REVIEWS

CCC VETERAN WRITES BOOK ON STATE'S CAMPS

Publication: THE CHARLESTON GAZETTE
Published: 08/12/1992
Byline: SANDY WELLS

Two stone posts across the highway from Sharples High School are all that remain of Camp Logan.ﾠ In Wyoming County, near Pineville, a dilapidated, abandoned house is the last vestige of Camp Wyoming.ﾠ The swimming pool in Kanawha State Forest sits on land once occupied by Camp Kanawha.

Researching a book on the Civilian Conservation Corps, Milton Harr traipsed across the state, searching for signs of the camps that dotted West Virginia in the New Deal era. A retired administrator with the Department of Natural Resources, Harr, 76, spent about five years gathering information for his book, "The C.C.C. Camps in West Virginia, 1933-1942."

Sorting through files in the National Archives during periodic trips to Washington, he came up with 66 state camps, and managed to visit 45. Sometimes, he found only concrete footers. Sometimes, there wasn't a trace.

The 66 camps in West Virginia were among 1,300 set up across the country to provide work for the unemployed during the Depression. Recruits did fire prevention work, planted trees, built roads, campgrounds and parks, reclaimed eroded land and improved conditions for fish and wildlife.

As a college student, Harr worked at Camp Lewis in Greenbrier County, made $30 a month helping the surveyor chart farm maps. The place teemed with people, about 200 enrollees and a staff of 20. "All I could find of Camp Lewis was an open field."

A member of the first class graduating from the West Virginia University Forestry School in 1939, he became a squad foreman in Camp Rhododendron at Coopers Rock State Forest near Morgantown. For $100
a month, he monitored a crew of 10 boys, helped them build fences, break rock for roads, plant trees along the road to the overlook and picnic area. The trees are still there. "There's nothing left of the camp. It's all built up with houses."

Working in the CCC, Harr said he had no conception of its scope. "I had no idea there were 66 camps. I just felt lucky to have a job."

Some buildings at the various camps were converted to other uses. In Watoga State Park, a log building housing the carpenter and woodworking shop once served as foreman's quarters for Camp Watoga. The WVU geology department uses several buildings from Camp Alvon in Greenbrier County for a summer camp.

Harr was intrigued by the fate of one camp building. At the site of Camp Randolph, located between Elkins and Marlinton, a modern brick house has been built around the camp office.

He decided to write the book when he heard about the lack of information available to people asking about camps in West Virginia. He describes each camp, its personnel and the work performed there Harr was superintendent of Coopers Rock State Forest and the state forest nursery at Lesage, served in the Navy, then continued with the department of Natural Resources as assistant state forester and assistant chief with the parks division before retiring in 1981.