Camp Roosevelt NF-1
N 38° 43.810 W 078° 31.050
17S E 715792 N 4289759
Traces of Camp Roosevelt, the first CCC camp in the United States, still remain in George Washington National Forest.
Waymark Code: WMBXW6
Location: Virginia, United States
Date Posted: 07/02/2011
Views: 3
Camp Roosevelt, NF-1 was the first of 1643 CCC camps that were established across the United States. The camp was in Virginia's George Washington National Forest. The first recruits arrived in April 1933 on a rainy miserable day. The new recruits' first job was to clear the muddy ground for tents which they lived in under less than ideal conditions. By the next year, four barracks had been built. The camp expanded and grew to a community of 24 buildings including more barracks, a recreation hall, education building, wash house, hospital, mess hall, kitchen, garage, and a blacksmith and repair shed.
The CCC boys built and improved roads and bridges, installed telephone lines, planted trees, fought forest fires, stocked streams with fish, reintroduced the whitetail deer to the Shenandoah Valley, and built recreation areas.
Camp Roosevelt was closed and abandoned in 1942. The site was reopened in 1966 and dedicated as the Camp Roosevelt Recreation Area through the efforts of Moon Mullins who was one of the first recruits. Campsites and picnic areas were added, but the foundations and partial walls of the original CCC buildings still remain. Interpretive signs on site provide historical background information and a map of the CCC NF-1 camp layout.
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