Colossal Cave Mountain Park: Camping and Picnic Areas - Vail AZ

City:: Vail, AZ
Site Type:: Parks and Recreation, Forestry and Agriculture, Campgrounds and Cabins, Picnic and Other Facilities, CCC Camps
Quality of Information:: Very Good
Site Survival:: Extant

Description

The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) carried out major work at Colossal Cave and the surrounding park north of Vail AZ (now a suburb of Tucson, but far to the east in the 1930s). They improved access to the cave itself, built a large visitors’/administration center, laid out a campground and picnic area, opened roads and trails and built a water supply system. The Arizona State Park Service oversaw the work.

CCC workers constructed La Selvilla campground and El Bosquecito picnic area below the hillside, as well as a pump house to take water up the hill to the cave and visitors’ center. La Selvilla campground has very minimal improvements and a poorly maintained road, but El Bosquecito picnic area is quite nice and features concrete tables, stone stoves and a stone water fountain (now a faucet).

The former well and stone pump house are at El Bosquecito picnic area.

(Note: It appears that the original CCC camp SP-10 was sited at the current location of the El Bosquicito picnic area, but we cannot confirm that).

Source notes

Audretsch, Robert and Sharon Hunt, 2014. The Civilian Conservation Corps in Arizona. Charleston SC: Arcadia Publishing. pp. 18-19.

"The New Deal in Arizona: Connections to Our Historic Landscape," University of Arizona, The New Deal in Arizona Chapter of the National New Deal Preservation Association.
https://www.library.arizona.edu/newdeal/map.html

Historic photos can be found at: https://content.library.arizona.edu/cdm/singleitem/collection/NewDeal/id/210

Site originally submitted by Richard A Walker on November 12, 2019.
Additional contributions by Joan Greer.