Horse Creek Group Campground – Willamette National Forest OR

Description

Among the first of their recreation related construction projects, Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) enrollees from Camp Belknap laid out and built the Horse Creek Campground in 1934. The group campground is located one-and-a-half miles south of McKenzie Bridge on the banks of Horse Creek. The campground can accommodate approximately 100 people and 23 vehicles.

An interesting bit of CCC history in the Willamette National Forest (WNF) is associated with Horse Creek Campground. Forest Supervisor Perry Thompson hired landscape architect William Parke as a recreational planner for the WNF, instructing him to prepare site plans for campgrounds, picnic areas and organization camps – keeping in mind that CCC enrollees would be responsible for the work. Parke was a graduate of the Forestry program at Oregon State University and had been engaged in post graduate work in landscape architecture at the University of Oregon.

To put the plans to use, CCC foremen from camps in the Willamette National Forest then went for training at the Horse Creek site. Each foreman supervised several CCC enrollees from nearby Camp Belknap on the tasks required for campground development.  Within two weeks the camp was complete. As explained in The History of the Willamette National Forest: “From then on each CCC camp split cedar shakes, whipsawed logs into boards, and gathered other material which was stockpiled at Belknap.”