Civilian Conservation Corps Camp - Ft. Meade

The camp was called Fechner, for Robert Fechner, the union machinist Roosevelt made the CCC's director in 1933, who kept the corps segregated until he died in office in 1939. D-Army-1 here was the only camp in South Dakota whose work the Army itself directed. Its successor, SCS-6, taught contour and strip farming on private land. The bronze says the camp became a prisoner-of-war compound; one account of wartime Fort Meade describes instead a few hundred American soldiers held here as security risks.

What the plaque says

Civilian Conservation Corps Camps Camps D-Army-1 & SCS-6 (Fechner): 1/2 mile S on W edge of Ft. Meade D-Army-1 company: 2758--7/20/34-10/31/35. SCS-6 companies: 2765--10/15/36 - 5/27/42; 4725V--5/28/42 - 7/27/42. The Civilian Conservation Corps was a federal work-relief program during the Great Depression. From 1933 to 1942, the CCC provided work for 31,097 jobless men in South Dakota--about 22,000 enrollees (single men aged 17-25), about 1,700 veterans, 4,554 American Indians and 2,834 supervisors. The U. S. Army provided 200-man camps, food, clothing, medical care and pay, and educational, recre- ational and religious programs. The Office of Indian Affairs provided similar services for units on Indian reservations. D-Army-1 was the only camp in South Dakota where work was supervised by the U. S. Army. Enrollees provided services for CCC district headquarters and made physical improvements to Fort Meade. Work of SCS-6, supervised by the Soil Conservation Service, was done on private lands. Enrollees demonstrated the value of contour and strip farming, shelterbelts, stock dams and pasture furrows to reduce erosion, prevent runoff and better utilize grazing land. The camp, which billeted the district headquarters staff, was used as a prisoner- of-war compound during WWII. Erected in 1990 by CCC Alumni, the South Dakota State Historical Society, the State Department of Transportation and the Soil Conservation Service.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Bear Butte — 4.5 mi
  Mato Paha to the Lakota and Noahvose to the Cheyenne, a lone mountain off the plains where both nations still come to fast and pray.
• Mount Moriah Cemetery — 12 mi
  The hillside where Deadwood moved its dead: Wild Bill and Calamity Jane side by side, Seth Bullock looking at his friend's tower, and the Chinese burner of 1908.
• Deadwood Historic District — 12 mi
  A gold-rush town on treaty land, rebuilt in brick after the 1879 fire and rescued a century later by a vote to let casinos pay for its preservation.
• Homestake Open Cut & Sanford Lab Visitor Center — 14 mi
  A 1,250-foot pit on Lead's Main Street, the visible top of a gold mine that went down 8,000 feet in 125 years and is a physics laboratory now.

More markers nearby

• Bear Butte (Mato Paha) Indian Camp — steps away
• It Started Here — 0.6 mi
• Charles Nolin — 0.6 mi
• Charles Nolin, Pony Mail Carrier — 1.5 mi