The ECW/CCC camps that were located in the Pend Oreille
Valley (including those in Bonner County) were part of the Fort George Wright
District. Fort George Wright, in Spokane
was the supply center and focal point for enrollee conditioning and
distribution as was Fort Missoula. This
area was part of the Ninth Corps Area according to the CCC administration, and
included the states of Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, Utah, Nevada, and
California, this area also included Yellowstone Park. The young men from this area that wanted to
enroll in the Civilian Conservation Corps had to go to one of the three
enrollment centers to do their initial paperwork. These enrollment centers for the Fort George
Wright and Fort Missoula Districts were Lewiston, Helena, and Coeur d’Alene.
Much of what the Civilian Conservation Corps did here in
Pend Oreille and Bonner Counties, as part of the Fort George Wright District,
were things such as: road, bridge, and
dam construction, the construction and maintenance of lookout towers, blister
rust control, and fire-fighting and prevention. On the Bonner County side of the Kaniksu
National Forest, one of the main camps was that at Kalispell Bay (F-142) near
Priest Lake. Some of the other major camps
in the Priest River/Priest Lake area were:
Four Corners (F-162), Experimental Station (F-127), Kalispell
Creek/Gleason (F-102), and Blowdown #2 (F-159).
There was also a camp on the lower Westbranch where the Humbird Lumber
Company had Camp No. 19. Probably two of
the largest camps in Pend Oreille County, also in the Kaniksu National Forest,
were Camp Sullivan Lake (F-1) and the Veterans CCC Camps at Usk (P-215). There were other large camps, specifically
one at Tacoma Creek (where the current Air Force Survival School is located), a
camp at Ruby, a camp near the Hanlin Ranger Station in the LeClerc Creek Basin,
and quite a few spike camps scattered throughout both counties.
There were three major Civilian Conservation Corps camps in
Pend Oreille County and a number of smaller camps and spike camps. The three major camps were at Sullivan Lake,
Tacoma Creek, and Usk. The locations of
the smaller camps were: in the LeClerc Creek Basin, one at Ruby, Hughes
Meadows, Gypsy Meadows, and Harvey Creek.
Regardless of their size, these camps built roads, fought fire and
blister rust, built bridges, as well as building miles of trail.
The first contingent of ECW/CCC enrollees arrived at Camp
F-1 Sullivan Lake in April 1933. Most of
these men were from Spokane, but there were men from Metaline Falls, Ione, and
Spokane, other places in the Northwest, and one man each from Georgia, Kansas,
Arkansas, and New York. By the end of
the summer the number at Camp F-1 reached 206 enrollees, 105 from Spokane,
twenty-three from Metaline Falls, seventy-two from other Northwest localities
and one enrollee each from Arkansas, Georgia, Kansas, New York, Ohio, and West
Virginia.
This first group of ECW/CCC enrollees were
organized into Company 938. There would
be twenty-five LEMs from Newport, Metaline Falls, and Ione that helped with the
projects done out of the camp.
Company 938 would have to construct the camp they were to
live in that first year. This included
four barracks, a mess hall, canteen, infirmary, office, oil building, and
showers. The Ranger Station during the
1930s was actually not where it is currently located. Instead, it was on the hill above the dam,
and the barn and other outbuildings were near where the current Ranger Station
is located. Some of the projects that
Company 938 worked on during its time at Camp F-1 included thinning trees,
blasting stumps out of what is now the Sullivan Lake airstrip, and fighting
fire. Between May and October, Company
938: Constructed Sand Creek Road, linking the east side of Ione to Metaline
Falls; built six miles of road up Harvey Creek to get to a stand of cedar
timber; built five miles of road on the LeClerc Creek-Calispell Creek project
on the west side of the divide and six miles on the east side; improvement of
seven campsites (Sullivan Lake, Crescent Lake, and five others around Nordman
Road and Stagger Inn), and planted 1,000 trees.
Probably their biggest project that is still in use is the Sullivan Lake
airstrip.
In the spring of 1934 Company 950 would arrive at Camp F-1
Sullivan Lake, and was another group of enrollees that were from the 9th
CCC Corps Area. This company would make
improvements to the public campsite at Sullivan Lake, and construct a number of
roads that are still being used: Harvey Creek Road to the summit at Bunchgrass
Meadows, Tacoma Creek Road to the summit of Calispell Peak, the East Branch of
LeClerc Creek Road from the east side of Kalispell Bay on Priest Lake, and Mill
Creek Road to connect with Squaw Valley Road on the east side of the divide
(Pyramid Pass) by way of Solo.
On 15 April 1935 Company 1745 moved into Camp F-1 Sullivan
Lake. This group of enrollees were
actually from Washington State, but they had started their career at Jefferson
Barracks in Missouri (7th CCC Corps Area). When Company 1745 arrived at Camp F-1, there
weren’t enough of them to constitute a full camp. So, when the rest of the
enrollees for Camp F-1 arrived, a new company was formed: Company 2920. This put the complement of enrollees at Camp
F-1 at 228 men, all of them from Washington State. This company was immediately designated
“Washington’s Own CCC” or the “All-Washington Junior Company.”
