Camp S-71 ~ Pennsylvania's CCC Camps

Ajouté : 2026-05-30

[00:00:04]So, greetings from Pennsylvania once again. This whole weekend, we're up here in Black Bos Shannon State Park and State Forest. Kind of kind of a kind of a little bit of a meet up with some of the gang. Uh, I think Darcy and old dude on the trail kind of organized this meet up. And I'm here at my first spot. It's a little bit earlier on Friday. You have these camping trips, the meetups, I kind of do other stuff, too. But I pulled in this one spot. I'm gonna do a CCC camp here. But just as I was getting out of my Jeep, a familiar truck drove up. Of course, it is it is daylight Dave. So, but he's up here for the meet up, too.

[00:00:39]So, >> what are the odds?

[00:00:40]>> Yeah. So, it's okay. He could >> Great minds think alike.

[00:00:44]>> Yeah. But it's good cuz he was just down >> at the camp. So, he said there's a little bit there, maybe. So, >> I'm sure you'll find more.

[00:00:51]>> All right.

[00:00:52]>> You dig a little deeper than I do.

[00:00:54]>> All right. So, I talked with Dave for quite a while there. just catching up on things, talking about future plans and things like that. Actually, so there's Dave's truck, but Bill, the red truck is Bill Maxim's truck. You guys all know Bill. He's out here hiking the Alageney Front Trail, which goes through parts of which goes through Manhattan State Forest and State Park. So, we'll probably see him tonight. So, that's kind of interesting. Anyway, Dave's out there looking for a cemetery on that side of the road. We might we might look for it later, but we're going to head down to this uh CCC camp. This is CCC camp S71, also known as the Beaver Meadows Camp. So Dave was down there. He said there you can see a few things down there.

[00:01:36]And we'll talk about the history of it and some other things that went on here.

[00:01:40]All right. So I think it's just up this road here, but they do have a sign for it over here. There's an old there's a a building up there.

[00:01:50]But anyway, yeah, our CCC sign, site of the Beaver Meadows Camp, S71, 33 to 37. So, down there's our sign. I'm not sure if there's anything down. We'll we'll check that area of the woods.

[00:02:07]The map showed it being kind of up here. So, this is where we're going to head.

[00:02:19]Dave said he saw a few things up here.

[00:02:21]No, like no buildings left or anything, but we can see where like some of the trails were that they had through camp.

[00:02:30]Yeah, but it's been a while since we've done one of these CCC videos. Not since like last winter.

[00:02:37]I even have my CCC shirt on. That was a gift from a viewer.

[00:02:42]And I have a book along. I'll be sharing some information from that book. It was also sent by some a viewer talk about how these camps some things about them.

[00:02:54]I'm not sure how far up we want to go. Isn't there a building up here too?

[00:03:02]I left the map down the Jeep. I showed coming up this road and being off over here.

[00:03:08]But there are a number of buildings out here. Here's another one over here.

[00:03:12]These don't look CCC related though.

[00:03:17]They maybe I don't know.

[00:03:26]Like we're coming up too far now.

[00:03:29]In a bit we're going to go back and look around that sign some more.

[00:03:37]Yep. Here's another building.

[00:03:46]And down here's another cabin. One thing I've noticed with these old CCC camps, it seems like where they used to be, there's still a lot of cottages and stuff and cabins, but there's a over here. There's look at that huge hemlock tree. That's massive. But there's a little like a little fort to this. This is not natural.

[00:04:12]Some kind of ditch here. Almost looks like there's runs all the way down. So, is that is that CCC related? I don't know.

[00:04:22]There's more cabins and stuff up here.

[00:04:35]We might soon go back to the road. Let's keep going for a little bit more. See what's up here. We'll find a place to sit in a little bit. I got to change the battery in this camera. And then uh like I said, I have some history to read you about this place and some more general CCC information from the one book I got for Christmas.

[00:04:58]Just another cabin site up here. But even here, there's like a looks like an old road, an old trail.

[00:05:20]So up there the road's gated off.

