The Civilian Conservation Corp Camp at Havilah

US Forest Service, Sequoia National Forest
Contact: Geri Adams
The Civilian Conservation Corp Camp at Havilah
Mark L. Howe, Archeologist, Kern River Ranger District, Sequoia National Forest

Lake Isabella, CA., September 5, 2009...The Sequoia National Forest is a land of prehistoric and historic sites in the western portion of Kern County. The forest is full of history of the Sierra Nevada and our different cultures from before written time. The Forest Service, by law, is to conduct an archeological reconnaissance (Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act) of project areas to examine if prehistoric and historic resources are present. What this reconnaissance does it to determine whether impacts of projects will damage or destroy these irreplaceable resources and what can be done to preserve them if possible. Our job as archeologists on the Piute Grazing project was to examine if cattle grazing in this area of the forest will impact archeological resources and to record them as found. One important historic site to American History from the 1930's that was in this project is the Havilah Civilian Conservation Corp (CCC) camp location.

This camp was established in 1933/34 in the Havilah area on Forest Service land. The CCC camp location was coordinated with Frank Cunningham (Forest Supervisor) to establish a camp near Havilah. Cunningham's official correspondence with a F. G. Munzer from Bakersfield states that, "In order to handle 200 men from one camp, it is necessary for us to place them where there is ample water, camping room ... and work within a reasonable distance. My present thought is to establish one camp at Havilah."

The camp was established with orders to have an 80' warehouse, a guard station, ranger station and other various buildings built. We have a list from July 13, 1935 of individuals who worked in the Havilah and Bodfish camps or area. This list is in our documents file and can be accessed by writing to the Sequoia National Forest for a copy.

Today the only surviving structure is the warehouse which is used as the garage both for fire engine 45 and the Breckenridge hotshot crew at Havilah. Across the road and to the south of this standing structure we found the remains of the original CCC camp built during the 1930's.

The camp is no longer there but the remains of foundations, depressions, and piping with artifacts still are. We set about recording these and came across a total of 25 different features. These consisted of latrines, root cellars, foundations of buildings with steps, walls and pits. One of our structures is the Dining Hall/Recreation Hall. This has a complete side stair case of rock and cement with retaining wall on the east side.

An entrance of similar dimension is on the north side with the remnants of a main fire place in background and smaller interior side fireplace on the right. These foundations are interesting and unique for they were made to stand the test of time as we see here.

Another structure we called the Administration Hall has a large three step entrance way. Both of these structures and others have vanished except for these low lying stairways and sidewall foundations. These foundations were all under about 1" of dirt with numerous bushes and trees growing in and around them. A "sidewalk" from the Dining Hall north to the Administration Building is composed of local rock in a vertical pattern.

One can walk down this area and not even notice this feature today due to overgrowth of grasses and bush. The last structure to mention out of the numerous features is the boiler room. This is a flat concrete foundation with side walls of broken granite spread out on the sides. Walls of milled wood were originally installed as confirmed by milled wood we found along the sides. The foundation has a central drain and boiler foundation in the middle portion of the structure. An interesting note; we found inscriptions, prints and paint on the cement after 75 years.

Recently the son of Doyle Henderson (Ranger at Havilah in 1935) visited the fire station and talked to the fire crew there. He left an email address but it bounces back and anyone who reads this story with information on contacting him would be appreciated.

This year is the 75th anniversary of the CCC and further information on the CCC can be found by emailing Joan Sharpe, President - CCC Legacy at ccc@ccclegacy.org. I hope that we continue to preserve the American Heritage of our history and prehistory by recording these resources before they are gone forever. Preservation of these historic artifacts and structures from the CCC days are important for our understanding the history of Kern County and the areas we call home.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/05/2009 02:04PM by eeek.