CCC Camp Site

A Civilian Conservation Corps enrollee was a young man between seventeen and twenty-five from a family on relief. He earned thirty dollars a month, and twenty-five went straight home. Army officers ran the camps while the Agriculture and Interior departments directed the work, which in Texas was mostly erosion control. After hours there were classes and ball games. The law forbade discrimination, yet Black enrollees, about 200,000 nationwide, were often segregated, especially in the South. Madisonville's camp stood on the western edge of town from 1935 to 1941. The sources here do not say who served at this one.

What the plaque says

CCC Camp Site A part of the national Civilian Conservation Corps program of the New Deal era, Camp Sam Houston in Madisonville was a soil conservation camp. Begun in July 1935 and occupied by workers one month later, the camp provided jobs for 196 men. Members of the camp worked with area farmers and ranchers, demonstrating techniques of soil erosion control and pasture management. Covering a radius of 21 miles, CCC improvement projects included all of Madison County, as well as portions of Grimes, Leon, and Walker Counties. The camp was closed in 1941. (1988)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Fort Boggy State Park — 17 mi
  A 1,847-acre park in Leon County named for a settlers' palisade of 1840, with a 15-acre lake, short trails and the story of Tennessee farmers, the Keechi and a Ranger captain.
• George H.W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum — 35 mi
  The library of the forty-first president on the Texas A&M campus, opened in 1997, where George and Barbara Bush and their daughter Robin are buried in a family plot on the grounds.

More markers nearby

• Marian Anderson High School — 0.4 mi
• Wilson Chapel Methodist Church — 0.5 mi
• Truman Kimbro — 1.0 mi
• Thomas Beck — 1.0 mi