CCC Camp Sawyer

Spring is an excellent time to be hunting for CCC camps.  You don't have to contend with bugs and the underbrush has not grown up yet.  Last week I visited the site of Camp Sawyer.  Obviously this was in Sawyer County, some distance from, well from anywhere but specifically from my starting point of Hayward.

As usual there is a nice sign.  It sure makes finding these things easier.

This camp made extensive use of these concrete pillars.  I don't think these were made on site, but rather hauled in.  I guess they had a bunch of them.

Two taller pillars mark the entrance to the camp.  The one on the right is mostly hidden by trees.

Some distance away are two stone hearths with chimneys.  These are said to be officer's quarters but I am doubtful.  CCC camps tended to be rather egalitarian and to have the officers living in nicer quarters and over across a road would be atypical.  Not impossible of course, this camp was established at the site of a previous logging camp and I'm thinking these were structures left over from that earlier era.

In one of the hearths there was this geocache which I found by accident.  It does not appear on the standard geocache database.  Some sort of bootleg cache?  I signed it anyway.

As it happens we actually have a very nice account of this camp circa 1940 and courtesy of a certain Claude L. Pitcher.   Well worth the read.  He makes no mention of these swell looking officer's quarters and indicates that the camp consisted of:

"3 barracks, a mess hall, generator building, Army office, Forresty office, rec building with PX Forrestry Motor Pool, Army motor pool, a fire wood shed, and a latrine with shower."

Spelling errors courtesy of Mr. Pitcher, but I'm not about to take issue with an ex-Marine on such matters.  About all that is clear is a pit that I assume was the latrine and the pillars between which Claude drove his truck out of camp.  This camp did lots of forestry work.  In addition they constructed the Black Lake Lookout Tower a few miles to the east.

It is a nicely preserved albeit smaller camp but is rather off the beaten path.  If you fancy a visit it is at the junction, or rather one of the junctions, of 174 and 164 east of Moose Lake.  GPS can help you in these situations.  It's at about 46.00'20.8 N,  -91.00'18.9 W.  

There is at least one existing copy of the camp's newsletter.  I'll publish some pictures of same when I get a chance to see it in the archives at UW Eau Claire.  Here's a picture of some of the men and their cooks standing in front of one of the now vanished buildings.  Taken in 1937 it was before Claude's time.