“Civilian Conservation Corps Camp – Wind Cave”

camp np-1 (dnp-1): located southeast of the cave entrance in Wind Cave Canyon Companies: 2754 - - 7/16/34-11/1/39

2757 detachment - - 4/18/40-8/1/40

The Civilian Conservation Corps was a federal work-relief program during the Great Depression. From 1933-1942, the CCC provided work for 31,097 jobless men in South Dakota - - about 1700 war veterans, 4554 American Indians, and 2834 supervisors. The U.S. Army provided 200-man camps, food, clothing, medical care, and pay, and educational, recreational, and religious programs. The Office of Indian Affairs provided similar services for units on Indian reservations.

Camp Wind Cave was part of a national CCC program to improve the nation’s park system. Supervised by the National Park Service, enrollees developed Wind Cave National Park and Jewel Cave National Monument. In Wind Cave CCs renovated tour trails and installed the 208 foot elevator shaft and building, concrete steps and indirect lighting. They constructed the Park water and sewer systems, parking area, stone guard rails, 18.6 miles of big game fence, the pigtail bridge and several smaller ones and several miles of road. CC’s built ten buildings, helped WPA remodel five others and landscaped headquarters area and state highway. At Jewel Cave, they renovated the cave, disposed of old buildings and built a headquarters building, parking lot and an 800 foot trail.

Erected in 1991 by CCC Alumni, the South Dakota State Historical Society, the South Dakota Department of Transportation and Wind Cave National Park.

Custer County, Southeast of cave entrance in Wind Cave Canyon