[00:05:23]Let's just walk down here.

[00:05:34]Just looking for any anything really h let's have a seat right here.

[00:05:56]The camp could be much further back towards where we parked, but let's have a seat here. Share some information. I also need a a little snack, too.

[00:06:14]Yeah, I did really have a big breakfast and I haven't eaten anything since. It's probably going on 1:00. I talked with Dave for a while back there. Oh, 12:30.

[00:06:24]So, yeah. But yeah, I'm going to got some information to share.

[00:06:34]This is the book that was sent to me about Christmas time roughly. The Foreman boys. It talks a lot about the history of the CCC camp and the importance the importance it had in the lives of these young men and stuff like that. But we'll work on that. I got to change the battery out here and get we'll have a little snack too, I think.

[00:06:50]All right. So, new battery and some food in the belly. Just kind of devoured one of those cliff bars, but that'll work.

[00:06:57]So, yeah, I got got my notes here. So yeah, this is often known as the Beaver Meadows camp. And these men came from Maryland. It says they uh organized at Fort Howard down in Maryland. So that's one thing I I kind of learned, too. You think all the C I usually thought all the CCC camps here in Pennsylvania, you know, had men and boys from Pennsylvania, but they came from other states as well. There's the other one that's nearby here, um camp, uh another camp, S119, which we're going to do later today. They actually came from further south like in Tennessee and Georgia and stuff which is kind of interesting. But yeah, so these men were from Maryland, they they came by train up to Philipsburg which is nearby here and then in Philipsburg they were transported by truck to this location here. And the interesting thing is when they came here as you mentioned some of these other camps there was nothing here for them. Um of course the CCC was organized and run by the army but they they were given tents and all kinds of stuff to set up. So they had to just set up make camp, you know, and all that kind of stuff. We we'll read about that in this book in just a little bit. But yeah, just kind of interesting how sometimes you see pictures of the camps, there's all these buildings and stuff, but when they I think it was company company 359, they're the first ones here in 33. There was there was nothing here.

[00:08:13]You know, imagine that. just coming coming on train up here to the middle of nowhere, Pennsylvania, being driven by a truck, dropped off in the woods, and there's just nothing here. You know, they had to kind of start the basics of setting camp up.

[00:08:29]But it probably didn't look quite like this back then. You know, many of Pennsylvania's forests had been logged over and were kind of like wastelands in a way. That's what that's one of the things the CCC did then was to restore our forest, plant trees and things like that.

[00:08:44]So it may not have looked quite like this. Imagine more like open scrubby land maybe now with all these mature trees, but still kind of maybe intimidating for a lot of them depending on what their background was. And they did other things besides, you know, the forestry projects and the road building projects that we've talked about in other videos. Um this this company especially um well there are different companies that stayed here. I think each company stayed here about at a camp about six months was your term of service. I think I think you could reenroll. Well, I forget how that goes, but yeah, so B stayed about six months, but there was a flood here in March of 36. And interesting, they helped the locals with that flood with a clean up and rescue things and all that kind of stuff. And then also in that same year of 36, they helped search for a 13-year-old boy who got lost in these woods and they found him. So the CCC boys didn't just do projects out in the woods in middle nowhere. They actually helped the local communities and stuff like that and got involved. And the local communities got involved, too.

