Historical Marker · No. 529
Civilian Conservation Corps Camp - Pactola
Pennington County · South Dakota
Erected by CCC Alumni, the South Dakota State Historical Society, the South Dakota Department of Transportation and Black Hills National Forest, 1991
The men of Camp F-4 built dams, spread grasshopper bait from side camps, put up the Victoria dam and helped with Sheridan's. Their own campsite went under another dam, which the Bureau of Reclamation began in November 1952 and finished in August 1956, flooding the old mining town of Pactola with it; the buildings were moved or razed before the water rose. At low water the camp's blasting house still shows. The 1991 bronze stands at the visitor center above the lake, and its foot line casts the word and twice.
What the plaque says
Civilian Conservation Corps Camp Camp F-4: Pactola Campsite inundated by Lake Pactola. Companies: 1789--6/8/33-10/35 2748--5/25/36-1940 The Civilian Conservation Corps was a federal relief program during 1933-1942 that gave jobless men work renovating abused lands. The Army built 48 200-man camps in South Dakota and provided food, clothing, medical care, pay and programs of education, recreation and religion for 23,709 enrollees (single men aged 17-25 who sent $25 of their $30 wage to their families) and war veterans. Camps and work projects were supervised by another 2834 men. The Office of Indian Affairs ran small units for 4554 American Indians. Camp F-4 was part of a national CCC program to renovate forests and build more recreation areas. Work projects, supervised by the USDA Forest Service, included tree thinning, pruning and planting, fire prevention and suppression; rodent, insect and disease control, grazing land improvement and recreation area development. Enrollees removed dead, diseased, suppressed and excess trees (used for posts, poles and firewood) from hundreds of acres of pine leaving enough trees to produce good quality lumber. They removed flammable debris from forests and nearby areas and quelled forest fires. CCs built firetrails and roads and erected dams, wells and fences for livestock. They manned sidecamps to build more roads, spread grasshopper bait, built Victoria dam and helped erect Sheridan dam. Erected in 1991 by CCC Alumni, the South Dakota State Historical Society, the South Dakota Department of Transportation and and Black Hills National Forest
Where it stands
44.06902, -103.48387 · Directions
Worth the stop nearby
- 1880 Train — 10 miA steam excursion on a mining branch line that hauled gear for Mount Rushmore, named for a decade it never ran in by a man who wanted steam to survive.
- Mount Rushmore National Memorial — 13 miFour faces blasted out of a sacred mountain by 400 workers in fourteen years, with a Jefferson that had to be dynamited off and a hall of records never finished.
- The Journey Museum and Learning Center — 13 miFour collections under one roof in downtown Rapid City, among them the federal Sioux Indian Museum, founded in 1939 to keep Lakota art in Lakota country.
- Black Elk Peak — 14 miThe highest summit in the Black Hills, renamed in 2016 for an Oglala holy man after carrying, for 150 years, the name of the general who attacked a Sicangu camp in 1855.