Maple Lake - Mt Nebo UT
Description
The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) made extensive recreational improvements on Mt. Nebo, the highest and southern-most peak of the Wasatch Mountains. The CCC teams worked out of three camps: F-9 at the south end of the Mt. Nebo Loop, F-3 at Hubble Canyon and F-40 near Provo, from 1933 to 1938 – and possibly to 1941 when the last camp closed.
After building the Mt Nebo Loop Road (Scenic Byway), the CCC enrollees created several campgrounds, picnic areas and many trails. Not all this work can be identified precisely, but some can be verified from reliable sources. As more information comes in, we can separate the various campgrounds into their own site pages.
The U.S. Forest Service states that the CCC teams built “eight campgrounds in Hobble Creek and Payson Canyons.” Baldridge (p. 122) is more detailed, citing “Hobble Creek, Payson Canyon, Diamond Fork, Wolf Creek and Daniels Canyon (“among others”).
There are three campgrounds in Payson Canyon: Maple Dell, Maple Lake and Maple Bench. All may be of CCC origin (Camp Maple Dell was acquired by the Boy Scouts in 1945), but there are no clear signs of CCC work today.
Higher up are Payson Lakes and Blackhawk Campgrounds, the biggest and most popular on the Mt. Nebo Loop Road. Blackhawk burned in 2018 and was still closed in 2021.
At the south end of the Mt. Nebo Loop are two more campgrounds: Bear Canyon and Cottonwood. Bear Canyon campground does have telltale stone work of the 1930s
We cannot be certain which of these campgrounds were first laid out by the CCC, but some of them must have been. We would appreciate any further confirmation.
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Blackhawk campground - Mt Nebo UT
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Maple Lake Campground - Mt Nebo UT
Source notes
Kenneth Baldridge, The Civilian Conservation Corps in Utah. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2019. pp. 74, 122.
"A Century of Stewardship: Civilian Conservation Corps on the Uinta National Forest" at https://www.fs.usda.gov/detail/uwcnf/learning/history-culture/?cid=stelprdb5052898
Utah SHPO CCC Database, 3-29-2021
Project originally submitted by Richard A Walker on July 18, 2021.
Additional contributions by Joan Greer.
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