[00:09:40]book talks about that which I might share in another video. But yeah, let's talk a little bit about what it was like when they first came here. I'm going to read some stuff for you from this. So this is a little bit from this book describing what it was like for these enrolles they called them, you know, what it was like, you know, just arriving at a place like this. So immediately after disembarking from the train in whatever town they arrived in, in this case it was Philipsburg, the army and enrolly convoy moved into camp prepared with tents, cotss, mattresses, mess kits. Enrolly issue kids kits covering toilet and showering needs plus necessary equipment for the field kitchen mess. So they all giving us stuff what they needed. This is all army provide all this stuff. Additionally, the company arrived with enlisted non-commissioned army officers who performed and directed the field kitchen setup to include a seasoned mess sergeant and assist and a assistant plus two skilled truck drivers. Yeah, the mess hall was one of the most important things or the mess the kitchen setup. Of course, it wasn't necessary hall when it came in right away. No building, but that that the tent was the messaul. That was one of the most important thing because if you want these boys and men to work, they need to eat. All right, let's continue on. Goes on to talk about how these army officers immediately went about organization and direct setup of the encampment. These non-commissioned officers held a rank of sergeant bringing with them the experience needed to take charge of the totally green enrollies. You know, boys who maybe had never spent any time in the woods at all or knew nothing about what they're going to be doing. Um, taking charge of these enrollies in the early days of establishing the encampment. These sergeants had the knowledge and experience needed to direct the enroles in erecting tents, set up field, mess kitchen, even potable erect potable water bags, establish a waste latrine plot and all other necessary services to meet the initial needs of the first inhabitants of the camp. When they came here, there was nothing here. They just set it all up. Um, one can well imagine how heavily these new enrollies had to rely on the skills of these sergeants.

[00:11:42]In the span of one afternoon and one evening time period on a summer day before the darkness set in, tents needed to be erected for shelter, food required, preparation and serving, a potable water source needed to be located and a field of training established by all 160 enrolles who had absolutely no experience in these regards.

[00:12:03]>> Yeah. So imagine that having to be in charge of like 160 or so young men, boys who have absolutely no experience in what they're doing and you have to guide these young men and teach them and show them what to do. Most have probably never even set up a tent in their life or done any of this what they're going to do and you have like 24 hours to get them to do it all. So, you know, we kind in this series, we've kind of focusing on focusing on the young men involved in these camps and how it benefited them and stuff, but we haven't really talked much about the men who organized this and, you know, organized it and kind of led the boys were like the leaders and stuff. Um, we talked about the army officers, but they're also local men from the area that became foremen and stuff like that. Boy, men that took the boys out to do the forestry projects to build roads and stuff like that. So all kind they had all kinds of men from the community that helped. Yeah. So a lot more a lot went on and and these camps also provided employment for those men too to come in. A lot of times there wasn't jobs in town anymore so they could come here to the CCC camp and perform those services.

[00:13:09]All right, let's head back to this old road. Start making our way back down.

[00:13:13]Start looking. See what else we can find. We didn't really find much yet.

[00:13:18]I don't think the camp was up this far.

[00:13:21]Usually they were much further down closer to the main road.

[00:13:32]So just making my way back down. But you know, up here's one of the cabins, but even right there looks like an old road going down to that other cabin. So, wonder if that's an old camp road here in the camp.

[00:13:50]Possibly.

[00:13:53]I just want to go.

[00:13:58]Anyway, I just thought I saw almost like I see like a pit up in here. No, I don't think so. That looks like an old road going out that way.

[00:14:14]Just keep my eyes open for any foundations or who knows any remnants of the camp. Like I said, maybe most of it's further down where I was earlier.

[00:14:29]Be cool to find something.

[00:14:32]So, right down there is our sign. But even here looks like an old This definitely is an old road lined with these trees. Perhaps planted by the CCC boys.

[00:14:43]We'll just walk up here a little bit.

[00:14:54]Don't really see any like foundations or anything. Looks like there might be another road up there.

[00:15:05]Well, we're here to look. So, let's have a look around yet.

[00:15:15]All right. So, this brings there's another like road up here like I point out. There's another cabin down there.

[00:15:24]One up there.

[00:15:26]Oh, this is one I saw earlier when we were coming down the road I was on. We looked down this way. This is that old road. It's definitely an old road.

[00:15:39]Yeah.

[00:15:43]Okay. So, right down here's our sign again. Maybe have a look down there a little bit.

[00:15:51]Might also have a look over here, too.

[00:15:55]I did park just right up there. And I thought the map made it look like right in here was the camp, but uh anyway, not that markers or maps are always correct.

[00:16:10]Let's have a look. You know what?

