CCC Camp – Valentine NE

Description

The Omaha World-Herald announced in the June 13, 1933 edition that Nebraska’s sixth Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) Camp was approved in Washington D.C. and that it would be located near Valentine. Officials arrived in September to make arrangements for the establishment of the camp at the Federal Game Preserve, three miles east of town (the present Fort Niobrara National Wildlife Refuge).

The camp, as planned in 1933, would consist of seven buildings to provide comfortable quarters for the 200 men and camp officers who would reside there. The camp, designated for soil erosion projects, would house young men in barracks measuring 20 by 100 feet. A mess hall, infirmary, officers’ quarters, and supply building rounded out the remainder of the buildings. The men would be clearing brush along the river and treating diseased trees. After work was done, time would be devoted to education, athletics and music, “everything that might prove beneficial and inspirational to these young men.”

Work on the camp began in the end of September 1933. Grounds were staked off, fences moved, and building sites located. Foundations were starting to be poured by eight local laborers on relief rolls. Within another week, the buildings were being framed and an additional fourteen men were employed at the camp. The middle of October found thirty-two men at work at the camp and half of the buildings completely enclosed. In mid-November, all of the buildings were constructed and forty-three men were working on the site. The buildings were all insulated to protect the men from weather. Running water and showers were available, with electric lights and other conveniences.

In the twenty months that the CCC Camp was active, the men worked improving the game reserve by building game and stock fences, truck trails, bridge, lookout towers, agency buildings and other improvements. They worked under the supervision of the Bureau of Biological Survey.  

In December 1936, CCC Company 753 was moved to Fairbury, Nebraska. Valentine mourned the loss of its CCC Company, but wished them well.

(from various issues of the Cherry County News)