Lou’s View

By Lou Bernard

Every now and again, I discover something that I didn’t previously think was interesting, but it grabs me immediately. Some topic that never really occurred to me, but turns out to be fascinating.
The Hyner CCC Camp is like that.

Doing research into the Hyner CCC Camp, I found myself instantly fascinated. Now, if you’re not familiar with the Civilian Conservation Corps, you can look it up. But just a quick recap, so you can get on with the column: To combat the Great Depression, in the 1930s Franklin Delano Roosevelt created the CCC, a group of quasi-military forest rangers who lived in camps and did multiple jobs (though I believe the original idea was Eleanor’s.) There guys did it all: They built bridges, parks, and roads; they fought forest fires; they found lost hikers. They got money to feed their families, and our country got a lot of good work done in the meantime.

Clinton County had about ten of these camps. A few were in the southern areas of the county, but most of them were clustered up to the north, where there was both a lot of space and a lot of work to be done. They began in the early 1930s and grew rapidly, and the Hyner camp was established in the spring of 1933. At the end of May, 1935, the Record announced that Clinton County had been awarded $3,450,004.23 for the project, which seems an oddly specific number to me. I have to wonder what they spent that extra twenty-three cents on.

Now, this is where it begins to get interesting. The very next day, the administration realized that Hyner was somewhat central to the whole state, so they made it the central distribution point for all supplies in Pennsylvania. “All small materials, supplies, and equipment will be purchased in large quantities and stored at the Hyner base, thereby saving considerable money,” the Record reported. “It will also eliminate the delay experienced previously when a camp wanted a few dozen picks or something just as trifling.”

There was also a system put in place for arrival and distribution, because let’s face it, you can’t just have supplies getting handed out all willy-nilly. A large storage plant was built in the extra space on the camp, and men hired for the operation. And in the entire country, Pennsylvania was the first state to even think of an operation like this. The Record stated, ”Pennsylvania is the first state to undertake this experiment and the result will be watched closely by state officials. If successful, it is likely to change the entire administration of other CCC C amps throughout the country.”

So it was a fairly groundbreaking move, and it began right here in Clinton County. The whole operation turned out to be reasonably successful, and in 1940, the headline was,”Hyner CCC Camp To Celebrate 7th Anniversary.”

For the big anniversary celebration, Camp Commander William Gorham and his men planned a whole bunch of public events. A dance was held on April 5, and an open house on April 7. The public was invited to come and see the inner workings of the camo, which, I now realize, must have been a lot more interesting than I’d previously thought.

And there must have been a lot of participation, because they did the same thing the year after. In 1941, two hundred people turned out for the eighth anniversary of the camp’s founding, and the event involved speeches, guided tours, and a meal.

“The Hyner Camp was one of the first to be established in this vicinity,” said the article. “It won a high place in the corps and has had a record to be proud of.”