[00:16:14]Already seen a brick and I'm seeing some terracotta pipe up here. So, I mean, is this from the camp or is this just potentially dumped here? That's a possibility, too. But there's some some pipe back here right along a back dirt road. So sometimes these become places for people to dump stuff too.

[00:16:36]I'm not really seeing any foundations.

[00:16:38]It's a nice flat area though to have a camp.

[00:16:46]Not seeing anything really.

[00:16:48]It looks like Oh, wait a second. Wait a second. Wait a second. I take that back.

[00:16:55]What have we here?

[00:16:59]Here's something. When you see uh right angles in nature, it's man-made. Yeah. Here's a Here's something.

[00:17:10]This is This is concrete going up through here. Okay.

[00:17:14]Interesting.

[00:17:17]What it is, I don't know.

[00:17:19]All right. Now, now we got our hopes up here a little bit.

[00:17:24]There's something. Oh, yeah. Over here's a pit.

[00:17:35]Over here is kind of like a a pit area.

[00:17:41]H.

[00:17:42]So, now that we're finding things, we'll just keep looking.

[00:17:47]It always encourages you when you find things.

[00:17:51]Actually, there's some over here, too.

[00:17:53]Just down from the first thing I saw.

[00:17:56]So, I'm assuming this is CCC related, cuz it's right where the sign is.

[00:18:04]There's definitely something here.

[00:18:08]Yeah. Right here's where that trough I saw earlier was. And you can see comes out and bends. But there's different like metal post sticking out of the ground. Here's a big chunk of rock and concrete.

[00:18:27]Is this a This is a chimney or I don't see a hole anywhere. So yeah.

[00:18:36]H maybe the edge of a foundation we're going up through here. But yeah, there's that channel we saw earlier.

[00:18:44]Okay, let's keep looking. Look at that slab of like concrete and rock from this direction. There's definitely no I thought it might be a chimney, but there's no hole.

[00:18:57]Some different glass bottles back here, but I don't know if they're that old like CCC old.

[00:19:08]What's this one?

[00:19:10]Well, that's that's just an old ketchup.

[00:19:12]But who knows? They had ketchup at the CCC camps, but this one's busted.

[00:19:21]I don't know. Those are old enough to be I don't think so.

[00:19:30]Even whatever this was, there's like an old like foundation border right here.

[00:19:34]It's all flat on top. So, more broken glass.

[00:19:46]Yeah. See all the rocks and rubble.

[00:19:50]And right up here it turns and goes that way. So there's a big building right here at one point.

[00:19:57]Maybe like the maybe it was the mess hall or something like that.

[00:20:02]Once again, I'm assuming it's CCC related. the old metal bucket.

[00:20:13]But you can see the this foundation came this way. Now it skirts up that way.

[00:20:22]Some old metal up here too.

[00:20:30]Right there.

[00:20:41]Yeah. So, I'm going to assume that this is from the CCC camp, though.

[00:20:48]The foundation work is definitely old.

[00:20:50]Not sure about those bottles, though.

[00:20:53]But, you could those could have been dumped there later, obviously.

[00:20:57]All right, let's keep looking. Won't check on the other side of the road yet again.

[00:21:03]Maybe this way a little bit further up, too. Anyway, cool. Always when you find stuff, then you get kind of re-animated, reexited to keep looking.

[00:21:11]All right, let's just quick have a look over in here, too.

[00:21:15]See if there's anything over here. Yeah.

[00:21:18]So, one of the park rangers just drove by and stopped, asked me what I'm doing.

[00:21:21]He asked me if I was looking for butterflies, which I guess makes sense.

[00:21:24]So, here I am wandering around the woods and stuff. But anyway, I found something cool down here. Not CCC related, but got to be careful. These these are Hawthorne bushes. They have these huge these huge thorns on them. But there are some flowers down here that are super cool. See if we can get close to them.

[00:21:43]Yeah. So, right down here they are. I'll get my other camera out in a moment.

[00:21:46]These go by several different names.

[00:21:49]They are pretty cool looking.

[00:21:54]But let's zoom in.

[00:21:57]Oh, it's beautiful.

