CCC Camp F-30 (Hobble Creek) – Springville UT

Description

In 1934, the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) set up Camp F-30 in Hobble Creek Canyon, about six miles east of Springville.  It was a summer season camp, consisting only of tents on wooden platforms.  Hobble Creek Camp (F-30) was located in what is now Cherry Campground (moving there from another nearby location in 1934).

The US Forest Service website says that F-30 only operated in 1934-36, with operations shifted to Camp F-40 in Provo, a few miles north of Springville, up to 1941. Baldridge (p 122) contradicts this, saying that F-30 continued to be used as a summer spike camp until 1941.  Both agree that it was Company 958 housed at both (it had moved from Camp F-9 (Mt. Nebo) after the first year, 1933).

The letter F meant that CCC projects were carried out under the direction of the US Forest Service in what was then the Wasatch National Forest (now Uinta-Wasatch-Cache National Forest). 

Working out of Camp F-30, the CCC enrollees of Company 958 made many improvements around the central Wasatch area. These included recreational facilities; water conservation projects;  roads and bridges; soil conservation and ranch work.  Not all this work can be identified precisely, but some can be verified from reliable sources.

The US Forest Service provides this summary:

“During their eight years of operation, men from these two camps created a fine record of work which included building eight campgrounds in Hobble Creek and Payson Canyons, four Forest Service ranger stations, dams at the mouths of Little Rock, Rock and Slate Canyons, upgrading or building roads in Hobble Creek (to Springville Crossing), Rock Creek and the Nebo Loop Road, several bridges, stock trails to and through Spanish Fork Canyon and other duties such as fire fighting.”

Baldridge (2019, pp. 122-23) provides yet more detail on the work of Company 958. CCC enrollees built campgrounds at Hobble Creek, Payson Canyon, Diamond Fork, Wolf Creek and Daniels Canyon (“among others”). They added over a mile of water pipelines (presumably for the campgrounds); amphitheaters at Mutual Dell and Aspen Grove; horse trails at Rock and Slate Canyons; a stock bridge over Sixth Water Creek; six miles of range fencing and seven stock-water facilities; and small dams on Hobble Creek and Diamond Fork. They also fought lodgepole pine beetle infestation along the Provo River and built forest service warehouses and office in Heber and Spanish Fork, plus a warehouse in Provo.