The members of the Oregon Parks and Recreation Commission also will be the first to see Oregon’s newest state park and welcome center on Thursday.

The nearly completed Crissey Field State Recreation Site will officially open on Thursday, after commission members take a tour of the new 4,500 square-foot welcome center, said OPRD spokesman Chris Havel. The 40-acre park, is 5 miles south of Brookings just north of the California border. It includes a beach, wetlands and a small area of mature trees. State Parks traded with a private timber company for the land in 1993, according to department press release. Work on the welcome center started in 2007 and is estimated to have cost $6 million in Oregon Lottery funds.

The site is a former airstrip built in 1950 and abandoned in the 1960s. The park is named after W.L. “Bill” Crissey, a pre-World War lily bulb grower from Harbor.

— Staff Writer Jolene Guzman