[00:21:59]So, they go by several names. One is called winged polygala. I'll put the names down below.

[00:22:06]They have an older name. They used to get called gay wings, which um is not used as much today. I think you can understand why just the way it is. Yeah.

[00:22:18]Oops. Blur out. But they are absolutely beautiful. It is like they have wings there and that flower part sticks out in the front there.

[00:22:27]Absolutely beautiful.

[00:22:31]Once again, there it is. There's a whole bunch of them blooming through here.

[00:22:35]All right, I'm going to try to get up in here a little bit more. Look around.

[00:22:40]Yeah, it's full of those flowers here.

[00:22:42]They are absolutely beautiful.

[00:22:44]Try not to step on any.

[00:22:54]Oh, look at this.

[00:22:57]Well, this is a pit.

[00:23:04]Yeah, most likely CCC related.

[00:23:09]Don't know. You know, this was the the uh yeah, the latrine, if I could talk.

[00:23:15]They had a well here cuz we talked about that they had to develop they had to find a source of what they call potable water, you know, drinkable water usually near spring, but they had to have a place for the latrine, you know, the outdoor toilet.

[00:23:31]All right, let's maybe look around through here. Maybe it's a little more promising through here. It's kind of open and it's still kind of open. In about a month, these ferns are going to completely cover this area, obscure anything like on the ground.

[00:23:46]So, we still good.

[00:23:50]I get a lot of cam uh questions about this. This is this is a camcorder. This is what I use when I get my other camera out, as I say, as I did it back there.

[00:23:58]Um, this is what I zoom in with. That's what it is.

[00:24:04]I'm not really seeing a whole lot else out here. Doesn't mean there isn't. It could be completely, you know, gone.

[00:24:13]Just over there is that other road we were up earlier.

[00:24:18]I don't see any more pits or things that look like foundations, but maybe Oh, bug flew my eye. Anyway, I think we'll head down this way towards where I parked. Just walk through the woods here. See what else we can find.

[00:24:32]Right down there was that pit.

[00:24:36]Speaking of pit, right, here's another one.

[00:24:43]Yeah. And a little smaller one right there. Pardon the coughing.

[00:24:53]H.

[00:24:56]Yeah. So, the coughing is kind of weird a little bit because I was talking to Dave back at the parking area. He he said when he came up here, he kind of had like a like a coughing or choking fit.

[00:25:06]just back there. I was kind of like had the same thing going on.

[00:25:11]So, if there's something in the air or maybe there's who knows what else is causing it. Yeah, like I just feel like a tickle in the back of my throat. All right. Well, we're going to keep going this way. Maybe something doesn't want us back here, huh?

[00:25:29]Yeah. Right over there is the parking lot.

[00:25:36]Yeah, but there could have been all kinds of, you know, huts and cabins, you know, the CCC cabins and the buildings that boys live in and stuff.

[00:25:45]They didn't always have like foundation.

[00:25:47]Sometimes they're up on like, you know, concrete stilts and stuff and or rocks.

[00:25:53]Maybe none of that survived.

[00:25:59]All right, I see the Jeep right up there. But I think that's going to be it for this video then, folks. Um, my goal in this whole series is for you to learn something new each episode, something new about the CCC. That one book I have will definitely help. Even if it's just some one little bit, something new.

[00:26:17]Yeah. So, we learned some things about the CCC. We did find some ruins, a few things, few little scraps, but that's okay. I like finding those even those little small things, too.

[00:26:28]Right. I'm going to do a Dave did. I think Sorry, I saw that cough. I'm going to see if that cemetery is up here. A cemetery shows up on the map. He's gone now. Dave, let's be for another video, folks. But I think I'll say farewell for now. But thanks for joining me on this episode for CCC series at Camp S71.

[00:26:49]Like I said, later today, we're going to go visit another one, too, a little bit further away. Now, it's got a little bit different history as with it as well.

[00:26:54]All right, thanks for watching, folks.

[00:26:56]Hopefully, we'll see you on the next one.