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Camp Gibbs

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1935. 129 W. Camp Gibbs Rd., Ottawa National Forest, approximately 8 miles northeast of Beechwood
  • (Photograph by Kathryn Bishop Eckert)
  • Barracks (Photograph by Kathryn Bishop Eckert)
  • Mess hall and kitchen (Photograph by Kathryn Bishop Eckert)
  • Truck garage (Photograph by Kathryn Bishop Eckert)

The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) reforestation camp is located two miles south of the old lumbering town of Gibbs City. From this camp, one of three CCC camps established in Iron County alone, 200 workers of the 3604th Company constructed miles of truck trails for fire control and forest development and utilization, installed fire lookout towers and telephone lines, reforested thousands of barren acres, and managed existing forest lands in the Ottawa National Forest. The 3604th Company was established on June 14, 1935, as an offshoot of the 63rd Company at the Paint Lake Camp, about twelve miles to the northwest. The company moved to this site two months later. Enrollees lived in tents until they had constructed the camp buildings.

The complex of modest one-story, wood-frame buildings includes a mess hall and kitchen, an officers' club, a post exchange, a powerhouse, a laundry and clothing supply building, a bath and shower house, a mechanic's shop, a truck garage, four barracks, two officer's quarters, and a recreational hall. Abandoned at the beginning of World War II, the buildings are used only with the permission of the U.S. Forest Service by recreational clubs.

Writing Credits

Author: 
Kathryn Bishop Eckert
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Data

What's Nearby

Beechwood Store
Iron County Fair Exhibition Hall
St. Mary's Assumption Catholic Church
Houses on North Seventh and North Eighth Avenues
Joseph Harris House

Citation

Kathryn Bishop Eckert, "Camp Gibbs", [Iron River, Michigan], SAH Archipedia, eds. Gabrielle Esperdy and Karen Kingsley, Charlottesville: UVaP, 2012—, http://sah-archipedia.org/buildings/MI-01-IR11.

Print Source

Cover: Buildings of Michigan

Buildings of Michigan, Kathryn Bishop Eckert. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2012, 522-522.

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