Pana'ewa CCC Camp - Hilo HI

City:: Hawaii, Hilo, HI
Site Type:: CCC Camps, Federal Facilities
New Deal Agencies:: Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), Work Relief Programs
Started:: 1933
Completed:: 1942
Quality of Information:: Minimal
Marked:: No
Site Survival:: No Longer Extant

Description

The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) built a side camp at Pana’ewa Forest on the Big Island of Hawaii. The Pana’ewa Forest has been heavily developed with the growth of Hilo, the main city on the island, but some small pieces remain, especially as Pana’ewa Rainforest Zoo and Gardens and Pana’ewa Forest Reserve.

The CCC enrollees worked in in the vicinity of this camp and their work included tree planting; building truck, foot and horse trails; construction of foot bridges; installation of fences; seed collection; erosion control and check dams; building shelter houses; “elimination of undesirable animals” [presumably invasive species]; “eradication of exotic plants”; installation of pipe lines and telephone lines; and camp ground development.

We do not know the exact location of the Pana’wea CCC camp but it was likely in the vicinity of today’s Pana’ewa Rainforest Zoo & Gardens.

Source notes

Annual Report of the Department of the Interior for the Fiscal Year Ended June 30, 1941, Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1942, p. 60.

U.S. Department of the Interior, Annual Report of the Governor of Hawaii to the Secretary of the Interior for the Fiscal Year Ended June 30, 1940. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1940, p. 55.

Kathryn Ladoulis Urban and Stanley Solamillo, Civilian Conservation Corps In Hawai`i: Oral Histories of the Haleakalā Camp, Maui, prepared for Haleakala National Park, Honolulu, HI: K Design Group, 2011, p. 16, accessed June 27, 2017.

"CCC 8 years old today; open house at Pana'ewa," Hawai'i Tribune-Herald, April 6, 1941, p. 1.

"Liquidation of isle CCC told in report," Honolulu Advertiser, July 21, 1942, p. 3.

Site originally submitted by Brent McKee on June 27, 2017.