers Jacob, 17, and Steven, 12.

Volunteers removed rocks from the shooting ranges to cut down on ricochets, and did painting there.

That’s where Post Falls resident Shari Pingel was working from 8 a.m. to noon with her husband and their six kids.

“I think it’s important, as a parent, to teach our kids how to work,” said Pingel.

The work event made for quality family time, too, she said.

Volunteers did cleaning and raking at the equestrian park and cleanup of the upper and lower shoreline trails along Lake Pend Oreille.

“I enjoy hard work, and sweat and working with people,” said volunteer Chris Peterson of Spirit Lake. “I worked some good blisters up. We were using pickaxes.”

Peterson, an area Boy Scout leader, was a trail-crew boss Saturday.

“We were digging up big rocks and making the trails better to hike and bike,” he said. “Guys were bringing big rocks out of the lake and we were riprapping the trail.”

He said Boy Scouts have done several projects in the park.

“There are a ton of Boy Scouts out here, multiple troops,” he said.

The volunteers did the work as part of Pioneer Day, a holiday created to celebrate the arrival of Brigham Young and the first group of Mormon pioneers into Utah’s Salt Lake Valley in 1847. The first Pioneer Day was celebrated in 1849.