Civilian Conservation Corps camp, Colorado National Monument, Colorado 1933 39.057505 -108.693696 Location of current Visitor's Center, Colorado National Monument Rim Rock Drive Colorado USA https://www.google.com/maps/place/Colorado+National+Monument/@39.0575219,-108.6960886,17z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m12!1m6!3m5!1s0x8746fee Google Map for CCC camp. Several hundred men lived at the CCC camp on the Colorado National Monument during the 1930's. These men constructed Rim Rock Drive over the Monument, a large public works project. They accomplished this largely through manual labor in both the heat and cold. They were under the command of National Park Service engineer Thomas Secrest. According to Marshall "Mike" Douglass, who served as the commanding officer over the Monument's CCC camps, Secrest could be a tyrannical boss who put the men in unsafe working conditions. Douglass's command extended over the CCC camps on the Monument and the one closer to Fruita. He served as a counter-ballast to Secrest (according to his oral history interview). Douglass worked to ensure the men's dignity and morale. The camp was known administratively as NM2C. It consisted of CCC enrollees and local hired men, who usually commuted in. The following description comes from the oral history of Adam Alva Reeves, who was a CCC member at the camp in 1935: The buildings and bunks were a “military set up,” with military style bunks and buildings. The head of the camp was a captain in the Army Reserve. While he had two officer assistants, the rest of the camp leadership was civilian. There was an educational adviser, who helped enrollees fill their spare time. There was roll call and bed check, but aside from that, not a lot of military style rigidity to the lifestyle. The camp was located where the Visitor’s Center is now located, near Saddlehorn Rock. The barracks buildings were long buildings with single-level bunks with army bedding and blankets. For the most part, the men created their own recreation. They had a baseball field near the barracks. In the mess hall, hired cooks from Mesa County cooked for the CCC men. They prepared food with military equipment and with locally purchased equipment, and used locally-sourced food. The educational advisor, Mir Binneweis (sic) had a small collection of fiction and non-fiction. He had been a geologist and was a teacher in Grand Junction. The camp kept a bear cup as a camp mascot. CCC members went on outings to places such as Miracle Rock, the Grand Mesa, and to Grand Junction, where they would patronize business suches as the Mesa Drug and the Mesa Theater. According to enrollee Adam Reeves, he can recall no hostilities between local men and those from elsewhere. yes yes CCC camp