CCC Camp – Elmhurst IL

Description

The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) company 1672 built a camp in Elmhurst IL.

“In December 1933, Elmhurst welcomed CCC company 1672. The company consisted of more than 200 army veterans, and they quickly set to work building a camp near North Avenue and Villa Avenue to the northwest of town. However, their work orders were delayed, and in May of the following year the company was dispatched to Rockford. Camp Elmhurst was temporarily vacant until the end of that summer.

CCC Company 2602, under the command of Captain Leland S. Powers, arrived at Camp Elmhurst on August 10, 1934 with the assigned goal of improving the new Route 54 parkway. Located on Villa Avenue just south of North Avenue, the company of more than 200 men was assigned to a project that entailed improvements to the route’s right of way south of Roosevelt Road. This included tree planting, bridge building, and general landscaping to beautify the recently constructed highway. It was also the job of corpsmen to build the camp itself, which was comprised of about a dozen buildings that included military-style barracks, administrative offices, a recreation building, and a mess hall. Most of the men of Camp Elmhurst were Chicago area locals, but the company was comprised of enlistees from all over the Midwest. To make the best of their new home, the company hosted several community dances and took part in local parades. Camp Elmhurst hosted an open house in April 1935, which demonstrated both how a CCC camp operated and the importance of the work that was being conducted by the program.

After a year of work on the Route 54 parkway project, Camp Elmhurst was abruptly closed without reason in August 1935. Its company was divided and reassigned to camps in Melrose Park and Peoria, and the parkway project was eventually delegated to other DuPage County camps in St. Charles and Fullersburg Woods. The latter camp was also tasked with conducting conservation work on the old Graue Mill, which still stands today as a museum in Oak Brook. While Camp Elmhurst was hastily disassembled, the results of the CCC work remain in the trees that still stand to this day along Route 83.”

— Daniel Lund, Elmhurst History Museum Staff