Civilian Conservation Corps Camp Shiloh Encampment Site

Civilian Conservation Corps Camp Shiloh Encampment Site. . Members of Civilian Conservation Corps Co. V-2657 SP-52 built their barracks on this site in August 1935. The world war one veterans who comprised this CCC encampment named it Camp Shiloh after the burial place of Thomas and Sarah Lincoln. Like all CCC camps the commander was an army officer, Captain Louis Haas, but the National Park Service's project superintendent, Theodore Kingsbury, supervised the camp's work., Ultimately, the Camp Shiloh enrollees completed three projects in this vicinity: the creation of a Lincoln Shrine with the reconstruction of Thomas and Sarah's cabin, known as the Lincoln Log Cabin State Park, on 86 acres of Thomas Lincoln's original farm; the reconstruction of the Moore Home, the 1861 site of Abraham Lincoln's farewell to his stepmother, in Farmington; and the construction of Fox Ridge State Park on 500 acres of timbered land donated to the state by local residents. NPS project superintendent Kingsbury remained in Coles County for a time to serve as the first park superintendent for Fox Ridge., With the dedication of Lincoln Log Cabin State Park in August 1936, the Camp Shiloh Veterans relocated to the barracks at Camp Charleston, just southwest of eastern Illinois University's Campus, then known as Eastern Illinois Teachers College. Camp Shiloh's barracks were dismantled the following Spring. An archaeological survey conducted at the site in 2012 confirmed the location. Nationwide the Civilian Conservation Corps planted nearly 3 billion trees, built over 800 state parks, paved countless miles of roadways, conserved acres of farmland, and developed the modern principles of environmental conservation.