Camp F-1 was designated as a year-round camp during the
summer of 1935. Much of the work to
convert the camp to a more permanent status was done by the Company 2920. Once Camp F-1 became a permanent, year-round
camp the enrollees lived in wood barracks that had a big pot-bellied stove in
the middle and a shower room with flushing toilets. There were four of these barracks that held
fifty men each. Mornings saw the
enrollees assembled at the flagpole in the center of camp for the Pledge of
Allegiance and the flag salute, after which they went to the mess hall for
breakfast. Every meal was served on
china and the enrollees were called to the mess hall (this was 20 feet wide by
140 feet long) by a bell for all meals.
The evenings after 1939 especially were spent in educational classes,
and on the weekends the enrollees were often taken via CCC truck to Metaline Falls
for a ten-cent movie.
Many of the buildings at the current
administrative and utility-type buildings at the Sullivan Lake Ranger Station
were also constructed by Company 2920.
All of the other buildings located in the camp (mess hall, canteen, and
etc.) remained in place. Company 2920
would remain in place of other camp locations, or by enrollees’ enlistments
ending until 1941 when Company 5703 arrived.
The projects that Company 938, 2920, and 5703 accomplished
between 1933 and 1941 included crib work along the shoreline of Sullivan Lake,
recreation facilities for the Sullivan Lake and Noisy Creek campgrounds (also
built by them), telephone and power line construction and maintenance, a great
deal of trail construction and maintenance, water systems for the Sullivan Lake
and Noisy Creek campgrounds, bridges on both ends of Sullivan Lake as well as
on Harvey Creek, the construction and maintenance of both the Hughes Meadows
and Sullivan Lake airstrips, fire protection and suppression, smoke chasing (also
known as lookout duty), blister rust control, and stand improvement such as
tree planting and slash burning. Company
938 would construct four lookouts, three of which were: North Baldy, Salmo Mountain, and Plow Boy
Mountain. A great deal of their time was
spent on road construction and maintenance.
Some of the roads constructed between 1933 and 1941 included: the three
branches of LeClerc Creek, Slate Creek, Dry Canyon, Ione to Sullivan Lake,
Metaline to Nordman, and Harvey Creek.
There would be three spike camps that worked out of Camp F-1: Hughes Meadows (29 miles from Sullivan Lake)
and Harvey Creek (22 miles from Sullivan Lake).
These camps were mobile, temporary jobs so enrollees lived in tents and
didn’t have the conveniences of back at the main camp. This meant that assigned duty to a spike camp
wasn’t always the favorite duty to have.
Many of these work projects were undertaken by spike camps at Gypsy
Meadows (Camp F-101) and LeClerc Creek near Hanlin Ranger Station (Camp F-2),
Hughes Meadows, and Harvey Creek.
The enrollees didn’t always have to work though. Early in the program, enrollees at Camp F-1
would have Saturday, Sunday, and Wednesdays off for recreation or educational
pursuits. The boys at Camp F-1 would
play volleyball, kittenball (a type of baseball with a sixteen-inch soft ball),
horseshoes, boxing, and baseball.
Tournaments of all sorts of sports were held with local teams, other CCC
teams, and even the CCC Indian Division on the Spokane and Colville
Reservations. The enrollees at Camp F-1
would host community dances at the Rod and Gun Club as well as the Metaline
Falls School. On Saturdays they could
board a CCC bus to go see a movie in Metaline Falls for ten cents. Camp F-1 had a large recreation room for card
games and ping-pong, as well as a classroom or building for the seventeen
educational classes. The most popular
classes were auto mechanics and typing.
The camp even had a newspaper, “The Post” that had a five-star rating
from the national CCC newspaper “Happy Days”.
As with all CCC camps, educational classes were offered at
Camp F-1. At Camp Sullivan Lake the
enrollees had their pick of seventeen different courses, with auto mechanics
and typing being the most popular. The
enrollees also had the opportunity to learn dynamiting, heavy machinery
operation and maintenance, and truck driving.
The closer the United States came to its entrance in World War II, the
educational focus for the camps changed to emphasize vocations that would be
helpful for the war effort. “The Corps’
contribution will come largely through the training of young men in the
maintenance and operation automotive and mechanized equipment, in auto
mechanics at central repair shops, in radio communications, and in other
civilian activities useful in national defense….it will be a huge reservoir of
trained man-power upon which industry and the national defense services can
draw.”
Camp F-1 would remain part of the CCC network until the fall
of 1941. Company 5703 would abandon Camp
F-1 after it was disbanded on 28 November 1941.
Many of the young men in the CCC at that point would join the armed
forces or go to work in an essential industry.
As for the twenty-three CCC buildings at Camp F-1 Sullivan Lake, they
were transferred to the Forest Service in November 1942.
